The Physics Behind Fusion's Biggest Problem

Intro — Season 1 finale + what this episode is

0:00Hello, Ola Guten and Kenichi Wagwan internet. This is your captain speaking Lester Nar joined as always by my co-host and our resident PhD Krishna Chowdery. We are in our recap episode for 2025, episode 20. It's been an incredible year. How are you my friend? >> The season finale. >> Season finale. Season 1. Yeah, there will be no cliffhers on this episode. >> Yeah. >> Uh but we are going to do a great recap of our top five. Each of us are going to have our top five >> episodes or stories rather of the year

0:42and we'll do one interesting thing at the beginning. But I want to just quickly I mean we started this in July. >> Yeah. >> End of June. And I just can't believe how much people love science. >> Yeah, it's it's been like really nice seeing the amount of support that we've been getting and the amount of traction that we've been getting on Instagram, Tik Tok, YouTube,

Spotify “Instant Hit” milestone & audience growth

1:09Spotify, Apple. I mean, on Spotify, we we're making the charts according to our creator >> uh Yeah. So, this is an important note. Shout out to everyone who's watched us on video or listened to us on Spotify because we got uh a 2025 instant hit award. >> Uh which means we were one of the few shows this year on Spotify that obviously was an instant hit. >> Yeah. Yeah. It's a huge deal. >> And we're in the top 2% of comments, top 2% of >> shares. It's just really incredible. It's and it all comes from the audience and we're extremely grateful.

1:49>> You you all are what enable us to continue to do this. >> What I will say is if you haven't already, >> uh follow From First Principles on YouTube, >> hit that subscribe button, like some stuff. The algorithms that the billionaires control are what allow us to get our science content to more people. We don't make the rules. Don't hate the play. I hate the game. >> Yeah. So, I don't like asking for the subscribe button, but YouTube is huge and it's where we've been struggling to get as much reach as we see on Instagram, Tik Tok, and other platforms. So, if you do have a YouTube and you want to watch it there, that would be super super helpful. But, I was really

2:31surprised that Instagram has been our most popular platform. >> Yeah, that one's crazy. We're reaching almost 60K right now. Yes. >> As of the recording of this episode, >> we're going to have one of our story videos is going to hit a million in the next by the time this episode comes out. >> Yeah. >> The story about the >> the whales >> the whales is going to be over a million. That'll be our first video anywhere. >> Yeah. >> Over a million views. >> U so we're going to go ahead and get started with the episode shortly. But >> before we get into our recap, we're going to start with some unfortunate news that just happened >> uh I think literally yesterday. Yeah. >> Um the um the unfortunate passing of

3:12Professor uh Nuno Lorero who was the director of the MIT Plasma Science Infusion Center uh since 2024 is also just a giant in plasma physics generally. Yeah. >> Uh really bizarre. It's been an weird week for >> Yeah. >> the with the Brown University issue. This one >> and this was also a result of gun violence. >> Right. >> It's just insane.

In memoriam — Prof. Nuno Loureiro (MIT)

3:36>> Um Right. And so we will start with a brief retrospective on Nuno >> and then we'll get into our recap. And as always, we're going to be focused on the science. >> Yeah. >> Because this is from first principles. [music]

4:00[music]

4:06So, Professor Nuno FG Lurero, um, he recently died, as recently as yesterday, according to the taping of this episode. He was the director of the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center. Very unfortunate. The entire community, the scientific community in Cambridge is reeling from this loss. >> Yeah. Um, and I thought the best way that we can pay homage to a scientist like that is just to focus on his scientific career and some of the great seinal work that he has done in the field of plasma physics. Right? Um I can't comment too much on

4:46what happened other than really this guy was an incredible scientist, an incredible thinker and apart from even a science um an incredible educator and someone that sort of cultivated students and the community to do science. So he he seemed like a really incredible guy. Um, he really

Magnetic reconnection 101 — the problem statement

5:09revolutionized our understanding of plasma physics, specifically this problem of magnetic reconnection, which is what we're going to go over. We're going to go over his seminal paper, the one that made him famous. >> Mhm. >> Um, and then we're going to go over the work that he was doing currently before his untimely death. Okay. And the focus is going to be on that seminal paper and then what he's been doing >> since >> recently. Yeah. >> Yep. Yep. He's been doing a lot, but we're going to focus on really just two aspects. Okay. >> Okay. So, it's going to be a deep dive into plasma physics, which I'm pretty excited about. >> Look, you know, we we we love the deep dives. The comments have told us.

Plasma as a “charged fluid” (and why it’s hard)

5:49>> Yeah. They like the deep dives, and it's going to get technical, >> but I'm going to walk you through it. Okay. >> Okay. >> And hopefully we can bring everyone along. So, plasma physics. >> Yes. Plasma is like more than 90% of the observable universe. The stuff that gives off light. Okay? Not on Earth. On Earth, most of the stuff is not plasma. But plasma is effectively when you get so high temperature and so high energy that the electrons leave the atoms, right? >> Okay. you're at such an energy scale where it's just it's fine if the electrons just go out on their own and you get this kind of ionized gas where the the gas itself is charged and

6:30there's no neutral atoms anymore. Okay? That's the stuff that's inside the sun. That's the stuff that's in the interstellar medium. And again, more than 90% of the visible universe is plasma. When we look out into the night sky, we're seeing stars. Most of that stuff is plasma. Okay? When we look at the sun, most of that stuff is plasma. Okay? And it's governed by the interaction of fluid and electromagnetic fields. >> This is what's very interesting about plasma physics is the mathematics becomes immediately non-trivial. [laughter]

7:12Okay? It's like extremely hard because fluids by itself is a very hard thing. >> Oh, which we've discussed for example just like simulating fluid dynamics is

Navier–Stokes, charged particles, and why plasma is different

7:21extremely difficult. >> Is extremely difficult like the Navier Stokes equation with neutral atoms is a is a millennium problem. It's one of those seven problems well now six that have been unsolved that you get a million dollars if you solve it which is do the Navier Stokes equations have an analytic solution for any given geometry. Okay. Nobody knows. We don't know. We don't know. Right? But that's for neutral atoms. Now, imagine a fluid where you don't have to just worry about the particles bumping into each other and viscosity and all this stuff. You also have to worry about the fact that these particles have charge. And so, they're creating electric fields because any charged particle creates electric

8:01fields, but also they're moving. So, that's creating magnetic fields. And then those magnetic fields are going to affect the other charged particles around which are going to affect the other charged particles around. So you have this entirely nonlinear process, right, that's happening. And it's incredibly difficult. This is why >> it's very hard to make fusion happen. >> Fish is very easy. We have fish reactors. >> All of the nuclear power that we think about is from fishision, which is the splitting of atoms. That's a nuclear energy that we're harnessing to create electricity. >> Yes. The holy grail would be fusion, right? Fusion power because then we could just use hydrogen instead of trying to find like uranium and all this

8:41other crazy rare earth stuff. Hydrogen is just in water. You just find hydrogen. We could purify dutarium which is isotope of hydrogen. We'd combine them together and basically replicate the sun. >> You know, this is the dream. We replicate the sun in a building and that just feeds us electricity. >> We're trying to replicate the sun locally. >> Yeah. Exactly. I mean, it would be dope. It would be It would be what um Dr. Octopus wanted to do before he went crazy. Yes. >> In Spider-Man 2. >> Spider-Man 2. >> Spider-Man 2, right?

Maxwell intuition — E & B fields driving motion

9:12>> Great movie. >> Yeah. It's a great movie. Um those were the original, right? >> Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. >> Um and this interaction between the electric fields and the fluids is what is described by magneto hydrodnamics. Okay. Magneto because there's magnetism involved. the fact that charged particles are moving around they create a magnetic field and hydrodnamics because it's a fluid of charged particles right so you're combining the Maxwell's equations with the Navier Stokes equations in some sense to create this really complicated physics >> there's there's so many mult there are multiple layers of dynamics dynamic

9:53things happening at the same time >> and to be able to have an understanding. You need to be able to model all those dynamic layers and how they change over time. >> Yeah. And each little thing is affecting the other thing, right? So, you can't really make a lot of a lot of the times in physics, we like to be like, h in this regime, this we don't have to worry about this. In this regime, we don't have to worry about this. Well, in plasma, you got to worry about everything. Right. >> Right. And so it's incredibly difficult to make sense of what is going on which is why the problem of fusion containment in these reactors is so hard. >> Okay. And the governing equation for the magnetic field in a plasma is this which

10:35is a pretty a pretty daunting equation. Okay. On the left hand side you have dbdt which is the time change how how the magnetic field changes with time. >> And then you've got two terms. You've got del cross v crossb which is that's that's what we would call the adve vection term. Okay, it's basically velocity velocity perpendicular with magnetic field is going to give you some kind of force and then the the how that force curls around is going to tell you how the magnetic field so there's like all these vectors that are going in right and then so but but at the end of the

Field lines, advection vs diffusion, and “frozen-in” behavior

11:13day that magnetic field is actually going parallel with the velocity of those particles because there's two cross productducts. This is something that people with um vector calculus knowledge would know, right? If you have two cross products, then actually you're just going in in the same direction. Um and then the second term there new over mu not >> del^ squ b that looks like a heat equation. Okay? And that is your diffusion term. Basically, you know, if you have a hot if you have a metal rod and you heat up one part of the metal rod, the heat is going to diffuse >> across >> across that metal rod, right? And the magnetic field in these plasmas does the same thing. If you've got a lot of magnetic field here, it's going to sort

11:53of diffuse and the magnetic field lines are going to diffuse out. >> So the the the propagation of the magnetic field kind of looks similar to the propagation of heat >> of heat >> from a mathematical perspective. >> From a mathematical perspective, but there's those two terms, right? There's the diffusion term, which is that heat kind of term. Yes. And then there's the um advection term which is the magnetic field moving in line with the charged particles because you've got that double dot um cross productduct. So when a plasma is a perfect conductor in that equation there was this new right which is the conductivity. >> Okay >> if [clears throat] if a plasma is perfect then the the the conductivity is

12:35just like amazing. There's no resistance. Okay. And in that case, we don't have to worry about that that second term, >> the the the the heat looking thing. >> Yeah. The heat looking thing is because it's just gonna like go >> go. Yeah. Yeah. >> Right. So, so we don't have to worry about that. And then we get something called the flow frozen influx theorem. Basically, what this means is that the magnetic field lines don't actually like diffuse out. They get locked in place in with these plasma particles. So on the left you see straight lines and then as the plasma particles move around the magnetic field lines move around with them. Got it? >> You know and the the field lines don't break. They don't cross. They don't like

13:15change their connectivity and in in some sense like topologically they're they're preserving this mathematics across those scales. Got it. >> Okay. So that would be really great. >> Yes. >> If that's what plasma did, >> right? And we didn't have to worry about one of the terms in the equation. It's still difficult, but you know, at least there's >> it's incrementally less difficult. >> Yeah, it's [laughter] incrementally less difficult, right? Like at least the the flux is frozen into the plasma, right? >> Okay. So that that's the that's that frozen in flux theorem. Yeah. >> As a means by which to try to uh uh calculate and understand magneto hydrodnamics. >> Yes. Yes. It would be like like a great approximation

13:56if we could do it. not dissimilar to the approximation we do with the the Stokes equation. Yeah. Like like in terms of we can't really model Exactly. >> Exactly. And so we need some kind of approximation. >> Yes. Yeah. So, so maybe maybe at like certain geometries we can like you know and obviously it works right like uh Formula 1 teams use the Navier Stokes equation to figure out >> how their car is going to do on a certain track right so obviously it works but then you get to really high

Where reconnection shows up: the Sun and tokamaks

14:27magnetic fields like near the sun or inside of a taco mac >> and then you're like it doesn't quite work >> it doesn't quite work >> I I will what's funny I the two videos two movies I watched on my flight back from North Carolina. >> Yeah. >> Two days ago was the F1 movie which you had recommended. >> Quite good. We could have done without the love story, but that's another thing. >> Yeah. >> And then Tenant, which talked about uh Tokamax and nuclear cuz they're basically long story shorten there was there was a a nuclear nexus. So it's funny that both things >> are are now being applied here to this one. [laughter] Yeah. >> So real plasmas, right? We've got finite

15:07resistivity because obviously like zero resistivity is not a thing. It's not a thing, >> right? Unless you're a superconductor, but at this heat you're not going to be a superconductor, right? [laughter] >> So, so the resistivity means that this magnetic field that second term you're going to have this diffusion of the magnetic field, right? And that violation of the ideal magneto hydrodnamics is no longer something that we're going to do. And what you end up getting is something called current sheets. Because wherever you have these magnetic fields and they crisscross and you go from let's say magnetic field going one way to magnetic field going the other way, you're going to get these current sheets. Over here, what you're seeing is the magnetic the current

15:47sheets around the sun. So in the center there, that's the sun. And then you can see the orbits of the inner planets and the orbit of Jupiter on the outside there. >> That sheet, it looks kind of like a flamingo dancer when when >> when they twirl, right? And the skirt like moves around in a certain way. That sheet is the border between where the magnetic field points towards the sun and where the magnetic field points away from the sun. >> Interesting. Okay. >> Okay. Because imagine if you have a magnetic field going this way and a magnetic field going this way, you got to pass through zero. Yes. >> Right. Cuz you got to you got to do this. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> And if it's in a small enough space, you have a very high gradient. You have a very high change in the magnetic field.

16:27And so the current is going to sort of >> collapse in that in that plane, right? And so you get these current sheets. This is just a direct consequence of Maxwell's equations. Got it. Okay. So this is again just fundamental electronamics. So so that's the heliocentric current sheet. And >> you know at at where the earth is that current sheet is like very small, >> right? Very small in magnitude. Unless you get like these mag massive coronal mass ejections and then and then it destroys our electricity. >> Every time I log on onto Twitter aka X Yeah. Someone is, oh, the the the this is the one. >> It's happening. >> This is the one that's going to wipe everything out. >> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Well, it never has.

17:09I mean, no, we've had some pretty bad ones actually. >> Yeah. And look, let's knock on wood cuz it's a thing. >> It is a thing. >> So, with this current sheet, right? >> Yep. >> That what's happening is that diffusive term is competing with that heat convective term, right? And what ends up happening is in the mathematics, what you really care about is the ratio between these two competing forces, >> which is the the first part of that equation with the the double cross and then the thing that looked like the equating equation.

Lundquist number — when resistivity stops being “simple”

17:40>> Yes, exactly. And what what you want to do is look at the ratio between these two. Okay. This is called a Lundquist number. >> Okay. >> Okay. And at low lungquist number, you're going to get um a place where resistivity dominates. And at high lungquist number, you get that frozen in. You only care about that first term. And these are the different typical Lquist numbers. So for lab plasmas or something inside a tamac, you're looking at 10 the 3 to 10 the 10. But something like the solar corona where you have massive scales, you're looking at like 10 the 12, 10 the 14, right? So you have this massive scale difference that you want your physics to work at. >> And this is always tough.

18:21>> I get the the the point is the map that we're trying to fill in is really large. >> It's really large. You're going from 10 3 to 10 the 13 10 orders of magnitude, right? You're going 10 orders of magnitude and you're trying to say that the same physics works for everything, >> right? And the the point is that obviously that's >> obviously that's not the case. Especially if you watched our hypersonics episode where we talked about how uh supersonic and hypersonic >> uh which is much smaller scales. >> Yeah. >> It doesn't >> it doesn't work because then you got to you got to worry about random stuff. Right. >> Right. And that's what ends up happening here. So before um Nuno came along.

19:04>> Okay.

Sweet–Parker model and the “too-slow” reconnection paradox

19:06>> Before he came along there was something called the Sweet Parker model. This was in the late 1950s. And what they wanted to do was model how these current sheets work. And what ended up happening was if you've got, you know, a magnetic field going in one direction and a magnetic field going in the other direction, you've got this massive magnetic field gradient. >> Yes. >> What's going to end up happening is there's going to be current that goes into that interface >> and then it's going to get shot out because of the continuity equation. Continuity equation being >> stuff that comes in needs to go out, right? And so if the stuff is coming in in this direction, it needs to shoot out in that direction, right? And

19:46the the idea was that this was a kind of way of figuring out how plasma works at all of the scales. >> Okay, it it was something that they they made a bunch of assumptions, but they created an analytic solution of it in the 19 late 1950s. and that reconnection of the magnetic field going in one direction and the other direction the lines are going to crisscross and they could actually calculate a time scale. >> Okay, [clears throat] >> that that would happen. >> Uh yeah, >> so now we've got an observable. You've done a theory but a theory is only good as long as you've got an observable >> cuz then you can go into experimental into experiments create experimental designs that then would show that that

20:27theory is reproducible. >> Exactly. >> Uh you know in an observable context. >> Exactly. Right. And so we've got we've got these observables, right? And these sheets, these Sweet Parker sheets, what they're saying is, you know, at something like the sun, near the sun. >> Yes. >> Where you've got a magnetic field line going in one direction and then it comes back in the other direction. So you do have these crisscrosses. I can see that happening. >> Yes, >> those sheets are happening at a certain Lquist number. And so I can calculate how long it would take for that sheet to stay alive in some sense. Okay. >> Mhm. >> And what they calculate is it should stay alive for a few months.

21:07>> Okay. >> Maybe a few years. >> Okay. >> That is very wrong. [laughter] Okay. Observations show that it doesn't take months or years. It takes hours,

Fast reconnection timescales: solar flares vs tokamaks

21:21>> minutes for a solar flare. In talkax it'll take milliseconds. >> I was going to say cuz if the so at a solar flare >> solar flare we've seen those things right we we can observe them now with our solar telescopes and you can just see the solar flare forming and within hours and minutes it'll just shoot out >> which which is incredible cuz that means anything we're doing locally on the planet earth like the tokamax system for like nuclear power production. >> Yeah. Where we're trying to concentrate it into such a small volume >> means that >> it's going to be even faster >> faster. The time scale is faster. >> Right. And the time scale on Tokamax is something like milliseconds, >> right? That makes sense. That makes sense. >> So So, so now we've got You said it was going to be months to ears. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> And And we're we're we're seeing hours

22:03to minutes. >> So we're orders of magnitude off. >> Yeah. Yeah. It's not even a factor of two. It's a factor of like 10 to the six. >> Right. Right. Right. >> Right. There's something really wrong. >> The Sweet Parker model is not correct. >> Is not correct. Right. [laughter] And and I have to say um Parker there he he's a great plasma physicist. He's the guy who actually showed that the the solar atmosphere is unstable and we should have something like the solar wind. So he literally predicted the solar wind from first principles. Right? So >> all the credit to him. This guy was this guy was this guy was someone who could have won the Nobel Prize had he lived long enough. Right. But you know you win some you lose some. >> Look that's the next life.

22:44>> Yeah. Yeah. In the next life. >> Exactly. So this is where our um hero Nuno Lurerio comes in. Okay. >> He is in Princeton Plasma Physics Lab at the time. >> Go Tigers. >> Yeah, I [laughter] I I was waiting for that. So he's at Princeton Plasma Physics at the time. He actually did his um earlier training at UCL. And >> what he notices is that this doesn't work, guys. And it was it was a known problem for like 50 years, right? But in 2005, he actually showed that these current cheats are violently unstable. And this is a this is a slide that I got from one of his talks.

23:24>> Okay. >> Where in the in the beginning he's like, "Does the sweet Parker modal work?" Sure. For this regime. >> And [laughter] then he's like, "Maybe it doesn't." This guy was cheeky, dude. Yeah. It's kind of funny, right? So this is in 2005. He's doing numerical simulations to show exactly what would happen. And and notice that there's this bubble that's forming >> on on this on the graphic that's to the right of these three examples where it says maybe it doesn't. >> Yeah, maybe it doesn't. And and there's a sheet and as the sheet is getting sort of stretched, there's a bubble that's forming. Okay. That is going to be the main contribution that he makes in 2007 with a paper in the physics of plasmas

24:06with Lorio um Shakot Shahin and Cowi. Yes, >> this is the paper that makes him famous. Okay, this is the one that has the most citations. It's got like 800 citations, which in plasma physics is like unreal.

Plasmoid instability — how current sheets fragment and speed up

24:18>> Instability of current sheets and formation of plasmoid chains. >> Yeah, this is the he So, he was at PPL at the time, prison prison plasma physics lab. Yes. >> Um PPPL at the time. And >> this is the one that puts him on the map of plasma physics cuz he solves this 50-year-old problem >> problem. >> Not bad. >> Not bad. Not bad. >> Not bad. >> And and for those who might not know, a lot of people tried to solve this problem. >> Yes. Yes. Yes. This was a known This was like a known problem. And he does it using just like >> good old-fashioned theoretical physics analytical theory. And it's like it's a technique that we've actually learned in

25:00um grad school, but he applies it to this in a very ingenious way. And I don't I'm I'm not going to go into the nitty-gritty detail, but effectively what he's doing is this. Okay, he says, "Okay, I've got a thin current sheet, right? >> Got this thin current sheet." And what's happening is when when I when I turn up the length scale of this guy and when I turn up the magnetic field of this guy, what's going to happen is that current sheet, which is the interface between the magnetic field going this way and this way, right? I want to I want to be able to reconnect it. And the problem is that that reconnection is happening way faster than I want it to. >> Right. Right. >> What what he shows is the the aspect ratio of that current sheet

25:41>> gets really small. >> Okay. >> Okay. At really high magnetic fields, the the width of this guy is really small compared to the length of this guy. >> Okay. >> Okay. And then what he says is >> meaning meaning it's like it's like a twizzler. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Right. Versus >> and I'm like stretching it. I'm stretching it. Okay. It's a twizzler and I'm stretching it. Okay. >> Okay. And then what he does is he he he does something called perturbation. >> Yes. >> Which is he says, "Okay, suppose I have this twizzler and there's a tiny little bump. >> Tiny little instability for whatever reason." >> Sure. >> Okay. Can I trace what happens to that instability? >> Okay. If that instability goes down, >> if there's a restorative force, >> right? Then that instability is going to

26:22go up and down and it's going to become kind of like a harmonic oscillator. This is a very useful tool in graduate school physics is to understand perturbations and how those perturbations grow with time. >> Y >> but if there's an instability then that tiny little fluctuation is going to magnify >> and create some kind of bigger instability which will create a bigger instability. >> For for layman who might have seen the Asen Kutcher movie, it sounds a lot like the butterfly effect. >> Exactly. Right. Are we in this sort of chaotic regime where where it's going to break free and start doing some some random stuff? Right. Right. >> Right. >> Okay. >> And what ends up happening is he shows that when you have this long sheet of stuff, >> Yes.

27:03>> it breaks into chains of smaller little plasmoids, >> okay, >> is what he calls it. >> Okay. And they're these secondary sheets. And we've got a we've got a um a photo from exactly that, which is you've got this rubber band that you're stretching right? >> Yes. And as you stretch that twizzler, as you were saying, that twizzler as you stretch it, it's going to create little beads >> to maintain like its structure in some sense. >> Okay. >> Okay. >> And all of that stuff means that the time scale is going to be reduced by orders of magnitude. >> Okay. Got it. >> Right. Because now you're making the the system smaller in some sense. Right? You're like the system used to be this

27:43massive thing with a really large B field and a really large length scale. Now you're you're you're collapsing it into smaller and smaller length scales. >> So So as in this image, what we're seeing is at the top there is a again a long twizzler, quote unquote, and this example with small beads throughout it at at very varying sizes. >> And then as we go down, we see that those perturbations actually shorten the length. >> Yeah. >> Of what we're seeing. And then there's these those beads become more concentrated and larger. Yeah. Almost in their amplitude. Yeah. Right. Right. because we're basically moving it from like this big a system that's this big to becoming smaller and smaller. Right.

28:23And and so now we're making like smaller and smaller systems with smaller Lquitz numbers. Got it. Right. And and now the what he what he effectively showed is that the scaling that happens at this physics is no longer like one over the square root of the Lungquist number, but instead like the number to the power of something. So it's not like a diminishing, it's actually a growing thing, right? And this was just from first principles. It's a beautiful paper, right? That that that he showed this. Um and so now he he can he can resolve that giant discrepancy between time scales that we see. Right? Because actually the thing that we're worried about, this is no longer a stable thing.

29:03As we make this thing bigger, it's going to it's going to sort of collapse into smaller things. And as those smaller things become bigger, it's going to collapse into into even smaller things. It's like this weird fractally kind of self- similar thing where like the more you stretch the smaller the beads become and then and then you're going to make more beads the more you stretch, right? And and you have this like fractally self similar effect that's happening and this explains a bunch of stuff that we've noticed >> like that insight in and of itself. >> Yeah. >> Right. Um >> and and the rigorous way in which he showed it in that 20 2007 paper, it was very rigorous because he realized that one of the assumptions that Sweden

29:43Parker had made is no longer true. Right? If I actually put in the dependence, he realized that there's this one term in the equation that they assume to be constant. But that term is actually dependent on the number itself, right? And when I put that in and I and I go through this perturbation analysis, >> doesn't quite work. So a previously static variable was proven to be dynamic. Yes. And obviously because it was not static but was dynamic that was the key. It was a key unlock to then actually understanding the effects that we're trying. >> Yes. Exactly. And it and it mattered for these big scales. >> Yeah. And similar to our hypersonics thing. It's like it didn't matter when you were at small scale and so you could ignore it. But as soon as you start

30:25things that we label as constant constants for simplicity in order to be able to just keep the math simple no longer can be applied and have consistent observable effects. >> Mhm. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Yeah. It's it's a very cool paper again cited multiple times and it and it applies to astrophysical plasma. For example, this is um a picture of the Venus >> tooid. So this is what happens when the solar wind goes and impacts Venus which has its own magnetic field. And what you can see is you've got the stretching of the magnetic field because of the solar wind and on the top you've got a magnetic field going this way and on the bottom you've got a magnetic field going

31:05this way. So what's going to happen? You're going to get a little plasmoid, >> you know, because because those magnetic field lines want to sort of >> mesh together. They don't they don't want to fight, right? And so you get the little plasmoid that we were talking about. And you can see when when we talk about the Venus Express, which is the probe that took measurements close to Venus versus the Pioneer Venus Express, which took measurements all the way out, >> it matches the fact that there's a strong magnetic field here and a weaker magnetic field there. And and the mathematics works out, right? So it shows that in astrophysical plasma this

31:46hypothesis by Nuno is true. >> So just to double click on that the the point being Nuno's theory on paper that can be proven mathematically on paper had matching observable data from two different Mars pro uh Venus excuse me probes from different distances of where they measured. And that was in uh uh important in being able to show that it actually worked because we had two in two reference points of distance where the measurements were coming in from. And then so we could use the math that Nuno sort of established and say does the math match at this farther distance from the PVO this closer distance from VEX. And it

32:27>> and it did and it was great. And crucially this is like on top of the fact that his theory >> reproduces the time scales that we see on the sun. >> Ah right on yeah the solar solar measurements also track. >> Yeah the solar measurements the fact that it takes hours to minutes for this reconnection to happen on the surface of the sun in the solar corona and things like that that's already taken care of. And on top of that, he's now he's now talking about the magnetic field around planets. And also in Tacomamax, we've like literally seen this. So in Tacamax, which is a takamac is like a donut shaped thing where we try to confine plasma. Yes. >> And in those tacamax, you can see little

33:08plasmoids that form, >> right? And they form at the the the scale. Yes. >> That he suggests with this theory. And and it lasts as long as what he suggests in the theory. And this becomes extremely useful when we are trying to replicate the sun on earth for fusion

Pure fusion weapons, fallout, and what physics does/doesn’t allow

33:27research. >> Right. >> Right. >> Right. Because because while we have figured out with nuclear weapons how to create fision bombs, >> which I was just listening to something the other day, so correct me if I'm wrong. With a fision bomb, it's like you actually have the fision process is actually an like the ignition to then create a fusion reaction after the fact. >> Yeah. Uh and but because of that two-step fision fusion combination, that's where you get uh radioactive uh like the radio fallout as a result of that. >> Yeah. Because you need a fusion bomb in order to spark the I mean, sorry, you need a fision bomb in order to spark the fusion bomb. But if you were able to

34:08master fusion and have a pure fusion nuclear weapon, >> there would be no fallout. Yeah, there would be no fallout, >> which would allow you militarily the strategery would be now you can drop a nuke somewhere and have troops right nearby. >> Yeah. >> To be able to then go in post the fusion explosion because there would be no >> Yeah. They'd have to wear sunscreen because like you don't want like the Yeah, the photons are are the main, you know, but at least you don't have to worry about like ionizing radiation. But like Yeah. The the other main thing is like with with fusion, right? Fusion nuclear reactors, for example, those are like relatively easy to control. Okay. Okay. Because you've got these rods of

34:48uranium. Yes. That are spitting out neutrons. Yes. And then in between you can have rods of graphite that slow down the neutrons. Yes. Right. And so you can have this sort of static nuclear reactor that is creating heat, creating energy that causes uh steam from water and then that steam turns a turbine. Right. The heat creates motion which turns a turbine. Yes. >> With fusion, >> isolating fusion, right? Fusion is happening in plasma. It's not happening in solid materials. >> With fision, you you have a rod of uranium. That thing is fisioning and it's creating energy. In order to create

35:29energy from fusion, you need this plasma which is super hard to control. It's super hard to contain. And then and then once we have that, we need we need to have it self- sustaining and then create a heat source that then powers the turbine. It's it's a whole thing, right? And if we don't understand the mathematics fundamentally, then there's no hope. I will just note we we've talked about this off camera uh previously, but if you work in a classified program in plasma research and you've maybe figured out how to better control plasma for other use cases, declassify part of it so we can use it for fusion reactors.

36:09>> Yeah, that'd be great. >> Please and thank you. >> That'd be great. [laughter] >> But so so that was his 2007 paper. Makes sense. Very big deal. Huge deal. >> Okay. He won a bunch of awards for it. Welld deserved. >> Yes. >> Um >> can't win a Nobel. >> Yeah. Um Yeah. Not anymore. >> Which is really crazy. Anyway. >> Yeah. Yeah. Um he he probably would have on the been on the short list because um in it in the future of his life. So that was at Princeton Plasma Physics Lab. He was kind of a posttock. Then he became a professor at MIT became full professor and in 2004 he was the director of the plasma science and fusion center at MIT. And that MIT PSFC >> Yes.

36:49>> spun out and created Commonwealth Fusion Systems which is designing something called spark. It is a small fusion reactor. I mean this it looks kind of big mate compared to [laughter] >> like compared to fusion reactors that is small. Okay. That's that that is that is quite small. The goal is to be the first device to achieve a Q factor greater than one. A Q factor is basically net energy gain, right? >> Which is how much energy you put in, how much do you get out, the ratio of that. If you have greater than one, then whatever is that greater than one, >> you can use to power a turbine which creates electricity.

Fusion milestones + why high-field magnets matter

37:28>> There was actually, wasn't there an announcement in the last 2 or 3 years that one of the national labs achieved net energy gain >> for some small period of time? >> It was it was very small. was very but but that was a first of some kind. >> It was a first of some kind because um so I don't remember the details but what ended up happening was they had a diamond anvil cell with so two diamonds attached to each other. We've covered this actually covered this and um and inside was a hydrogen dutarium >> mixture and then they put lasers. >> Yes. >> That created fusion inside of that diamond anvil cell. And they said that yeah the the amount of energy of the

38:09lasers was less than the amount of energy that came out of the fusion. But like to to make the lasers and you know it's look they're not I don't think their their end goal is to create >> um fusion electric power from that. Okay. Because like what you're just going to keep shooting lasers in this and then and then how do I get the energy out of that to come out and like do a turbine there's a lot of question marks. Okay. >> It's probably weapons. [laughter] >> All right. Like if I'm honest but it was still very cool. It was I believe Lawrence Liverour left. that tracks to me. Yes. >> California again. >> Um California forever. Goodbye. >> Yeah. So, so talkax like the spark uh is

38:51this the spark is something that is trying to contain plasma and it's trying to create fusion in the plasma and then it's trying to then offload that energy to create to create electricity. Right. And it's designed to have this Q factor of greater than one. Um it's using actually high temperature superconducting magnets. Okay. which means at about 20 Kelvin, which is actually quite hot. Yes. >> For superconductors, um they're using these rare earth barium copper oxide Rebco magnets. >> And effectively what they're trying to do is have these magnets go at 12 Tesla. 12 Tesla is insanely strong. Okay. Um

39:31several orders of magnitude above the magnetic field of the Earth. And what they're doing is using these magnets to confine the plasma into a donut. Spin it around really fast >> and then have that plasma in that spinning >> do the fusion. So the hydrogen is going to combine to make helium release a bunch of energy and then that energy is going to be used to create electric. >> That's going to try to capture. And the point is you need that 12 Tesla because you need to be able to confine plasma and that's that's the reason for that scale. >> Exactly. And at that scale, all of a sudden, >> um, Lorero's legacy matters, right? All of the theories that he's he's posited

40:11at these like high lenquist numbers. >> That's what matters. So any any code that you have to contain the plasma needs to rely on his theory. There's going to be a bunch of plasmoids that are dominant in that in that taco. The point is you could not use this. If you were trying to do fusion energy and you were focused on how do we contain the plasma, you cannot use the sweet parker model. No. >> Um, and if it >> No, you'd be you'd be completely wrecked. >> But for Nuno, you wouldn't necessarily have a framework for how to even do the math to to to do the containment of the plasma at that scale. >> Exactly. So when all these AI bill all these billionaires and hyperscalers and frontier model companies are saying we

40:51need more energy and they're now investing in the small fusion reactor is like now a buzz term in Silicon Valley and everyone's investing all these like you new companies trying to do it >> all of them have to bend the knee and be grateful that Nuno did this work because >> that math is now enabling the innovation for small form factor fusion nuclear reaction. actors >> and exactly right >> with the tokamac kind of design framework. >> You got it. You got it exactly right. Yeah. I mean it's a fundamental science thing, right? Like why does the solar corona work the way it does, >> right? >> Like that's how it started. >> That's how it starts. >> And then how it's going is we've got now

41:31maybe a path >> to create actual fusion on Earth. Uh which again like fusion >> changes everything. >> Yeah. No. No. Oh my god. Like it changes everything. It would be it would be ridiculous. It would be ridiculous if we could get this going. Right. >> Right. and and we're now people people are so on my all the advertisements and stuff I see in the X EOS they're they're now passing simulation tests right with different design types and they're now transitioning into uh like real world uh scaled versions of this which means like this is now like this is not theoretical

42:11in terms of This is like these at Commonwealth Fusion Systems. They're actually doing it. They're like they're like making it, >> right? >> You know, >> oh god, >> it's it's crazy. We might be close. >> We might be knock. Yeah. But um it was, you know, Nuno Lorero's work really underpins that fundamental science really underpins all of the stuff that these guys are doing, you know, that could truly change the world. This is why again academia and grants for foundational science is hugely meaningful and now this the time scales of going from research lab to end product are shortening greatly for all

42:52the reasons we've talked about all season. Yeah. >> Right. Like it's no longer a 30 40 50 year cycle in between fundamental discovery. That's 2007 >> 20 years we're it's already it's that's crazy. >> That's crazy. >> That's crazy. >> Yeah. Yeah. I think I think I think it's amazing. And you know the the stuff that he did at PPPL that's probably a DOE contract. Y >> it's it's I guarantee you there was no private funding when all these people say oh like you know maybe the private funders could like do fundamental science research. No he was he was trying to figure out like uh why is this 50-year-old model of plasma wrong? >> No one was no one was no one cared. No one cared. No, [clears throat] because

43:32it was so far away, >> right, >> that no no no VC would be like, I'm going to see this fruitful at the end of my life. >> There was this interesting thing that uh Deis Abus, who's the uh who runs Google Deep Mind, was kind of talking about where he's like >> they were they were talking about hallucinations in AI models. Yeah. And his whole thing was like some hallucinations are actually kind of good because there's this whole like like uh sort of uh you know phrase uh like phrasing where it's like inventions >> all inventions didn't come from explicitly knowing that you you wanted the outcome of the invention when you were going through the discovery

44:12process, right? Like a lot of times inventions come from curiosity and just explore exploration that then leads to an insight that then get converts converts into an invention. But you don't always start saying I want to create a light bulb and then create a light bulb. Yeah. >> Right. And so you kind of need this like >> surface area of exploration that is not tied to shareholder value or an already known end product. >> It's just how does it work? >> How does it work? And then once you know how it works, then all of a sudden it's like, wait, wait, I could. Yeah. Now all of a sudden >> maybe maybe a small fusion containment thing could actually work >> cuz now we know everything, right? And

44:53now we have high frequency computing and we have AI and we have means to control plasma really effectively, right? So it's all of this stuff compounding that really gives a lot of these startups >> room to breathe. >> Right. Right. Right. >> Yeah. So, it's it's really um quite an amazing story. Nuno Lorio, MIT professor, >> very unfortunate death. >> Um and also the way that it happened through gun violence like in his apartment in Boston, like that just sucks. >> It's it's it's the American in the modern era. Um and apparently all all we can do is thoughts and prayers. >> Look. Yeah. And

45:33>> I guess Yeah. thoughts and prayers to his family. And I wish we could do more. >> And thank you. Thank you, Nuno, for what you've provided to humanity. Yeah. Which again, >> amazing amazing legacy, >> if we figure out fusion. >> Yeah. No. And if no, if the Nobel Prize was given toumous >> Yeah. people >> um people, he he'd be one of them. >> He'd be one of them. Um we wanted to make sure we covered this. Again, there's no there's literally no information about what happened. It's been so recent. >> It's super unclear, actually. >> So, it's it's you know, there's a lot of weird, you know, it is. >> Yeah. You know, that's I don't even know. We'll we'll see what happens. And um you know the best to those who knew him as colleagues and his family who you know mentors I bet there's a bunch of

46:14students that are just >> who are just struggling and please you know uh we hope that those around him at the lab um you know once grieving has passed you know continue to aggressively pursue his vision. >> Yeah. uh and and and the work that he's already done because it's it's a huge foundation. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's it's amazing, you know, and it could change the world. >> It could it could literally change the world. >> It could be one of the biggest things >> that happens in the 21st century. >> Espe if you're a climate change person, like you should be all over this. >> This is this is this is this is a big

Season 1 recap begins — 19 episodes, 48 stories

46:50deal. >> We're going to now transition into our season 1 recap. >> Yeah. >> 19 episodes. Uh unbelievable. just we covered. So there were so many interesting things that happened this year. >> Yeah. >> Um and it was really hard to choose. >> Yeah, it really was. >> It was hard to choose. Um it looks like we're going to start with my five. >> Yeah, we're going to start with your five. >> And you again, >> I loved all of them. I think we did 48 total stories. >> No, I mean, you know what's interesting is like I learned so much with each of the ones that I had to research. >> Yeah. >> And like really get into it. Yeah. you know, cuz we're not in the business of

47:31uh of just talking. >> Yeah. Right. [laughter] >> Like I was like, what is this figure? >> Right. >> Right. Right. >> You know, but I learned so much and I I just love that we started this this this podcast. And again, every single one of the 48 stories we covered this year are incredible literally on their own. Yeah. >> And so just because it's not included in the top 10 doesn't mean it's not good. However, >> Yeah. and let us know in the comments if we missed one of your favorite one of your favorites. Uh but I think um >> these are quite good. These are all quite good >> again based on what they what they are about. >> And in no particular order yeah these are not ranked. These are not ranked top

48:1210. >> So okay so from for my list of five I you know the first one we're going to cover or touch touch on is the the Vera Rubin Observatory. >> Yes. >> Um episode 4.

Lester’s Top 5 — Episode 4 (Rubin telescope / new astronomy era)

48:23>> This this was amazing. This was really good. So, for those who know, I'm the UFO guy on the pod. >> Yeah. >> And so, you know, obviously anything that's going to help us better understand the universe around us, I'm all for. But I think the thing that really got me going about this episode was was the there was a couple things. It's it's the scale. The way you described it, I think in the episode was we're moving from photo to video. >> Yeah. >> In in in astronomy. >> Yeah. >> And that reated >> of the entire southern night sky, >> right? like the scale difference between what we knew before and what we will now know >> and also the daily data dumps and accessibility. There's so many great aspects to the story.

49:03>> Yeah. >> Uh I love this one. >> Yeah. And this one, you know, so I was looking up like, you know, what what they've been doing. They've just been doing what they normally do, which is just data dumps. And now there's just so much data and astronomers are wrangling with how do we how do we >> interpret all of this data? Right? But one of the few things that I wanted to highlight. So there's one photo of the galaxy M61. Messier object M61. You see that thread? >> Yes. >> That's coming out of the bottom right galaxy. >> Yes. >> We didn't know that existed before. >> That's just a thread of stars. >> Yeah. >> That's just getting ejected by that galaxy. >> That's unbelievable. >> And that's crazy because first of all,

49:45uh what? >> Yeah. >> Why is there Why is there just a a >> It's like a water. It's like a water gun of stars. >> Stars just getting shot out. >> Just getting shot out by a galaxy. >> And stars. >> Yeah. Stars. Yeah. Across many light years. Hundreds and thousands of light years. Just getting shot out for who knows how long because the the the the >> the trail is quite long, right? So, it's just been doing it in one direction for a very long time. We've never seen that before. >> That's [clears throat] crazy. >> Never seen that before. Yes. So that's um Messier object 61, which by the way, the fact that it has a name M61 means that it's been like it's been studied

50:25since Messier created that catalog. >> Okay. And and we didn't know that that existed. Okay. So this is new, brand new, >> which is crazy. And the second one is a photo of the Virgo cluster. >> Yes. >> Beautiful photo. And you can see how diffuse those galaxies are. Okay. The key thing is this is an average of about a thousand images. They probably have tens of thousands now, but this is an average of a thousand images. And when you average a thousand images, the signal to noise ratio goes up. Yes. >> Right. The noise goes down because you're averaging. And you see how those diffuse >> like clouds of just stars. >> That's not something we've seen before. >> Like on the right hand side, you've just

51:06got this random cloud >> with no real structure. Yeah. Yeah. >> We're seeing like a bunch of those >> in the Vera Rubin, right? Those are galaxies that we've never seen before >> because usually we're like, "Oh, spiral galaxies. They're like concentrated." Now we just got a cloud of like stars. >> Yeah. Right. Right. Right. But we can now identify. >> We now because because we're do we're taking so many photos of the exact same patch of sky over and over again that we can average and the signal to noise ratio goes like square of n. So the more we take photos of the the lower that noise becomes and we can really start seeing this incredible detail, right? We're turning the light. Like we we I I

51:47can't emphasize enough how little we've actually looked like if Earth if like our if our solar system is like a house, right? >> No. No. We've we >> we've barely looked out of one of the windows of the house. >> No, we've seen Zillow photos. >> Yeah. [laughter] >> That's what it is, dude. Like we >> like if Yeah. If our if our universe is a house, we've seen Zillow photos. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. Like we we've not >> and now we're like putting in like ring cameras to really see in different room like the the [laughter] >> and the volume of data that it's producing is such that like you know so >> it's just and and now it's up to the astronomers to really

52:28>> try to try to crunch through. We've identified like thousands of asteroids. >> Yep. We've identified thousands of um transient objects. It's it's going to be great, dude. And and the more sophisticated the algorithms get, the better it'll be. >> And it's open source. >> Yeah, it's all that's what's great about it. That's that's your US taxpayer funding right? >> Going into just like >> we got a ring camera on the universe now. >> That's a great way to spend taxpayer money. >> Oh my gosh. >> 100%. Yeah.

Lester pick — Episode 8 (K2-18b, DMS, and exoplanet biosignatures)

52:57>> Uh aliens coming soon. Story number two, K218B DMS dimethyl sulfide. >> Dimethyl sulfide. >> Look at me. I'm learning something this season, y'all. Um, episode 8. >> That was episode 8. >> Uh, this this was the the the the >> this was the drama. >> This was um the uh uh best evidence yet. >> Yeah. Best evidence yet on BBC. >> Yeah. Of of life. >> And then a week later >> later immediately. And so I think the reason I like the story is because it really we really covered how the peerreview process works. Yeah. when the the the delta between the news headline and where the science is and how each of these universities or labs is competing.

53:37Yeah. >> And and and why the process of science works because of reproducibility because but also just you explaining to me how we do the atmospheric >> uh understanding. >> Yeah. their atmospheric retrieval and how we do that transit method to figure out the and what I loved about this story was how the the postoc who put out the paper a week after >> that like he actually met he re he re um I guess he reinsmed he didn't retweet but on Instagram he reposted our real about that and he was like am I the drama because [laughter] we were literally talking about how a week later he's like

54:18Like that was that Oxford Cambridge beef. >> God, >> that was great. Yeah. And it it was shout out to Tyler for um >> Yes. >> for for posting that. That was dope. >> That was great. Uh great story. So again, as you can see, I have a real space a real uh space orientation to the first two. The third one that uh was really fascinating to me was the story we covered on ankoan. >> Yeah.

Lester pick — Episode 15 (OncoGAN & AI-generated cancer genomes)

54:40>> Uh the AI genome uh project in episode 15. >> Yeah. And I actually just talked to my my mom about this who works in clinical trials and is focused on the future of precision medicine and it was just the the experimental like what they all of the different pieces they put together. >> Yeah. >> And and the redundancy and really how wellought out it was was incredible >> to make sure that the genomes that they were generating with this AI was not linked to anything personal. Yes. you know, it truly was no hippo violations, but we're creating this data set that is going to be used to train AI models to detect cancer.

55:20>> And the fact that when they those with using those newly generated AI genomes using existing tools like deep tumor, they were actually able to increase the efficacy of detection in edge cases. Yeah. >> Uh basically proving that that the the genomes were not just junk data. >> Yeah. Right. It had >> like an existing tool was better off >> but was better off having it as a part of its data set. That was a great I love >> that was a great one. Yeah. Yeah. And that was that was originally because um it was from the University of Toronto and Toronto lost the World Series which >> Yeah. Yeah. Look, >> the LA Dodgers won. >> We're from LA. What do you

56:01>> May I just repeat what is already known? [laughter] The LA Dodgers are backto back world champion. >> We did give Toronto's love though. you know, we made sure we gave you guys, >> but that was an incredible scientific achievement >> from the University of Toronto >> and and the implications are just going to be >> Yeah. >> Um, and again, this is another we covered a lot of AI stories and for me what this was was like AI gets talked about as like oh image generation and AI slop but >> and AI girlfriend, >> right? But this is not this is going to save lives. >> No, straight up >> literally. And it is and it and it's important to understand that in a lot in multiple research environments

Lester pick — Episode 9 (time crystals)

56:41folks are finally finding ways to get practical uh uh effects and outputs from from a variety of use cases. That's a great ML, RL, AI, whatever you want to label it as. Uh number four was time crystals. >> Temperature >> time crystals time crystals >> episode 9 >> University of Colorado Boulder. >> Yes. Yes. And yeah, the OGs of solid state physics. >> Yes. And I I just like that one because I never heard about a time crystal. >> Microscopic room temperature time crystal. >> Yeah. Yeah. That was that was pretty cool because we got to go through the whole, you know, from Frank Wilchek

57:21talking about the theoretical time crystal and then somebody saying, "H, that's probably not possible." And then somebody else saying, "Yeah, but you could do it this way." And then and then now to where we've got this repertoire of time crystals and this is the first one that's macroscopic. You can see with the naked eye it's at room temperature.

Lester pick — Nobel Week + macroscopic quantum tunneling

57:37>> It's crazy. >> Such a good one. >> Yeah. >> Um and then the the last one for me was just our our Nobel Week episode macroscopic quantum tunneling especially. Um >> that was amazing. >> Nobel Prize week was really incredible. uh this year's awards were all great but I think that the structure of it and how we did the journey of like because what it really I like I think showed and represented was how science is an iterative process that spans decades and generations. >> Yeah. And you know everything that we want that it gives us modern life >> is on the basis of scientific progress

58:19over generations. Yeah. >> And and the awards this year were incredibly >> complex and I think those episodes did a great job for a layman or anyone who does has no basis for any of the understanding can really kind of get why this award matters. >> Yeah. Yeah. And it and what I remember from it is like waking up at 2 am to watch the to watch the things with you and then be like, "Okay, now I got to dropped it." Those we dropped it live. >> Yeah, we dropped it. Yeah, dude. And it was it was a great experience. It was like the commitment that we had >> to this podcast and like to really getting and doing it right. I loved

59:00that. It It was great >> and and it worked. You know, it blew up. It was >> Some of our biggest episodes were were the Nobel episodes. A lot of you discovered us during that week. Um, and we will be doing it next year. >> Uh, we're looking to hopefully get uh either a university or the Nobel Committee to allow us >> to uh be a participant in the process to help elevate this beyond what they already do uh and make it accessible to the new gen. >> So those were those are my five uh not

Krishna’s Top 5 — programmable synthetic proteins (Yale)

59:32exclusive but those were good. And so okay, now let me start with mine. My first one is the programmable synthetic proteins. This was episode three. This one just like blew my mind. It was out of Yale University. Um, effectively, yeah, boo. But also, wow. >> Wow. >> Because [laughter] >> they they effectively like, you know, we're used to 20 building blocks when we create proteins and they're like, "What if we could have 60?" >> Yes. >> You know, because the it takes three codons, three, sorry, it takes three nucleotides to create a codon. So three ATGC's that's four choices in three bins. So four to the three is 64. You need a few

1:00:13of them to tell your protein machinery to start creating a protein and stop creating a protein. But the question is all of that others. >> Yes, >> you know all of those the rest of the 60 are getting mapped on to 20. What if I could map them on to 60? And this was the first step in that, right? They they they made a fully

Krishna pick — the DNA story & the ethics of discovery

1:00:35like bacteria. They made a full bacteria that incorporated a new amino acid into a protein. I thought that was absolutely insane. Unbelievable >> that they could do this. Unbelievable, you know. Um that was really >> that was that was that was it it like blew my mind when I was researching it. That was that was episode three. And then the rest of them are all about science history because I love science history. So we've got the DNA episode. I don't have to talk too much about that because that was just our last episode. Um, >> but people loved that episode. Watson's not the guy. >> Watson is not the guy. Um, turns out he was a racist piece of and um, but the human story is fascinating. You know,

1:01:15the way that there was the competition between England and Caltech and all that. I I just loved looking that up. The LIGO episode, which was episode 10. >> Yes, that was a great one. >> That was a great one. Um that little story about how the posttos were like running around you know just an hour before the actual signal came in and they were just like driving their jeeps >> along the along the instrument and then people were like just freaking out because they didn't know if it was a scop like they didn't know if it was a conspiracy or something. I I loved that.

Krishna pick — LIGO sensitivity & gravitational-wave astronomy

1:01:46>> Also the actual engineering that went into LIGO is unbelievable to me. like it is >> being sensitive to 10 the minus 21 in stress >> and then we're replicating that in three

Krishna pick — Episode 5 (Heisenberg / uncertainty)

1:01:58locations now. >> Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Um the Heisenberg episode which is episode five >> very popular. >> That one was very popular. >> Very popular. >> Yeah. Yeah. I loved like going through his original paper that you know set it all up. >> Yes. Yes. >> Yeah. And that and that whole non-commutation. >> Yes. Yes. Yeah. >> A a a uh not equal ba uh when we're talking about vector multiplication. >> Yeah. Matrix multiplication on vectors. Matrix multiplication on vectors. >> Exactly. >> And a lot of debate in the comments on that one cuz people had saw the graphic but didn't listen and so they thought we

Krishna pick — Episode 14 (Chen Ning Yang & symmetry)

1:02:35were not anyway. >> Yeah. And then and then finally the Chening episode which is episode 14 >> and that one where we had the discussion about symmetry and how the fundamental laws of symmetry govern the universe. And we can we can overturn the whole idea of how we do physics by asking a fundamental question like what are the symmetries of the universe? Okay, I do an experiment here and I do an experiment over there. The laws of the physics that are the same. >> Yes. >> What does that mean? And like yeah, it's just so beautiful to think about. >> Was that the episode with the the left hand right left? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Left hand right the kirality of stuff. Um that was really all of the the

1:03:15history episodes and the deep dives were really popular. I know there's someone on YouTube. I I I we see the comments, not all of them. It's tough to keep up, but someone was like, I want more >> Yeah. >> deep dive, single subject history, go through all the details episodes. >> Um, and so, you know, as we go into

Season 2 plans — onsite episodes, labs, and format tweaks

1:03:31season 2, we have some interesting ideas. >> And so, the core format will be there. We'll do almost exactly like we did this year. Some episodes will have multiple stories, some will be the deep dives. Uh maybe we might even be going directly into some labs. >> Yeah. >> To do some onsite episodes 26. >> You know, uh we've got some some interesting things planned. Uh I'm going to quickly honorable mention uh from from the wife. >> Yeah. >> About her favorite episode. She said, "If you don't include me, you're in trouble." So, I'm including her her three, which were the double slit MIT replication episode 3, the diamond, uh

1:04:12the harder than diamond episode 5 episode, and also a double tap on the Rosalyn Franklin uh she said women in STEM. Yeah, >> we love it.

Corrections section

1:04:21>> We love it. >> So, we're going to wrap up with uh a corrections section. Yes. And so one of the things I love about this pod is that there's a surprising amount of comments from folks whether you're doing your PhD currently, whether you're in a research lab or just are into science generally for folks who had some comments about how we framed things and we want to give an opportunity to do a couple of key corrections uh from our past episodes. Yeah. And we'll maybe do something to incorporate this better into season two. And so we're now going to talk about some of these corrections. Yeah. And I wanted I wanted to piggyback off what you said. It's really a testament to our audience. >> Yes. >> That um we're getting corrections at

1:05:03such a fine level. >> Yeah. Very detailed. And look, I would much rather the you're scrolling on Instagram and you're commenting about science versus nonsense. >> Yeah. >> So, we love it. And please continue to pop in your viewpoints, your thoughts because that's the whole point is we're trying to have a conversation.

Orcas vs sailboats context (why clips can mislead)

1:05:23>> Yeah. Exactly. So, the first one is kind of a general one, which was during the whale episode, >> our one video that's going to reach a million on Instagram by the time we drop this. >> Yeah. There there were a lot of corrections about the fact that, you know, when you're in a sailboat, you can actually go against the wind. The correction is you can't actually go directly against the wind. You have to tack at an angle that's offset from the wind. I actually know this because um during my grad school at UCLA, UCLA has a marina. Yes. >> In Marina del Rey and they offer >> Marina del Re. [laughter] >> Yeah. Marina del Rey. And they actually offer sailing classes. And so I I got a sailing license um at the UCLA Marina

1:06:07and they taught us how to tack. Yes. >> Um and go against the wind and effectively use Bernoli's principle to go against the wind at an angle. Yes. And you can you you can sort of go like this, right? At the end of the day though, >> Pythagorean theorem, you're not going to be going directly against the wind. So if you're a whale in the ocean, >> you can still outrun a boat. So the the main point was the whales learned how to go directly against the wind and outrun boats. >> Right. Right. The regardless of the fact that yes, sailboats can using tacking Yeah. >> go not directly against the wind, but in the direction where the point is you the whales will be able to outrun. >> Yeah. Like imagine you're a whaler and like you see them. You're not going to

1:06:48be like, "I'm going to go get them." You're going to be like, "No, that's a lost cause. They're going literally against the >> wind." So, we get it, but but that wasn't the >> context. Watch the full episodes. Okay. The clips are not always the full

Chargaff, sperm, and what actually carries DNA

1:07:02context. >> Yeah. Um the other one, so during the DNA episode, I talked about how uh Charg Yes. at Columbia University used human sperm to establish the ratio between A, T, G, and C. And he showed that A and T are exactly the same and G and C are exactly the same. And I made the statement that um sperm is mostly DNA. >> Yes, that's not true. Okay. And that that's a fair point. Sperm is mostly again proteins and a bunch of other random stuff. But my point was that there's more DNA per volume in sperm than there are in other cells. And so if

1:07:44you want the greatest bang for your buck in terms of trying to analyze DNA per volume, sperm is a great, you know, sort of sample to get. >> It's not all DNA, but the DNA per volume is the most functional and beneficial for the use case of doing the depth. >> Exactly. So yeah, that was fair play. That's a good one. Okay. >> Um, whenever I talk about transcription

Transcription vs translation + sodium-battery mix-up

1:08:08and translation, whenever I get excited, I mix up the two. >> Okay. But I do know what they mean. >> Transcription is DNA to RNA. >> Yes. >> And a it's in the word, right? Transcribe from the same language to the same language. There's a little bit of difference because instead of T, you're using U, but instead of ATGC, you you use AUGC. But it's the same nucleotide to nucleotide. Translation is going from nucleotide to amino acid. Right? So it's a different language altogether. And that's why you're translating. And you know when I get excited sometimes I say the wrong thing. >> Yes. >> But hopefully you guys know what I mean.

1:08:49>> Duly noted. >> Yeah. Um the fourth one, sodium batteries. Sodium batteries are actually a thing. And um we we made it seem like sodium batteries weren't a thing. Sodium batteries are a thing. There's active companies that are that are actually trying it. Solid state sodium batteries are not a thing. Right. >> Right. And that's sort of the holy grail that the Chicago UCSD paper was trying to solve. Right. They're trying to get closer to that solid state sodium battery because then we could start using it for EVs and long-term storage and all this other kind of stuff. Yes. >> Um so so they made a real leap forward in that solid state partid where there's no liquid electrolyte that's going around. Um, which if you listen to the

1:09:31full episode is, you know, >> yeah. Yeah, we we did make it a thing, but okay, fine. Fair play. Um, and then

Airplane speed, Mach numbers, and a deserved call-out

1:09:40finally, airplane speed. >> The hypersonic >> this this one I got a lot of SL a lot of uh poo poo for. >> It is not 250 mph. It is in fact 500 mph. And I should have I should have like known this because you know from here to New York is like 3,000 mi. It takes 6 hours. 5 hours like 500 m hour. That kind of makes sense. But um what really insens good friends from college told me that he recommended it to one of his friends. >> Yes. >> Um Justin Honstein. Justin, if you're if you're listening, >> if you're listening, >> um I understand that you don't want to listen to any of our podcasts because

1:10:20because we made that one error and we're not acknowledging it. Well, here I am acknowledging it. Here I am. This guy, by the way, that I I've interacted with him a few times. I think he's just jealous because because we beat him in Beer Pong in [laughter] 2011. Thanksgiving 2011. I don't forget. We beat you, me and Allan. We beat you in peer pong in 2011 and then we sang a Jason Derulo song [laughter] and we sang it really well. He was harmonizing and and we sang it really well. Maybe he's jealous and now he doesn't want to listen to our podcast. Well, Justin, now I've admitted that I said 250 when I should have said 500. And so, uh, for

1:11:02those still watching at the end, you know, our trend where now at the end of the show, it's helpful for us to know that people actually reach the end. And so for those still listening, whether it's a podcast or you're watching the video in the comment thread, uh if you want to go ahead and put Justin, they apologized or Justin, we're waiting for you or any or any funny Justin >> Justin, you know, if you have a bit that you want to put, >> put it in the comments. We want to get Justin back on the train listening for not only our season one episodes, but moving forward to season two. Uh and again we're not above reproach here,

1:11:42right? Like you know >> that that was fair play, Justin. >> 100%. And and we are willing again because the whole point here like the fundamental concept of science we talk about every day is it's an iterative process. This was our first season. >> We literally started it in my garage that's now converted into this unbelievable studio. >> Amazing. >> And we are very excited for what we're going to be able to do next season. Um,

Production notes + what “interviews” will (and won’t) be

1:12:06we do know just a couple of notes before we wrap up. We've heard the comments about all the sound and the angles and the color. So, all the production people, all that's been solved. >> So, now the color matching is good. >> If I bang on the table, it doesn't get picked up as much anymore. I also don't bang on the table as much. Uh, so we we hear you. We're we're listening. As we go into next season, a lot of folks have asked us about whether we're going to do interviews. Uh the focus of this show is not to be an interview show. There are plenty of science podcasts that are interview shows. That being said, uh we do have plans to do some interesting

1:12:50focus or or featurettes uh that will both be virtual and in person with labs or research teams in what they're working on. So we will be incorporating interview style content next year, but this is not the core focus of the show. The show is really meant to look at what is breaking research in the verticals and industries we're interested in and talking about those from first principles. That is still the fundamental DNA of the show and we want to stick and focus on making sure that that is our core entry point. However, >> uh we only had six months this year.

1:13:31Next year we have a full year >> and so we can splice in a couple of interviews >> uh and we have some good ones that I think you guys will enjoy uh quite a bit not least of which will be uh my my I've finally convinced my dad >> at a minimum uh who's a paracettologist Harvard postoc has had some incredible things he's done in his life uh to come on and talk about uh one of the things he discovered almost two decades maybe even three decades ago that is now actually going to be going into production by a pharma company and so that'll be at least one of them and we have a couple more that are exciting and if you are on a research team if you're

1:14:14a fan of the pod and you're a PhD a postoc uh the principal investigator and you would like us to talk about what you're researching >> please email us our email is available on the social platforms it'll be available on the website uh or shoot us a DM on any of the social platforms and let us know what you're doing. You know, we'd be happy to explore potentially having you guys on the pod and talking about your research. Again, this is not an invite for people who have created their own research paper on the side. Unfortunately, we have to keep it pegged to published or research institutions that are associated with either a university or a mainstream lab. That's

1:14:56just where our box is and what we're focused on. And so, Maybe some point in the future we can take folks not associated with that but that is currently our focus. So if you have sent us papers that you've created on your own, we appreciate it. This is just not the platform for those. Um and I'll wrap

Website + leaderboards launch

1:15:16up with our new website will go out for season 2. Our new leaderboards will also go out for season two. And uh we will have a new way to support the show via direct donation. Uh because again, there's only two people on the FFP team. >> It's literally just the two of us. >> It's just us. There's no production assistant. There's no editor. There's no social media person. There's no assistant. It's just us. >> It's a lot of work. >> And and so we, you know, doing a weekly show at this scale, video and audio also with the social distribution is is is quite a bit. And so all of the engagement, the best way you can support currently, share it with your lab. If you're in a lab meeting, research team

1:15:57meeting, talk about the show. >> Yeah, please. >> Please would love that. >> If you're on socials, share it in your DMs, repost it to your story, every little piece of engagement helps us battle the billionaire algorithm. We are trying to make science sexy. We're trying to make it popular and hip and expand it to more people. and all of you have been a huge help in helping get this show uh to reach I mean we're doing 3 million views on Instagram a month. We're doing a million on Tik Tok. >> It's just unbelievable. Again, the fastest growing we are one of the fastest growing science pods >> in the world. And that's all because of you, the audience, and we're incredibly

1:16:38grateful that the random chemistry that this friendship has around this has has really resonated with so many of you. >> It's been an incredible year. >> Yes, it really has. >> Um, and we're excited for next year. Uh, as always, I'm your host, Lester Nari, joined by the smartest and the best science communicator on the planet >> and our resident PhD, Krishna Chowdery.

Outro — see you next year, happy holidays

1:17:03We'll see you all next year. Happy holidays. And with that, the 2025 season has come to an end. This >> is from First Principles. [music]

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