- These are problems for some
of the greatest minds on earth.
So, let's see if you can tackle them.
At the beginning of our universe,
13.7 billion years ago,
the big bang occurred
creating the existence
of absolutely everything
from a single point
and expanding it outwards
at the speed of light.
When this massive reaction event occurred,
it should have disappeared right away.
According to the models that explain our
understanding of the laws of physics,
the big bang should have created an equal
amount of matter
and its opposing twin antimatter
and the two should have
canceled each other out
and basically ceased to exist.
But for some unknown reason,
an imbalance between the two occurred
that has allowed us to be around
and do things like watch cat videos
on the matter side of things.
While antimatter like black holes
sit in areas few and far between
our matter filled universe.
One theory states that
there is no imbalance
and that the created antimatter that
would destroy everything
lies in several gigantic
sections outside of our observable range.
Well, let's hope that we never see that.
Protons are a positively
charged subatomic particle
and are one of the most
basic building blocks
of mass and life itself.
But is their charge constant
or will they lose their power
and become neutral over time?
The theory of proton decay
suggests that these particles
may be slowly changing
through radioactive decay
releasing its charge until
it becomes a neutron.
This decay has not been observed
but it may be because
the proton's life span
is so great that the
decay cannot be observed
over our lifetime.
It's possible that their
charge lasts millions of years
before it emits enough
radiation to become unstable.
But thankfully no evidence to support
this has ever been discovered.
And if they aren't decaying,
they must somehow remain
charged indefinitely.
Which is extremely impressive.
The answer isn't clear,
but if these protons
that make up everything
eventually fizzle out,
it could literally be the
end of us and everything.
In our conventional understanding
of physical states of matter,
atoms made up of subatomic particles
make up molecules which
give us elements like H2O.
These elements can transition
into various states of matter.
Like solids, liquids, and gasses
through very high
and very low temperatures.
Now, most of this is common sense
science class stuff, right.
But what if we took that process
and cranked up those temperatures from 10
to somewhere around 10,000?
Would that start to alter
the atomic building blocks
for the molecules?
Perhaps if the restrictions
around temperatures
that we can manually achieve were lifted,
some much more unique states
of matter could be created.
Through this we could change atoms
at the subatomic level
and cause the creation
of new atoms, energies,
and even forces to appear.
But for now,
physicists have to remedy this issue
of our current temperature limits
and find a way to get atoms hotter
without basically burning
a hole through Earth.
Now please don't do that,
I don't want to die.
It's worth the scientific exploration,
but not at the cost of my life, thank you.
Parallel universes sure are a fun topic
in science fiction stories.
But their existence may
be completely possible
depending on the shape of
something called space time.
Mathematical models in
physics that combine
both the values for time and space
create a measurement for space time
and things get real complicated when you
try to deduce its shape
and how that affects our
perception of reality.
In one popular theory,
space time is completely flat
and extends infinitely,
but since there is only a limited number
of possible variations of our existence,
it means that everything
that exists occurs
indefinitely forever.
By that logic,
we all exist again and
again in other universes
just like ours.
Sometimes in exactly the same form
and sometimes in a
drastically different form.
If that doesn't explode
your parallel minds,
try adding intangible extra dimensions
into the equation which allow universes
to exist in stacked layers within ours.
My brain hurts.
The arrow of time is an
idea that was created
in 1927 by Arthur Eddington
a British astronomer
that describes the one way nature of time
and how a theoretical element
called entropy governs it.
Time as we know it is
always moving forward
and everything that moves
with it increases its entropy.
A value that cannot be reversed.
Entropy itself is described as the amount
of disorder in a system.
For example,
gas locked inside a canister has particles
that float around
and cause imbalances in its distribution.
All this increases its disorder
and, therefore its entropy.
However, if the gas somehow remained
and maintained itself in the same
evenly spread position forever,
it would stop the value of
entropy from increasing.
If we think about measuring time through
how much all our stuff gets messed up
and disorganized the entire universe
must have been neatly ordered inside
a tiny little package before the big bang.
And the question is,
how the heck does that work.
I'm gonna need some
Advil after this video.
Sonoluminescence is a
strange occurrence in physics
that involves using sound waves to create
air bubbles in water.
As the bubbles pop in the water,
they create a minuscule flash of light
that only lasts for a few
hundred picoseconds or less.
Which happened to be just
long enough for scientists
back in 1934 to take notice of it
and then launch studies on it
over the next eight decades.
That's a whole lot of
time for studying, baby.
This light generating
bubble magic only occurs
when the force of sound
waves are used to create them
and physicists still
have no real explanation
for where the light comes from.
Some theoretical
explanations say that when
the bubbles collapse they quickly compress
any gasses trapped inside
and end up creating
astoundingly hot temperatures
and producing a small
amount of plasma that glows.
Others chalk it up to electrical reactions
and mini nuclear fusions
that give off light.
But studies have struggled to collect
any real supporting evidence.
One of the longstanding
question marks plaguing physics
involves one of the more common materials
in modern products, glass.
To be more specific,
physicists cannot
understand how glass forms
and why it remains solid.
Let me explain.
In its super heated molten form,
glass is liquid,
and the particles that
make it behave like liquid.
But as the glass cools into a solid form,
the particles in some areas
can continue to behave
as if they're liquid.
In solid form,
glass' molecular structure
does not resemble
that of any other liquid
to solid transition
which forms a neat
and organized order in solidity
as opposed to glass which simply looks
like a liquid that stopped moving.
This molecular behavior isn't
limited to glass either.
Some plastics and ceramics
also fit the description, too.
Who knew that something so widespread
and skillfully created with origins dating
back to 3500 BCE would be so mind boggling
to the modern day scientific community.
In space, lots of crazy
things are happening
at the quantum level.
With particles appearing in
and out of existence
and generating a large amount of energy
at an almost infinite rate.
When physicists calculate this energy,
it comes out to be an amount so huge
that the vacuum force
would cause the entire
universe to curve so sharply
that nothing would exist past the moon.
However, the problem is
is that if Einstein's
theory of gravity is right,
it means that there is
only really a small amount.
This calculation is
called the cosmological
constant problem
or the vacuum catastrophe.
And has been referred to as the most
striking problem in contemporary
fundamental physics.
Nobody can find the missing
piece to reconcile this.
And the issue persists
as a quantum physics
model that should theoretically work
but folds the universe
into itself instead.
Dark energy is one of the
most powerful yet illusive
forces of all time.
If it even exists.
In 1998, astrophysicists
discovered that the expansion
of our universe was getting faster
and faster rather than slower.
Pondering how this could be possible,
they determined that a strong force must
be working against gravity to cause it.
So, they named this
invisible force dark energy
and it has become the
most logical explanation
for the phenomenon.
Dark energy accounts for an astounding
68.3% of space ahead of
dark matter at just 26.8%
and tangible normal
matter at a measly 4.9%.
Which is completely mind blowing.
Since not much is know about dark energy,
there are a umber of
different things it could be
from chameleon particles
to gravity itself.
Which science still does
not fully understand.
Whatever dark energy is,
it's everywhere.
And understanding it could
provide deeper insight
into the past and future of our universe.
If the human race ever manages to survive
billions of years into the future,
we'll still be doomed
because of two theories
called the big crunch
and the big rip.
Through our observable universe,
we can surmise that the big bang caused
everything to fly away
in different directions
and we can also tell that the rate
of this separation is accelerating.
The big crunch happens when this expansion
of the universe stops
and then starts to contract again
like the biggest rubber band snap ever.
But if we don't get reverse big banged,
we could run into problems when the rate
of expansion gets so fast that matter
just can't handle it anymore.
If the current rate of acceleration builds
over billions of years,
it could tear matter apart at its most
fundamental levels causing the big rip.
It's completely unknown if
either will actually happen,
but either way humans won't survive it
unless we can find the
universes emergency escape door.
Crunch.
Well, other than us being doomed,
I just want to remind you
that my limited edition
t-shirt is only available
for two weeks until June 5th.
And once they're gone,
they're gone forever.
So, get it now before it sells out
by clicking the little I on your screen
or the link under this video.
And don't forget,
I'll have a brand new
video for you tomorrow,
at three Eastern Standard Time.
I'll see you then.
