Mentorship under Fermi and Chandrasekhar

29:13difference. If the clock does in fact do something different, then that means the universe does care about left or right, right? But in this case, I mean, we're pretty convinced that like the clock is going to, right? All it's relying on is gravity. if there's a pendulum and then like electromagnetism which is just like the atoms pushing up against other atoms to like make the gear turn and you got some motors I guess not a motor right cuz the pendulum is providing that yeah in any case it seems like it should work another experiment that I thought was really cool that I found in his um in his lectures was the alien thought experiment okay so here's the challenge you're on the phone somehow the aliens have contacted us okay >> this is your dream come I I'm I look I'm

29:54trying to set it up. >> I'm trying to set up the group chat right now. >> Yeah. [laughter] Yeah. So, okay, imagine we're on a group chat. Okay. We can't send them any photos. >> Okay. >> Okay. All we can do is like chat with them. >> Okay. >> They're on some really far away planet. Okay. >> All right. Um how do you explain left or right to them? If if there was somebody in LA, right? It would be pretty easy to explain left or right. You could just like tell them to look at the Hollywood sign, >> for example, and then be like, "The H is on the left of the D." >> Easy. >> Easy clap. You're done. They don't have the Hollywood sign. >> Mhm. >> Okay. So, what do you do? Well, you

30:35could um you could, you know, if if they're on Mars, then they're still in our local neighborhood. Yes. >> So, you you could tell them to look at the constellations. Yes. >> Right. You could be like, "Oh, look at the Big Dipper." And then yeah, you see how there's like the four that are kind of in a rectangly like they're to the left of the handle. Okay, great. So now you've defined left or right. Now suppose they're in a completely different galaxy and somehow we've had a wormhole that lets us text. >> You know the the texts are going through the wormhole. [laughter] >> Okay, how do we how do we how do we tell them? >> How do we tell them? um he so a Fineman um puts out a really funny like little failed attempt

31:15>> that I thought was was interesting enough to highlight here. Okay, so he said, "Okay, well, you know, um if I take like sugar molecules like from, you know, sugar cane or something and I dissolve it in water and then I have plain polarized light, that's something that I can tell the alien how to make, right? Let's say they understand English. They just don't understand left and right. Um I can tell them you know a plain polarized light meaning like you know uh you guys know what light is. Yes. Then they'll be like yes. And I'll be like okay you guys understand that there's a polarization where the electric field is in one direction and the magnetic field is in the perpendicular direction. They're going to be like yes. We're going to be like okay so let's get plain polarized

31:56light which means all of the light has the electric field moving in one direction. And they're like okay cool. I can do that. Seems like something they can do. And then we're going to be like, "Okay, get a bunch of sugars." Sugars