First the bad news as they business. I won't generate amusing holiday cars, but personal, ask rip ass for your people and let you know which supplies a best, so you can be ready Next opportunity revolution technology real world results that, as a people this today on something you should know, people think poinsettia plants are poisonous, but are they and human instincts they've helped us survive, but now they can get in the way, like the instinct for variety or sex, I'm not trying to take on new men, but you are wired biologically wired for sexual over perception, where you think that women are into you a lot more than they are great, and I'm not not trying to pick on you guys. It's just biology. Also how what you touch can change, how you think and facts about the universe that will amaze you how black holes work or how the universe is expanding, but it turns out the expansion of the universe. Think is the same

everywhere so new space being freely between our galaxy and other galaxies, and this also space being between the EU and between the Adams about all this today on something you should know. During the holidays. You don't need more stress, you need less and if you have to hire someone well, that's more stress, here's how to alleviate that. If you to hire. You need, indeed, indeed is the hiring platform where you can attract interview and higher all in one place, so instead of spending hours on multiple job, I'd searching for candidates, Indeed, is the powerful hiring platform that can help you do it all. They ve got something called instant match over percent of employers get quality candidates whose reza maize and indeed match their job

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something you should now fascinating into the world's top experts and practical advice. You can use in your life today, something you should now might, rather, as fellow Welcome to something you should know now that we're into the holiday season, perhaps you ve thought about getting some point: seti plants for your home to make things more festive, but then you here is pretty, as those plants are their poison. I mean even doctors and veterinarians? Have cautioned us from keeping points. Hetty is too close to children and pets, the leaves of the I have always been believed to be toxic, but are they a research study conducted by ohio state university reveal that point seti is, are not actually poisonous at all, in fact, the nest- no capital poison centre in washington, d c and other poison control centres. List poinsettia play

as non poisonous plants, the rumour that they were poisonous started back in nineteen eighteen, when a child in hawaii was falsely believed to have died from point seti poisoning, but first no longer believe that the plant had anything to do with the death of that child point said: These are actually good to have around they're, pretty effective for absorbing pollutants, and proving indoor air quality and they look nice and that is something you should know. Like all creatures on the planet. We have instincts, we do things to survive. That's how we have survived as long as we have in our modern world. Survival instincts are not always so helpful. They connect we get in the way of your success and happiness cause you undue stress according to buy College is doctor, rebecca highs, she's author of a book called instant

rewire your brain with science, back solutions to increase productivity and achieve success and she's here to talk. These instincts. We all have how they work. How get in the way and what You can do to make sure they don't sabotage your success. I rebecca welcome all things for having me on Michael I'm thrilled to be here. So I think but he understands that we have instincts to survive and to keep the species going. So why is it important for me to understand my instincts and an stand. What they're doing my background is in stress physiology, and it occurred to me that our brains really aren't optimized for great decision making today and in fact there really not optimized for the entire world that we live in, because our brains are built for health or happiness there built for survival, and the world living doesn't really require most of us too to survive. You know, that's not our biggest drive. We

think have food in the fridge? We can turn up the thermostat so most of the things that were, acting to you aren't actual tigers, for example, there not life and death situations, but our brain still treats them that way. So my big argument is that our brain simply aren't built for the world that we live in and sore instincts are then driving us down a path that didn't super useful for us So an example of that would be. What I favour one, because, as pre related is that in a we crave, fats in sugar is so we're really excited. Hamburger and fries and that extra frosty shaken and problem is the number one thing we die of is heart disease and so were craving the wrong things. So, let's name those instincts get in the way that sabotage our success in what are they? The sex variety the crave for variety is, is incredible,

I think we know what makes us happy and we want as many choices as possible in all the different varieties, and it turns out actually less variety makes us happy were more. Satisfied with our choices when we have a single choice to make, rather than dozens and the fear of the other, in that we fear people who look different different operate from different rules, regulations than us in, and we end up in these sort of tribal groups. Whether that's around race or age gender or political affiliation. We tend to stick to are own, because that feel safe, Need for belonging, as is an instinct and a positive one, but sometimes it drives us to these really tribal outcome. And then losses is the need for information. So we are an information gathering species we forage for information and we can never have too much information well. At least we couldn't have had too much information in

and several times? But now we are faced with a world where we were getting four hundred billion bits of information every single second and that's more than our brains can process consciously. So again, don't don't necessarily serve ass. Well, so let's talk about variety cassettes really interesting to me. I've always thought that you know people struggle when you give them a lot of choices like they. Don't know what to do with that, whereas if, if they only have to choose between two things, it's a lot easier. So what is this instinct and where's the trouble and then what do you do with it? I mean you're, you're, absolutely spot on with that. The idea that fewer choices actually do make us happier, but our brains will lie to us and say no, no, no. I actually want all the choices, so most people believe the more choices they have, the happier they'll become, and in reality it's the exact

opposite and again, our brains are set up like that, because in ancestral times the more variety we have in sexual partners in foods that we eat them more opportunities. We have to father more offspring or how more offspring or have more people providing for us until those instincts. Variety are very good in and baked into our brains. But now you put those brains in this modern world weathers just endless possibilities and quickly goes to us the overwhelming and stress for for all of these an extra opportunities. So that's kind of the mismatches is what was healthy in the ancestral environment, is now really point us distressful extremes. The way we get around that is actually by self limiting and you know I recommend having routine and really sticking to that routine see how you know what, if, instead of waking up and having to make the choice of what we want for breakfast, do I want coffee will short duration, decaf espresso tall medium laura,

omen. Milk oatmeal give their endless possibilities in the nor does it is. We have to make we up in the space of decision fatigue, where actually the big decisions now feel like we don't have the brain capacity to me, and this is famously why a lot of them are one of the authority. Figures throughout history have stuck to a single outfit. You look at president obama has had an outfit, a gray suit that he wore albert einstein, gray, suit steve jobs, famously war that machnik turtleneck black turtleneck every single day and the fewer decisions that we have to meet throughout the day that are not important, the more brain power we have in reserve for those bigger decisions later on? you can see that struggle. People have when they're, given a lot of choices like when you go to a restaurant. There's always somebody at the table, you go, you go I got. I need a few minutes while, but a few

You came over to my house for dinner. This is what we're having this is one thing do you know we're having this? but, furthermore, restaurant and it's like my I'm doing what the chicken and do I want that we just have a say in it, and people just like that. It's like overload got exactly and end. We're looking to our neighbour worthing, oh man, he made a better choice: than me. I want that chicken and where we become less satisfied with the decision that we made in it. Whether or not it really was the best choice of a more optimal choice. This is this is a term called maximizing. And it's really easy for us to fall into as humans were trying to make a very, very best, this impossible in palestine will. This is what I want. This is the minimum I like. I want food, and I I'd love some good company so going over to your house now

conserved whatever I get served is going to be wonderful because it meets that kind of minimal, viable and decision making criteria, and that's really the the ticket for humans to recognize is instead of trying to maximize every decision and pull out every optimal little bit that we can get. Let's be happier, We give our brains a little more breathing space by just saying, okay. This is this is what I need some of the best advice I think I've ever gotten was when I think it was in an interview actually where somebody said it's. In most cases, it's not the choice, I think it's the commitment to the choice you make some, whether or not you get the chicken or the salad or that fish or whatever. It doesn't really matter just make your decision and and stop fretting about at once. You did, go all oh look he's he had the beef in that looks some. I wish I'd gotten. No, I don't do that. I, because there's no value in it.

yeah going online, is one of the biggest recommendations that I have heard. People make their decision making. reversible go olenin, enjoy what you have there's, always something to be enjoyed so you mentioned sexy, you mean not gender, but you mean sex like sex, so yeah actually a little bit of both. So I talk a lot about how gender and biological sex actually influences us significantly. Based on our ancestral time, so in ancestral times where there were really a gender division in in roles and women were staying at home, cooperating and working together to raise offspring men. We out hunting more individualised, often in more leadership roles, we look at how society has progressed. Two hundred thousand years later, worst feel a lot of that hold over an end leader

being defined very clearly by very masculine characteristics. Nothing inherently wrong with that. I think men make great leaders. I also think we haven't defined leadership from a feminine perspective, very well either. So you know seen some of the ways that that sex engender influence us in the modern world is fascinating to me, and the other thing I talk about is actual physical sex, the act of because that that is, a power thing as well that, throughout an evolutionary three women are the two zero of the species as well. We should be because we have, while bigger risks, It also means that when we don't get a cheese when there's sort of a power dynamic, a one of the things that we don't talk about our in a significantly in the in the modern world, so sexual harassment reap some of these. These terrible things

that are occurring still in the modern world. We haven't talked about the physiology behind. So when we talk about the stress response, typically we talk about. fight and flight. What we leave out frequently is freeze and freezes. The is the response. At most, give when they are under threat about seventy percent of women under threat will freeze, and that looks often like standing there and smiling, which really backwards to everything that they should call unquote should be doing like run fight get out of there, but in reality its power rains and bodies were set up to survive because backing in several times, and even today you can't typically outrun a man. You can't typically out fight a man so far or flight really off the table there at the best thing you can do to protect yourself is something known as freezing the p

the thieves, smile and try and stay still and unfortunately that physiological response and doesn't react very well with the male response and I'm not trying to pick on new man, but you are- you are wired, biologically wired for sexual over perception, where you think Women are into you, more than they are right and I'm not gonna try to pick on you guys issues biology. So we you know, a man sees a woman sending their smiling at him and she's frozen. It's real important that we have these conversations to understand how our biology has set us up to survive and and be protected, and how that often conflicts with the messages that we may be sending unintentionally. And it's really important that we have this awareness so that we don't get into trouble in the modern world. We're talking about human instinct, the good and bad parts of it with evolutionary biologists doktor rebecca highs, who is author of the book instinct

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cotton field and actually Michael, is, is yet having this felt. This allowed our ancestors ass if to go out and actually faced the day, if you thought about the tremendous the odds that were against you to survive the predators, the the climate. child bearing in those times there is new. And even get out of the cave remit is pretty. It is pretty more outcome, but if you have the self deception, instinct to say: oh no, I'm probably pretty good at this. I'm probably pretty good at that. You actually set yourself up physiologically to go and face the day and an charge forward, and so this is this can help us. You know it boost our companies. a boost, our self esteem, but it also gives us into positions often where we feel like We know what we're doing or we faked it until we ve made it to a certain point and then suddenly, Oh, how do I know back out of this and and start asking questions and not have to be the expert, because our boy

you will say to us will listen you better, You better know it all, because if you fail you're going to die right, people will reject you. You get kicked out the tribe and all that's left. His death is ill I bring of take this to an extreme when in reality will, if you don't everything then o means major human, so being able to sell this evening Now I can do that. I can absolutely step into this rowan and run company your step into this role and become apparent. I think if parents what they were going into from the start. Nobody would ever have kids. I if see owes me with their growing anti from the start, they'd never step and in a is a. It is a really scary space to step into any role, and but our our power to self deceive actually helps us face the day. So how is that a problem? How is that it seems like that. Instincts serves ass well, even today, I mean it is problem to a certain extent, but now in the modern environment once you're in that space? We

have to be willing to ask why a lot more than we do, because you know when you look at the statistics something like ninety five percent of us believe that we are self aware and the region he is only ten to fifteen percent of us actually are not Everybody is above average in there. I q, not ever but he is above average in their looks not everybody is above average in their driving ability. But if you ask americans that will also that we are and so having a good sense of self awareness of where our weaknesses are. I think it is one of the most essential till things that we can do that. We do actually learns that we do contained a push ourselves we grow as a as a human, and so often we get into this mindset of no. No, no, I know it all. I am just fine as I am, and it stops us from questioning. I mean it stops us from being. Kid again, I think the best human beings that I know are very child, lichen and bingo.

raise their hands Adam another. What's going on here or you know, having in mindset and asking why why? Why are we doing it like this? Why is the world like this? Why don't we change that? An that's really powerful. I think too, to have that kind of mindset. the modern world will also, when you think about the people, they know it all, who think they know everything there a bit off putting, whereas the people who admit that that they need help or that they don't know it all that they have a question. Those people are more attractive and much more fun to be around then the guy who's. Just below obviating about how he knows at all. It's true- and I think you know, there's something called pluralistic ignorance, which is that we all actually feel that way. We all feel like we don't know what we're doing in its impostor syndrome. Right were role kind of like oh gosh. Please don't discover that I'm actually a fraud and

I don't know why I'm here, having this conversation with you on this podcast, because it's a really big deal and I don't belong and ok when we take a deep breath and realize everybody else is feeling that way. We can to take away on that pluralistic ignorance and they actually guys. I don't, I don't feel like long here either and what that does. Is it drives new beliefs and drives real creativity, in solving new problems rather than just saying well, this is this is how it's always been done, and this is we'll just continue doing it this way, because that's what that person says yeah, but here's the here's, the problem, if you're one of the people who doesn't who thinks you know it all. Well, then, there's nothing to fix a mean had had. It is the people who need to two maybe take a step I can look inward or the exactly the people who won't. I think, you're, you're, correct and and I'll push you a little bit on that in that often those are the people that know very much very deeply that they are unsure of themselves and this kind of

I got some kind of way of showing up in the world and saint I've. I've got it all. I know the answers is really just the cover, so I think truly and when you have this impostor syndrome, when you recognize your own humanity in your own instinct for self deception, you can look at people like that and say: ok, I can exercise and empathy here, because I know what that means. and is doing there trying to show up to be right rather than to get it right there trying to show up and have all the answers, because they're scared and they have to prove themselves, I think actually, recognising are our tendency for self deception, allows us to have more empathy and really embrace those people and help them You know it's. Ok, it's ok to let that garden down. So you say that are our human instinct for wanting information is a problem but give that we now have all the information we could possibly ever imagine and certainly much more than we have in the past. I would think that that that instinct could be a good thing

If you want information boy there, it is it's pretty much at your fingertips. Let me ask you, as the last You had to go out to a restaurant? Did you we'll get on yelp. Did you check the the reviews or, if it's a new, if it's a new place? Often, yes, sure and then did that influence you to check other restaurants reviews. And then maybe you were debate as to whether you should go this restaurant or that restaurant and it comes back to variety now and you're trying to go. Oh, my gosh, who can I actually trust to? I trust this information, but I trust that information, and now we have so much information from so many sources. There's it's really difficult to sort through it all and actually take action on anything. You know one of the fun things anytime. You are trying to buy something new and you go on consumer reports. If you go on the amazon reviews and you might spent an hour depending upon how large the purchase is trying to do

and, if you're even going to buy it and then you're so exhausted and overwhelmed by all of the mixed information you're getting you're like ah forget it. I don't even I can't even move forward at this point so information our ancestors was always helpful. I, it was always helpful because it was limited information. You basically we're talking to your tried every day and it was well good food over there. You avoid those red berries. Their information was always valuable and useful. Today. there is so much junk information. It's almost like junk dna, there's all much of it. It's hard to soar through and say, That is something that I need. That is something that I dont need is actually does. Weighing me down. You could sit and watch the news cycle. Twenty four seven and constantly be getting updates same thing with email. This is one of the the swayed and most obvious ways that information overload affects us as if you want to probably

guessing Michael for you and andrew listeners, you can sit there all day, just answering emails that come in and instead of actually being productive instead of actually driving purpose in our lives, we spend a lot of time just processing information the place worried it bothers me. The most is tv I wish isn't just the other day. I was sitting there going through netflix and then going through amazon and then going through hulu looking for something to watch, and I realize that what he minutes had gone by and I'm still now watching anything, I'm still looking, I'm sorry, I'm looking at ratings and I'm looking at it. How long is it- and you know, there's some choice, there's so much information about each of those choices that I'm not getting anywhere yeah

we probably end up with some fomo right, like oh, my gospel. If I watch this, then that's an hour and a half they wouldn't have, and I could watch three episodes over here of this, and you know I I'm a big fan of of reframing fomo to Jomo. So this idea of you know this fear of missing out like if I, if I do this, then I'm going to miss that, and if I don't have this information, I'm gonna make the wrong decision or what? If it was a joy of missing out what if it was Joe, my one of your like ok, this is the decisions and the information that I have I moving forward. Life is all about making decisions. choices with the limited information that we have and moving forward with that, I think very infrequently. Do we not have enough information to actually make a logical decision to We we're spending way too much time and, unlike you, sadly, no still flipping through the tunnels. demands later dooms growing on our phone and meanwhile our life is kind of passengers. By with these issues,

are in a pretty strong and laid it? They are hard to fight and it does seem that they service poorly in the modern world and yet you know the more. We are aware of them and work just said them the more can do two to counteract them and really live a more fulfilled purposeful life or why definition, though, if, if we have instincts that are driving these things that we ve been talking about, it would seem that those would be hard to overcome that because their instincts there there like them their baked in there. This is what we default to do. One of my favorite things to to tell people is to remember that your brain is highly trainable. We know this because you remember the first time you drove a car, Michael, where your hands at ten and two, of course, yeah and you're, like looking at the pedestrians, the speedometers and all the street signs, Gosh has so much to pay attention to, and then today, if you drove

one hand on the wheel. My guess is your listening to your podcast on the way over here on the cell phone, your hardly paying attention. that's amazing, because what that means is that we're capable of training our subconscious brain to drive for us, and if we can train or subconscious brains, do these complex and ever changing modern task like driving. We can certainly train them override these instincts and fears and biases that no longer serve in the modern environment? Well, that's a pie, it is an empowered way to put it in a good place to end it. Doctor, rebecca highs has been my guess. She's author of the book strength, rewire your brain with science, back solutions to increase productivity and achieve success and you'll find a link add book in the show notes. Thank you, rebecca hey. If and how things so much my guys, this fun for over ten years, remilly have been powered by a high technology. You can trust and rely on

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day sciences, learning more and more about the universe. Sometimes it's a little hard. They get your head around. It. After all, the universe is a pretty big place, but I find it so interesting that you know we live on this little dot in this little solar, system in a corner of the milky way galaxy in this incredibly huge universe, and I think it's fascinate They try to understand at all better and one person who explains it really well, is Daniel whites and he is professor. Physics: at u c irvine, he co hosts a podcast called Daniel and jorge explained the universe, and he is author, along with jorge of the book, frequently asked questions about the universe. I daniel welcome something you should know. I might go back, what you're having beyond excited to chat with you, so a good place to start something. I've always wondered about- is doing

what the universe is made of. Do we have a pretty good idea of all that makes it makes it up? What is the universe, direct question? I wish I knew so far. We have figured out that the kinds of things that we are made out of me I knew and stars and hamster in bananas were made out of atoms in those items are made out of the eye which have protons neutrons inside of them, which have corks inside of them the basic you and I are made out of corks and electrons, but that's not what the whole universe is made out of. It turns that kind of stuff that you and I are made out of atoms is only about five percent of what actually out there in the universe. The rest It is something else, something weird and mysterious that we don't really understand talk about black holes. What what it is what's in a black hole, how they work? What what's it all about?

a black holes in incredible, mysterious little corner of the universe happens when you have a lot of mass in one place like the sun or the earth. Is that space actually bands around that object, so that the paths of object change, if you shoot a flashlight near the sun, for example, doesn't go in a straight line? Pass the son a curve round the son a little bit, because space is bent and if you have enough mass like a huge, man of mass thousands of times the mass of the sun, for example, you compare it into a really really small space. Then spaces curves stole much and even light cannot escape it. Light is trapped because spaces bent and twisted in we're ways. So that's what a black hole is is a corner of space, where the shape of space is bent so much that light cannot escape it. If you went inside a black hole, you will discover that space.

Instead of having multiple directions where you can move it only let you move closer to the centre of the black hole space becomes one directional inside black hole so did the way that time is one directional outside a black hole. You can only move forwards in time and not backwards, insoluble I call you can only move one direction towards the center of the black hole. But a lot of this is speculation, because nobody has ever seen inside a black hole because nothing can escape a black hole, not even light. So we can't take pictures of what's inside a black hole. Time is one it topics that I just fine so fascinating. Why is it that we can only go in one direction? Why can't we travel back in time? We just don't know it's funny, because I think that we've made a lot of progress in physics. We understand so much about the universe, but there are also these

the basic questions that we just don't even really begin to know how to answer. And yet we know that there are a lot of connections between space and time. Relativity tells us, for example, of space and time are connected in the time you can sort of think of it. Like the fourth dimension, space. But then you can wonder if you did, if you can move back and forth in space, why can't you move back and forth in time and most of the laws actually dont even mentioned time. Maybe I don't care about time. They work. The same way

if you ran time forwards or backwards, except for one one, the laws of physics prefers to go forwards in time, and that's the one about entropy, the one that says that information and and energy and heat all these things like to spread out. So it's the reason that it's easier to break an egg than to unbrick an egg or to spill milk into an spilled milk, or it's more natural for the cream in your coffee to come to the same temperature as your coffee, rather than for them to separate hot and cold bits, and so that tells us that something about that that likes to go forward in time, but it's definitely not an answer and some business think, for example, that maybe at the big bang time was created, and there were two universes one going forward in time and one going backwards in time, those sound like crazy ideas to you, then you write and that's because we're at that point in exploring We were just like throwing stuff

in the wall and seeing what might possibly makes sense in a thousand years look back those ideas and think. That's ridiculous well, since you mentioned that there might be another universe that travels back in time there there has been this talk of I dont know very much about it of there being no to bully universes and in all, those universes there's multiple, you in all of these in different versions. It can you explain where that comes from hot. How does anybody know that to be true or not true and and just kind of paint that picture it's a fun idea, but right the bad. I should tell you that nobody knows whether that's true, but the idea comes from looking at our universe and seeing things about it and we can explain like our universe is described by the laws of physics, but the physics laws that we discovered have a bunch of numbers in them. You know like the speed of light, it's just

a number. Nobody knows why the speed of light is what it is and not twice what it is, or one tenth of what it is. There's lots of different numbers, in fact, is about twenty of those numbers. Term in the nature of our universe and people, wonder why those numbers and not other numbers- and so one way to make it seem less arbitrary that our universe is the way It is to imagine that maybe every value those numbers exist. Maybe there are other universes with different values so that the idea of the multi verse could potentially explain the sort of arbitrary things that we see, but there are also lots of other ways too. Actually explain that some people say maybe the number is just are the numbers they are, and only because they are those numbers. Do we exist to ask? Why are the numbers the way they are like? If they were anything else, we wouldn't get chemist? biology in life and physicists and silly books about physics and pike,

said all that starts to. Nobody would be around to ask those questions. Other people think maybe there is an explanation, maybe there's a reason. The speed of light is what it is. We just haven't figured it out yet, but this fund to imagine that there might be other universes out there. Because they would all be a little bit different. They might have different laws of physics. It might be only a tiny bit if They might be dramatically different, like an recognizably different So how long do we have? Would you guess how we'll humanity survival, the earth survive before everything and what will happen when it stop surviving. It's a great question important one, because there are dangers around every corner. our immediate dangerous things like the threat of nuclear war. There could take us out almost any time in their deeper dangers in five hundred years or a thousand years, and if we want to survive

to the very end, the universe there, many other things that we have to survive. The crazy thing is that to get there too, as humanity survive for trillions of years are all way to the end of time. You basically have to get all of them. You can't, like you know, be exterminated once you don't get any points for only getting wiped out once you have to five, all of them as, though, to me, one of the most important dangers in the near term are things like climate change right we're where we are making our planet in hospitable to gets unlikely wipe out humanity, though, of course you could dramatically decrease our population or change our way of life, a longer timescales. You know we have to worry about things like if an asteroid would hit the earth. We know that one came steep five million years ago and wiped out the dinosaurs and these things I periodically there's a team at nasa. This constantly skin

the skies and looking for Iraq that might be on a trajectory hit the earth they're pretty confident that we're clear for the next hundred years, or so by their projections beyond that are harder to be confident in and one thing that they can't really see our comments. Comments can come from deep outside solar system in the word cloud and zoom in really fast down to center of the solar system. It impact the planet. In fact, we saw these happen about twenty years ago, when comet shoemaker levy slammed into jupiter making fireballs bigger than the earth, the problem with these comments is that sometimes their period is like hundreds or thousands of years. And so we haven't been looking into the sky long enough to have seen them before, so we might not even know to anticipate them even deeper into the future. We have to worry about things like the fact that the sun will and then heat up over the next billion years, maybe

making the earth inhospitable and eventually five billion years or so the sun will fizzle out but no longer be a source of heat, so we have billions. He has to go there and everything All of that and somehow get humanity offer the then on to a new phase star, then the worry about things like willie The be hospitable to life in the deep deep future will hold. The star is falling The black hole at the centre of the galaxy. Will the universe just become nothing but black holes than a place that we could live so it's sort of fund to imagine how the universe will evolve on cosmic timescales and wonder what life would be like in all of those scenarios. So lately there, has been there have been stories in the news about you know you have chosen and things travelling in directions and

aging directions in ways that we don't have the technology to which you know get everybody stirred up about. There must be aliens. What do you say? I think that is very likely that there is life out there in the universe, and it be hard to imagine that we are alone in being the only intelligent life in the entire universe? That said, I'll find a new be footage that we see nor the pictures or the interviews? Really that compelling? We had a expert on the package to help us go through some of those videos, and it turns out that there are pretty compelling boring explanations for almost all of them, no one video where it seems like something's moving super fast over the water could just be. Fourth perspective. Returned that is a smaller object, much closer to you. Another one

where they change directions. You could actually just be that the camera is flipping over in order to track the object, and so, unfortunately, you have to have a pretty high standard before you conclude that what you're looking at can't be described by earth physics or earth technology. That being said, I want to believe right. I want to meet these I hope that we do get visited by aliens, because it would mean that we're talking to a civilization that has more advanced technology didn't we have, because we can't go to nearby stars. We don't have that technology and if they have technology, probably they are. Stand, the universe better than we do, and maybe bacon answer some of these questions over your great questions about time and space and what's inside black holes tat would be fantastic, The weird thing is that we haven't been visited as far as we know and the universe is really big and there are lots of planets out there. So it's a bit of a puzzle why

There are so many good planets out there were life might start in. Yet have not been visited. So everyone's heard that you know the universe is always expanding, but do we know do we know like in those new or parts of the universe today that worth their yesterday, like how is it different are? Are you able to identify or there's a new part of the universe where it doesn't work that way as millions In question: well, it turns out the expansion of the universe. We think is the same everywhere, so those new space being created, between our galaxy and other galaxies and there's also new space being created between our planet and the sun, and between me and you, and between the Adams of your body, don't notice it within the Adams with of our body or between ourselves and our car, for

in bulk because the amount of new space being created there is very small sort of fractional relative to the distances involved and because the bonds in your body and the bonds that hold the earth to the sun are stronger, and so they they keep. Together sort of like a gentle wind is blowing but we're all holding hands and sort of staying together? So it's only sort of between galaxies where there aren't strong forces binding things together and the distances are really vast that we notice that it. Adds up to be a significant effect, so most of the new space it's being created turns out to be between galaxies because that's where most of the space is and it's fascinating to sort of see this happen to look out into the universe and to see space itself getting bigger right, most people. Think of the big bang. It's like an explosion of stuff moving. space, but now we understand as much more of an expansion of space, that this new space is being created everywhere.

Now has really important consequences. It suggests that the universe, for example, has no centre is no place where the big bang was that everything is coming out from. Instead, we think probably the big bang happened everywhere, all at once, like all through an already infinite universe, which is pretty. To get your mind around. So much of this is so hard to get your mind around because it doesn't you know it's now. Our reality is not what what we see every day. That's right and that's the joy of physics. Right physics is about confronting that reality forcing it to tell us a story that makes sense to us, even if that story is very, very different from the start

We thought was the truth about our universe, but you know we want to know the truth. We don't want to just tell ourselves silly stories about gods in the sky. You shooting thunderbolts out, as we well know how things actually work, and so it's marvelous that we have this method, this text. eat, for like systematically building knowledge and telling us mathematical stories about the universe, and then we have to grapple with them. You know when physics tells us? Actually, the universe is not deterministic. There's our random element to it. It's quantum mechanical that if you do the same thing twice, you will get different outcomes every time, because somewhere the universal rules, a die, that's pretty hard to grapple with, but it turns out to be the truth and is much more important. Mary grapple with the truth, then that we stick to stories that we find comfortable. Can you give me an example of that of of doing

things multiple times and getting different results, what are you? What are you referring to yeah? Well, you used to thinking about in physics, is being a set of laws that predict the future like if you throw a baseball, Well, you know where it's going to land and if you threw it exactly as the same direction twice with the same speed, it would land in the same spot, and that does Even things like flipping. A coin footing coincide It was random, but it's not really the way. The way it lands depends on exactly how you flipped it it's just sort of hard to predict, but if you had a super computer and you flip that coin, and you knew exactly how you flip did in the speed of all the air molecules in the shape of the table. You could predict exactly where it landed and if he flipped flitted twice exactly the same way. It would land heads exactly the same way every time, but that's not true of quantum barnacles. So, for example, when we smash protons together at the large hadron collider

We do it every twenty five nanoseconds all day long all year long and what comes out is not the same thing every time, even though its the same interaction wish protons in the same angle in the same energy every time, but different stuff comes out. So I just It draws from this random probability distribution. It says it's not, like anything could happen. You couldn't just get like purple elephants appearing by the laws of physics. Don't say exactly what will happen. They only say what the various probabilities are. They say there's an eighty per cent chance of this happening and a ten percent chance of that happening, but five percent chance of this etc, etc, and so that's actually a huge advantage in looking in

I need to understand the universe, because it means that if you smash particles together many many times eventually, you will see all of the possibilities and a sort of nature showing you the full menu, giving you a sense for what is possible, on the very likely chance that my questions are probably a bit simplistic one of the questions that someone like you find really fascinating about the universe. To me, one of the deepest questions is how the universe got started or if it started for me, the really the joy of physics is that informs the philosophy of our lives near the reasoning we live. in the way we live in the context of our lives, sort of like discovering that the earth is a tiny little dust mode in this vast. Cosmos, tells you something about our importance right in the same way

wondering about how the universe got started, and if you knew exactly how the universe began. because it began in one way and no other way right. There is a true factual story. This is not a philosophical question that you could just smoke, been an appeals and talk about forever. There is real story about how the universe got started. If you knew that it might be in the way you live your life and feel about the whole context of our existence. If you knew It started in one way or if you knew they had got been here forever or that there had been infinite cycles of big bang in big crunches. So to me, that's like a huge open question about the nature of our existence, and it makes me you'll prehistoric. It makes me feel like a thousand years. People will know the answer that question and no wonder what it was like to not know the answer to be so ignorant the way that we look back at cave many cave women who looked up at the stars.

I have no idea what they were seeing. They had no idea the context of their lives. They didn't realize how old the earth was so many basic things. They didn't know that who we are today, and so, if I could ask the oracle or you know, be granted the answer to one question, it would be daddy's. How did the universe art or did it well because up my experiences, everything has to start. You have to start somewhere in everything art somewhere, so for the universe not to have started wool than what was before. It is fascinating, because a hundred years ago scientists thought it was much more natural for the universe to not have started. To always have been to be like.

Just the way it is, and always have been that way out before we knew that the universe was expanding. People thought the stars are out there. They ve always been out there and that's all there is. Then we discovered over the universe is expanding, which means it's not static. It's not just like hanging out its dynamic, its changing, we can look back in time and see that there was once a moment when it was like infinitely debts. So now that sort of seems to make more sense the reason that scientists used to think that an infinite universe made more sense. Is that like having a meaning or a boundary, is sort of odd it asked it raises more questions, questions like well. Why did it start, then, You know sort of like imagining that the universe has an edge right, what's more natural, the universe being infinite in space or the universe, having a boundary a wall, well like you might ask like well: why is there a wall? And why is the wall there and what does it mean that was past it? If it is,

on forever. You don't have those questions in the same way. If the universe goes on forever forward and backward in time, then you don't have to answer the awkward questions of like. Why did the universe start then, and not the billion years before or you know what was before that, but it certainly is not only interesting but it's fun to like. Let your mind, imagine and try to contemplate and get your head around some of these questions. We ve been talking with Daniel whites and he is a professor of physics. It you see, irvine he's co host of applied, cast called Daniel and jorge explain the universe and he's author of a book called frequently asked questions about the universe. You'll find a link to his pod cast an to his book in the shone out thanks. And your for being here is fun, it's you We underestimate the power of our sense of touch according to us

study from yale. It can have a really big effect on how we perceive things and on the decisions that we make. Participants were asked to do two puzzles one. had pieces that were rough to the touch and the other. Had peace is that where smooth the rough puzzle was purse as more difficult, even it really wasn't, and it's not just texture wait, counts to join jews were given reza maize to look at one on a heavy clipboard and the there on a lighter, clipboard reza maize on the heavier clipboard were rated huh here than those on the lighter. Once the study, also revealed that people sitting on a hard chair were much less flexible while negotiating then people sitting on a soft chair and that touching a soft blanket can act. make us feel warm and fuzzy towards another person and that something you should know. I know

I'm always asking you to tell a friend about this podcast? Sometimes I ask you to tell to friends, and sometimes three, but it really does help. It really helps grow our audience, which helps keep the podcast alive and ends We can bring you a lot more episodes. So please share this pact asked with someone you know I might carruthers thanks. Were listening today to something you should know for gates, rolling stone is said. The bar for entertainment, publications, today rolling stone music now takes over in podcast, for we haven't Michael ass. Rather, who is intervene as very first before I met your hundred people realise how many that best, songs on in utero were written wave beforehand to be fair to current, and he was also a new father. There is a lot of stuff distracting him. It wasn't just drugs. Well, though, that was certainly a major factor: rolling stone music. Now, wherever he listened,