Why Magnetic Monopoles SHOULD Exist

[@pbsspacetime]

From the Space Time Corrections Department (aka our always impressive fans) At 3:30, our representation of Maxwell's equations were incorrect. The correct equations can be viewed here: tinyurl.com/2td4v6hm And at 11:09, we mistakenly reused a photo of Gell-Mann instead of Alexander Polyakov. Polyakov's department photo can be seen here: phy.princeton.edu/people/alexander-polyakov

[@jocabulous]

Okay, this is epic.

[@captain_context9991]

As for USB plugs... They always fit on the third try. Pro tip: Try it once, does not fit. Flip it over, also does not fit. Flip it over again, always fits. Not even sure what law of physics is violated there.

[@_John_P]

What would be the possible technological applications for magnetic monopole particles?

[@captain_context9991]

@@_John_P You could make USB plugs that always point the correct way.

[@horsetuna]

A QUARK IS A SCANDINAVIAN DAIRY DISH.

[@mysticvitriol]

“Don’t underestimate the power of an obsessed physicist. The great Paul Dirac had a habit of discovering particles just by staring at the math.” That killed me

[@minderbinderful]

our brain is already a perfect quantum computer, i believe that our brains already worked out the maths of the universe and that's why the mind was necessary, there were no answers in that numbers.

[@trolloftime5340]

@@minderbinderful elaborate?

[@nobodyinparticular968]

@@minderbinderful slow down on the brownies

[@nobodyinparticular968]

@@mariogiunta1989 wrong person

[@WebstaMC]

@@mariogiunta1989 mate your talking to the wrong person

[@nocturnhabeo]

Hands down the clearest explanation of USB cables ever.

[@SoftSemtex]

the cable or the plug?

[@renerpho]

@@SoftSemtex Those are actually equivalent in some theories.

[@GustavoOliveira-gp6nr]

Usb? I thought he was talking about gravity

[@chriswarr641]

it fits so well...

[@patbluetree4636]

@@chriswarr641 Especially if you turn it up side down twice.

[@OrdenJust]

As a side note, it was the search for magnetic monopoles that led physicist Luis Alvarez to contribute to a theory of what led to the extinction of the dinosaurs: a huge meteorite strike. Luis was using detectors lifted into the atmosphere by balloons to capture cosmic ray particles, among which he hoped to find monopoles. He (or was it someone else doing similar experiments?) thought he might have found one too, but it turned out that Luis identified it to be a platinum (or was it iridium?) nucleus. No monopole after all, but that clued him in on the possible origins of the platinum/iridium in the C-T boundary that coincides with the fossil record of mass extinction. It seems that most platinum on earth has an extraterrestrial origin. Asteroid belt or something.

[@jellekastelein7316]

@OrdenJust Iridium, yeah.

[@hereforthefreewater]

Everything on earth came from space... lol

[@johndawson6057]

​@@hereforthefreewaterincluding earth itself

[@lestato]

​@@hereforthefreewater that's not the point mate

[@billyyank2198]

It is also possible that rather than possessing spin, USB plugs exist in a state of quantum superposition. Thus, turning the plug one way or the other will do no good; you must visually inspect the plug to collapse the waveform, and then you'll know which way to orient it for insertion.

[@MrLordZenki]

Schrödinger's USB

[@dolomighty74]

Never thought about that way. As a consequence, USB-C is its own antiparticle

[@leeshepherd834]

Underrated comment is underrated

[@H2SO4pyro]

Brilliant. This is my new headcannon

[@Septicemic-Fugue]

@@dolomighty74 in that sense, USB-C cables are superpositioned between constant annihilation and constant recombination. It is literally every single elementary particle and a USB-C cable at the same time.

[@farfa2937]

"Everything not forbidden is compulsory" sounds like the physics formulation of rule 34

[@LilliHerveau]

I like this.

[@lakodamon]

It is. Anything consistent with physical laws is inevitable (mathematical improbability will never be great enough for SOMEONE not to do it). No exceptions. No "Rule 35" qualifier.

[@JorgetePanete]

@@lakodamon What about Rule 63? For every particle there is an opposite antiparticle ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[@lukedavis6711]

@@LilliHerveau it's from constructor theory

[@angeldude101]

@@JorgetePanete There are some particles that are their own antiparticle. Even physics says enbies are valid!

[@SteveMould]

Great video! You should definitely put links on the description to those past videos you mentioned

[@inx1819]

helo

[@LordQueezle]

Hi Steve. :)

[@BigCroca]

Meve stould

[@dog1783]

steve how sick is this channel tho

[@nenmaster5218]

@@LordQueezle The Learning never ends, so call it silly, but i do have the hobby of asking people if i an recommend them science-chanenl or just education-channel in general to them! Mind if i do?

[@pastek957]

In RF engineering, there are some situations where it's way easier to shift the problem to an "anti-world" where magnetic monopoles exist and electric monopoles don't (If I remember correctly it's very useful when dealing with slot antennas, where you can replace the cut in the conductor with magnetic currents) Anyway, it's been some time since I had to do it but I had a blast every time I had to consider using a parallel universe to calculate something!

[@karlbischof2807]

lol, also nice pfp

[@captainharpoon]

Can't wait for friday.

[@jeffbenzos6344]

@@captainharpoon your mom can’t wait for friday

[@MarkusAldawn]

what possible problem would you be working on where going to a bizarro world makes the maths _easier?_ and can I go there?

[@MarkusAldawn]

@@captainharpoon anti-Garfield's catchphrase

[@otakuribo]

"Actually, quantum mechanics forbids this." "Or does it?" **cue Vsauce music*

[@legender576]

I love that guy

[@arsenicuu]

hehehe they're aware of the meme x3

[@js46644]

Vsauce has music?

[@Pllayer064]

"I don't know, I'm not a quantum physicist, so let's talk about holes instead. Doughnut holes."

[@js46644]

@@Pllayer064 now that's something I can understand!

[@KaiHenningsen]

Actually, this magnet slicing thing reminds me about how there can be no isolated quarks: if you split (say) a pair of quarks, you need to put in enough energy to create two new quarks, so you end up with two pairs of quarks. Maybe those monopoles are similar?

[@supermendi0078]

It isn’t the same thing, when you slice a magnet you get two new magnetic dipoles because actually the magnet itself is a combination of millions of dipoles, in reality there are no new magnetic poles appearing, it’s just that they were always there to begin with, each atom being essentially a magnetic dipole itself, and it doesn’t end there, there’s quantum mechanics involved in the magnetic momentum of each atom, the values for these are quantized. Overall, it’s dangerous to draw conclusions from quantum mechanics because of how hard it is to interpret its math physically, for example, if the math says there can be no isolated quarks we can either interpret that as it being impossible to separate them entirely or as them being separable, but new quarks will instantly spawn into existence attached to those quarks you just separated, and you can say that the energy used to separate them was converted into mass. So yeah, it’s real hard to draw accurate conclusions from the math involved in quantum mechanics.

[@bigsmall246]

@@supermendi0078 I thought new quarks ALWAYS spring into existence when you try to separate quark pairs, due to quark-gluon interactions?

[@ok9176]

This is not a correct analogy by any means. The issue with splitting a pair of quarks is due to the strong force.

[@spikkelkip8128]

@@bigsmall246 correct

[@jakublizon6375]

No. Electrons for example have quantum spin. Spin is somewhat analogous to angular momentum. This means every electron itself has a magnetic dipole. Quarks confinement is caused by the gluons of the strong force. Unlike photons that have no charge, and do not *generally* interact with one another, gluons have a color charge, the same color charge quarks have. When you pull a quark, a gluon flux tube develops. It's like a rubber band. Eventually the energy you have put into the system, which is manifesting as a flux tube, reaches a critical point. The flux tube decays into an anti-quark, and a new shorter flux tube binds the new anti-quark with the original quark. I am greatly oversimplifying here, but that is the general idea.

[@AverageAlien]

I misread the title as "magnetic monopolies" and was wondering why this guy would want a few magnet companies to control the market of magnets

[@koenth2359]

Talking about monopolist magnAtes?

[@1.4142]

Magnetic monopoles don't exist. ... Or at least that's what big magnet wants you to think.

[@nenmaster5218]

@@1.4142 The Learning never ends, so call it silly, but i do have the hobby of asking people if i an recommend them science-chanenl or just education-channel in general to them! Mind if i do?

[@Nomad-sw4uy]

@nenmaster5218 I'm not the guy you're asking, and this is three years old, but I like your ethos and attitude so I'll trade ya: Journey to the Microcosmos - Narrated by Hank Green of Crash Course fame, this is essentially a series of nature documentaries with a twist: they're about microbes. I'd recommend finding their playlist and watching the videos in order for the best viewing experience. Astrum - Interesting stuff on physics and space, sort of along the lines of the stuff covered here, but a bit more summarical. He's got a good video on the strange behaviour of light. Paleo Analysis - specifically, his "History of the Earth" series, an ongoing series of summaries of every one of the Earth's eras, starting from the very beginning. He's a Paleontologist so he absolutely knows his stuff. Clint's Reptiles - Biology. While his channel might look like it's all about pet reptiles when you first visit, check out his playlists: he's got one on the phylogeny of all life and how everything living on earth is related to one another-- Clint is an evolutionary biologist and a great presenter. Miniminuteman - Archaeology. Makes great deep dives into the history of both well known and obscure archaeological sites. He also uses his expertise to debunk myths and charlatans that don't get the facts straight about various archaeological topics, and those are great watches too. Professor Dave Explains - Science communicator who gives you the lowdown on various topics you might want to learn more in depth about. Dave knows his stuff. I hope this sates you, friend and fellow learner! Feel free to reply with your own. Have yourself a great day / evening !

[@rikarch]

In the mid seventies there was some uncorroborated evidence of the existence of a magnetic monopole. I was in graduate school in Physics at Florida State University. Paul Dirac was a professor at FSU. He graciously gave a seminar describing his work on predicting the existence of the Magnetic Monopole (I was also fortunate enough to have had him as a guest lecturer in my Quantum Mechanics class, where he explained how he predicted the existence of the positron, but that is another story for another time). As you so elegantly explain, he demonstrated on the chalkboard how the quantization of electric charge led to his prediction. One uniquely interesting moment was when he reached into his pocket to pull out a scrap of paper that had Maxwell's equations written on it (no memorization of formulas required). His explanation was simple, clear and precise as though anyone could have come up with it. It was a true sign of genius. With that aside, my understanding of magnetism is that it is a relativistic side effect of a moving electric field. This strikes me as a simpler explanation that the invention of yet another required fundamental force. How does this coincide with the existence of a magnetic monopole?

[@davidhand9721]

There are a bunch of different ways to think about magnetic fields, but both the relativistic and quantum mechanical picture are encapsulated in QFT's A field. I'm not sure enough about the QFT math to give you a better explanation, but as I'm sure you are aware, QFT is fully (special) relativistic, so there is definitely no conflict with the relativistic EM picture. The A field, however, is not burdened with the illusory distinction between the electric and magnetic fields. It just transforms like any other four vector.

[@ynntari2775]

so, basically: make the poles really far apart so that for our current human scale they can be approximated as monopoles.

[@flexico64]

Pretty much what I was thinking too!

[@user-sc8ph2ds2m]

Yep, the antarctic ice wall in our reality. Research Flat Earth and everything will become clearer.

[@rekik2936]

@@flexico64 me too😂

[@slkjvlkfsvnlsdfhgdght5447]

that's the beginning of it, but there's more: if what's connecting those momopoles is undetectable, then that means it is virtually nonexistent, and so only the monopoles themselves canntruly he said to have concrete existence

[@KrasBadan]

Polish government really hates this one simple trick

[@slimee8841]

I imagine physicists trying to discuss funding with policymakers after this "So, why do you need millions of dollars and the electricity of a small country again?" "To make magnets without one of the poles" "Right...."

[@gamemeister27]

Millions, more like tens of billions, maybe hundreds

[@profdc9501]

Well, we're using lots of electricity for bitcoin mining, so if you could somehow turn particle collision data into cryptocurrency, it would be an easy sell.

[@SoftSemtex]

@Toy we call it the "hard0n" and finally have a functioning world currency

[@darealpoopster]

The LHG runs on 5 watts. Not that much power

[@SoftSemtex]

@@darealpoopster mhm. it's actually just a single light bulb

[@samblitz1527]

There's a mistake in Maxwell's equations at 3:34. The second equation should read (on the right hand side) the negative time derivative of B, and the right hand side of the third equation should be zero.

[@govind20231]

I came in to say the same thing. Del dot B should be 0.

[@insanecreeper9000]

I assume what happened was that the equations were meant to be ordered as del dot E, del dot B, del cross E, del cross B, but someone mixed up the middle two by mistake. Easily done though, I have a few copying errors from my Electromagnetism module in exactly the same order they're listed in the video above,

[@govind20231]

@@insanecreeper9000 agreed

[@qewqeqeqwew3977]

Right sides of the Eq. 2 and 3 are swapped.

[@PeagmaticDreamer1199]

Exactly. Was going to write a comment but decided to first check if anyone noticed it in comments.

[@dan9948]

I love how much scientific rigor is put into both the presention & the humor (USB cables). That's the cherry on top for these already very enjoyable and mentally stimulating videos :)

[@mr22guy]

You know when you're working on your car, and you find a threaded hole with no bolt in it and no part mounted to it? And you're like, ah that must be for some option my car didn't come with, or some feature that the factory was going to integrate but never finished developing. Theoretical topological discontinuities in the Higgs field are like the extra threaded holes of our universe and magnetic monopoles are that novel feature that we never got.

[@BigCroca]

Car bolt blah blah

[@bexexexe]

they're God's hardpoint and we're working on the attachment

[@valiroime]

Or… what ever was bolted to that mounting point had rattled lose and fallen away years ago.

[@ahumanperson3649]

God just didn’t get the magnetic monopoles dlc smh

[@commenteroftruth9790]

so youre implying there is a slot open for it to exist, but it just doesnt? and we dont know what fills that slot. That sounds pretty stupid, implying theres a blank space in reality. stuff would just implode if that were the case loool.

[@fujatv503]

The moment Matt said "But what about Quantummechanics..." I knew I'm going to question my whole education and wonder if my degrees are worthless

[@chadmarsh5356]

yes, yes they are. the degrees anyway, the education just wasn't worth the price you paid. If you make a discovery no one can dispute, than what does it matter that a school said you are capable of making it? a degrees only benefit is that you don't have to prove yourself as knowledgeable in a subject because you have an institute's certification backing that you are.

[@peircedan]

I don't think so. If monopoles are so very massive that the energy requirements to make them are unattainable then they don't make much difference. At least not to an engineer.

[@dritemolawzbks8574]

There's so much you can do with that art appreciation degree.

[@Josh-iv2bw]

@@peircedan The unimaginative engineer maybe.. But man, you could make some interesting magnetic shielding with a magnetic monopole.

[@TJfromEarth]

lol somebody just wanted to mention they have degrees in the field haha

[@Capu57]

The USB part at the end was awesome not sure how you kept a straight face

[@Inception1338]

Legend

[@DoomSkullYT]

Just wanted to say I’ve now started my journey to become a real physicist! I’ve started university a few weeks ago studying physics with astrophysics. Thanks for keeping me interested in physics over the last few years!

[@mr.merlin1830]

Good luck!

[@Deciheximal]

Figure out what happens when the event horizon of a black hole meets the shrinking cosmic horizon of the Big Rip and let us know.

[@mausm7534]

I didn't get into physics until I was in my twenties so most of these concepts and maths go all the way over my head, but I wanted to tell you that I appreciate the hecc out of this channel and watch at least a few of your videos daily. I started watching Spacetime in hopes that I might start to understand some of it and after a month or so I'm starting to recognise words and names (but none of the math yet). I love learning and I love this channel, thank you so much for teaching people like me about space and time.

[@skilz8098]

The only way that the math will become familiar is by working out the problems. It's kind of like a function in an arbitrary programming language. You need to know what the "variables' represent and the various different ways they can be calculated unless if they are a known constant. Then it's a matter of knowing which operations are being applied to them that gives you the definition of its output. Here's a simple geometry equation: A = (1/2)*b*h. You should recognize this, but to demonstrate what I've mentioned above we can change this into a function f(A) = 0.5*b*h. Here f(A) is your output and this represents Area. Then (1/2) or 0.5 is a constant of one half very straightforward. Next we have b which is the length of the base leg of a given triangle, and finally h is the height of that triangle where b and h are perpendicular or orthogonal to each other. In programming it might look something like this in C/C++: struct Vertex { Vertex() : x_{0.0}, y_{0.0}, z_{0.0} {} Vertex(double x, double y, double z) : x_{x}, y_{y}, z_{z} {} double x_; double y_; double z_; }; // functions to perform calculations or vertices or vectors. class Triangle { // Vertex A; Vertex B; Vertex C; Triangle() : A{ Vertex() }, B{ Vertex() }, C{Vertex() } {} Triangle( Vertex v1, Vertex v2, Vertex v3 ) : A{v1}, B{v2}, C{v3} {} // member functions for finding length of each leg, calculating the angles between any two legs... } // you could even define this within the triangle's class as a member, but I defined it outside so that it would stand out. double find_area( Triangle& t ) { // pseudo code to create 2 lambda's here to calculate triangle t's base and its height auto base = [](){}; // calculate the base auto height = [](){} // calculate the height return (base*height*0.5); } Higher level maths are no different. Just more terms, variable names, etc... but all of operations or operators are for the most part the same. Nearly everything in mathematics and your sciences from physics to chemistry and even biology is an expanded form of 1+1=2. In fact all mathematics are embedded in y=x which is the identity equation, but that's a topic or discussion for another day.

[@chrishorst2124]

"If there are magnetic monopoles, then electric charge is quantized" is logically equivalent to, "If electric charge is not quantized, then there are no magnetic monopoles," not, "If electric charge is quantized, there are magnetic monopoles." A statement is equivalent to its contrapositive, not its converse.

[@michaelmann8800]

Correct. However, if the original statement is actually "Magnetic monopoles exist if and only if electric charge is quantized," then its converse is true.So, it maybe that he meant the bidirectional statement, which would have been equally sloppy on his part.

[@andrewmcqierry4542]

I have built several permanent monopoles Dirac was correct

[@andrewmcqierry4542]

I have built several permanant magnet monopoles Dirac was correct in 1932 lecture

[@michaelmann8800]

@@andrewmcqierry4542 Oh really? And where have you published your work? What was the procedure, and how did you verify that you had monopoles? There should be some information to back up this kind of claim.

[@andrewmcqierry4542]

@@michaelmann8800 how rude its really simple look at what Dirac said he is totally correct i didn't do it I just followed directions if you can read read it for your self

[@QDWhite]

Matt: they say Quantum Mechanics forbids this Everyone: who says that? Matt: I do

[@polygondwanaland8390]

The Royal They

[@kaizokujimbei143]

Matt is Quantum Mechanics, confirmed. ^^

[@djbenje4019]

This guy Matt O'Dowd is pure garbage. I've heard him say so many things that are flat-out FALSE, he can't even be called a "scientist".

[@QDWhite]

@@djbenje4019 haha, good one.

[@Pho7on]

Woh, really appreciate you bringing out the first-year physics equations out to help connect to these higher-level concepts. Nice!

[@tanmaykotian8236]

When's the "why magnetic monopoles should NOT exist" dropping?

[@Qexilber]

Same thought here right after reading the title

[@mrnarason]

Lack of experimental evidence KEKW

[@hugmynutus]

@@mrnarason theorists BTFO

[@Xeridanus]

Typically they drop a week apart so keep an eye out next week.

[@bigfloppa2319]

@@hugmynutus Experimental physics. Theorist worst nightmare.

[@achronicblunt]

Matt is such a wonderful teacher. The inevitable QCD episode is one of my most anticipated events. It's more exciting than movies or whatever else is out there to be released

[@posadist681]

Forgive me but what does QCD stand for?

[@djbenje4019]

This guy Matt O'Dowd is pure garbage. I've heard him say so many things that are flat-out FALSE, he can't even be called a "scientist".

[@achronicblunt]

@@djbenje4019 dude's like the Santa Claus of physics learnings. Try a "thank you" bro you'll live longer.

[@falcon_arkaig]

@@djbenje4019 bro what lies please tell them 🥺🥺

[@parkerschmitt1594]

Can Matt make a channel where he teaches qcd with all formalism?

[@NoiseWithRules]

The version of "Maxwell's Equations" you show is in 'Vector Calculus' notation, as developed by Gibbs and Heaviside long after Maxwell was dead. (Maxwell used quaternions.) Interestingly, Heaviside always calculated including the magnetic charge terms. He only set them to zero at the end.

[@DanHarkless_Halloween_YTPs_etc]

Thank you for that. Been awhile since I've had to touch vector math, and I was confused as to why "x" and "·" didn't both mean "multiply" here.

[@EclecticSceptic]

Yep Heaviside has been written out of history. If I recall correctly, Maxwell's equations numbered 24. Not exactly the elegant quartet with which we're familar.

[@dascientist8443]

@@DanHarkless_Halloween_YTPs_etc In a way, they do. You can model them as scalar and vector multiplication of a vector by Del (that upsidedown triangle), which basically represents a vector operator written as (ð/ðx, ð/ðy, ð/ðz) in Cartesian coords. Writing and thinking about them in this way makes calculating divergences and curls much easier I find.

[@carultch]

@@DanHarkless_Halloween_YTPs_etc The x and dot do mean multiply, but more than just standard multiplication. There is a relationship between del dot E (called divergence of E), and the dot product. There is also a relationship between del cross E (called curl of E) and the cross product. The del symbol is not really a number, but rather a vector of differentiation operators, each with respect to the coordinate directions of x, y, and z. The divergence notation means you differentiate corresponding components of the vector field, and add them up. Just as a dot product multiplies corresponding components of two vectors, and adds them up. Like work is force dot displacement. The curl notation is like a cross product, because you never differentiate the corresponding term, and instead have mixed terms of differentiation. You form a matrix with the coordinate unit vectors in the top row, the differential operators in the middle row, and the vector field components in the third row. Then you carry out operations along the diagonals, positive along down-right diagonals, and negative along down-left diagonals, to get the three components of the curl vector field. You do a similar thing for finding cross products, where you construct a similar matrix, and add up each of the three products along positive diagonals, and subtract each of the three products along negative diagonals.

[@IronFairy]

Is this going to be one of those where you release another companion video called "Why Magnetic Monopoles SHOULDN'T Exist" in a couple of days?

[@JMurph2015]

In all likelihood yes. Honestly I'm more optimistic for naked or semi-naked singularities than magnetic monopoles. Magnetic monopoles seem like one of those things that if real should be relatively common and detectable, while the hypothetical conditions for naked singularities seem extremely rare, and I'm not sure we would even know what one would look like if we saw it.

[@ferretappreciator]

I'm pretty sure monopoles should exist, it's just they were created very early in the creation of our universe, then cosmic inflation pushed them all to beyond our observable universe. I'm kinda stupid though, so idk

[@JMurph2015]

@@ferretappreciator are we really so "special" that essentially all magnetic monopoles (to our knowledge) were flung to "everywhere but here"? Remember the typical assumption is that we live in a roughly average patch of space.

[@fredthemanish]

@@JMurph2015 ahhh naked singularies, where astrophysicists go mental when the discussion comes up.

[@vyor8837]

I mean, they break the second law of thermodynamics

[@richardfarrer5616]

I was enjoying the education all through. The straight-faced discussion of USB cables as spin 2/3 particles at the end was just icing on the cake.

[@MarsStarcruiser]

“There outside the standard modal”😂

[@tekrunner987]

I'm sure glad that USB-C can easily be understood with a simple theory of quantum gravity.

[@crancowan8020]

It's a cute trick when you can make all the field from a solenoid disappear except for the end bits (aka 'monopoles').

[@Aliamus_]

Gordon doesn't need to hear all this, he's a highly trained professional!

[@PhillipAmthor]

Crowbar > Quantum physics

[@loturzelrestaurant]

@@PhillipAmthor I think people should recommend each other Science-channel just 'because'. Dont you think so?

[@PhillipAmthor]

@@loturzelrestaurant st0p being a b0t

[@loturzelrestaurant]

@@PhillipAmthor Thats not how ANY of this works

[@AndrewDotsonvideos]

Years of academy training WASTED

[@Nic3GreenNachos]

Buzz light-year?

[@kevinkonig3892]

That's why theoretical physics will never make a breakthrough with QM. It's fundamentally flawed but we spend so much time and energy into it. Feynmen says theoretical physics has given up on trying to explain the phenomena we observe. But we are also not ready drastically and fundamentally question the theory because we are afraid that that means our last 100 years of theoretical physics have been a waste. Theoretical physics today isn't much different from sci-fi. The math just relates to the real world and is more accurate.

[@alwayscurious413]

@@kevinkonig3892 - absolutely - think of all the time people have spent trying to apply a quantum / photon model to double slit interference and it simply does not and never will apply in that specific experiment. All that time asking how does the photon know which slit to go through etc

[@RedRocket4000]

@@kevinkonig3892 QM has been responsible for a ton of useful inventions in the same way Relativity allows us to get GPS to work and actually do things in space without wasting tons of fuel as the distances in space along with actually changing significantly the local gravitational environment means not using relativity will mean you will miss your target by a good deal using just Newton. Although at sea level newton has been very useful for a long time despite actually being flat out wrong in how things are happening. And now theoretical physics has not given up on it wholly although certain branches certainly have. In example the rise of pilot wave theory from almost non existence. So our disagreement is your thinking they totally spinning their wheels were I think way to many but in no means all are spinning their wheels. Part of the problem is pushing the math too far past the testable waiting for other science and engineering and world resources to make it to the point things are testable to give them new data to modify. It would help if press and scientists would stop stating things like they are certainties. Scientists already assign all the correct limiters to any others Scientists statement so wasting time using all the limiters while talking or reading is a waste of time but the limiters should always be used with the public. Example way way too many times I have hear a statement on the Universe is X years old without adding to the best of a consensus of a majority of scientists who are aware of things fully not explained that could change this by a little or massively. Massively less likely than little. Or shorter the Universe is X years old to current consensus but these things are always subject to change as more knowledge is gained. But creationists your stuff is disproven that not going to change.

[@J117-t2g]

@@kevinkonig3892 seriously? General Relativity was theoretical physics. You know? Your damn GPS?

[@dcterr1]

I think I learned more about magnetic monopoles from this video than I ever learned when I studied high energy physics in grad school! Great explanation!

[@NewMessage]

A monopole is just what we need to finally put Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook on the map!

[@otsigo]

Now I'm signing the song. Thanks for that.

[@danielemery906]

Mono......doh!

[@dougdouglas3696]

lmao, good one

[@frankdepina5967]

Screw Shelbyville

[@ARi-ht7su]

Ok, Boomer 🤣😜

[@Merennulli]

My problem with USB-C is that it's impossible to keep both ends entangled for very long. My phone in particular is very bad about observing them.

[@LuisSierra42]

Have you tried the decoherence plug?

[@vrushabhmhapankar3737]

Looking at Dirac’s theory Assuming a large & infinitely long solenoid in space where one end is Black hole and other end is a hypothetical white hole And emphasising on the theories that states that white holes and black holes being connected to each other Can this connection be a Dirac string? Assuming electrons travelling through the string have electric charge as integer of basic charge.

[@mathieuaurousseau100]

I can't get over the fact you said "simple theory of quantum gravity" with a straight face XD

[@Luna_Kirisame]

i did not know you could use those words in the same sentence.

[@TerranIV]

One of the reasons that magnetic monopoles would be so weird is that they might not have the same "charge" for all observers. For instance, you could have the situation where two monopoles looked like "northtrons" to one observer, a "northtron" and a "southtron," to another observer, and two "southtrons" to a third observer. This would make their behavior hard to square with the Equivalency Principal and, by extension, Relativity. I'm glad we are keeping our eye out for these reality-shattering particles, but I'm not holding my breath!

[@commenteroftruth9790]

are you implying that by viewing them they change, or are you saying that depending how you view them that they will look different?

[@josephpotila7386]

@@commenteroftruth9790 the latter

[@commenteroftruth9790]

@@josephpotila7386 well thats pretty basic

[@erawanpencil]

Is it possible that there are no magnetic monopoles because the entire universe is, in a way, one giant magnetic monopole?

[@ThingEngineer]

Thought experiment: we are all inside a magnetic monopole, ie. the universe. It is impossible to detect or measure since it is our reference. Our closest parallel universe shares the opposite pole. This is the nudge that caused our universe to be primarily devoid of anti-matter. Parallel universe pairs share many similarities, however quantum differences arise from their respective charge polarities.

[@wizardofki]

This is still interesting, but slowly SpaceTime is becoming a graduate-level conceptual seminar in physics. I feel like to keep watching and understand, I will have to complete at least an undergrad in math and physics. I do hope that future, budding physicists are inspired by this show.

[@princeofcupspoc9073]

Take your GREs (if you are in the US) and go to grad school. Don't waste it like I did. All I can do is make snarky comments about youtube videos.

[@backugai007]

Took me 3 years of undergrad physics to start understanding his videos, it’s tough.

[@StumpyDaPaladin]

@@backugai007 wait what? * I * can often understand his videos. But then i have been watching them for a few years now. And yet I had to take algebra 2 three times because i just couldn't understand the concept of Factoring. I only got a passing grade the third go around because the summer course was curtailed. And that was the end of my education in Mathematics. I think it is a testament to the script writer(s) that my understanding is even possible. Even if the Equations (when rarely referenced) are; often as not, so over my head it may as well be a foreign language. ( to extend the analogy: A foreign language that i some how understand its basic sentence structure and syntax but at the same time have almost no vocabulary)

[@nick.raptis]

I feel like that since the beginning of this channel, and look of all the things I learned along the way. It's science. The best learning happens at the edge of your current understanding, where you still go "Huh?"

[@markmatson]

I'm a bit surprised you got through this video without mentioning Special Relativity and how it creates magnetic fields out of electric charge. I guess from a quantum angle it doesn't matter, but it seems important. It certainly the reason why I never expected to see a monopole.

[@kumoyuki]

me too. but that work involves putting Maxwell's equations into SR, and his comment about Maxwell just assuming there were no magnetic monopoles kind of changes everything. Specifically, it means that the SR formulation only applies in a region where there are no magnetic monopoles ;)

[@ezfzx]

@@kumoyuki We always need to be careful with assumptions, and interpretations of assumptions. An assumption just means we're filling in some blanks to that we can try to continue moving forward; they are neither good nor evil. Maxwell didn't know about relativity, but his observational understanding of electromagnetism was good enough to predict the speed of light. So, my first instinctive reaction to someone like Maxwell assuming there were no magnetic monopoles, is the same as assuming there are no natural planets in the universe made entirely of cheese. Yes, it's "just" an assumption, but a pretty safe one. Einstein pre-dated the relative maturity of QM theory, but his completely independent development of relativity was entirely consistent with Maxwell, and explains with satisfaction (an experimentally) how magnetism is "simply" a relativistic by-product of moving electric fields. So, not only are their no magnetic monopoles, but the case could be made that magnetic fields exist in name only. When the day comes that someone creates an actual magnetic monopole, turning hypothesis into reality, I will be happy to revise my thinking (and teaching). But anything prior to that is just speculation ... equal in value to thoughts about natural planets in the universe made entirely of cheese.

[@10054]

It's like we're trying to persuade God to add monoelectromagnetism in the next update. Hopefully it doesn't become a Deluxe Bundle.

[@WormholeJim]

"The magnetic monopole. Of all the fantastical beasts of particle physics this is perhaps the most likely to actually exist." Some introduction, worthy of being included in the welcome speech for new acolytes in the temple of theoretical sciences. I say that with no ill will, on the contrary it is with the greates mirth. I really, really like that sentence. Love it! - Just wish the field itself was more conscious of what it is actually saying; the direction the scientific evolution is headed which is implied.

[@kingkilburn]

Your chroma keying is getting noticably better. Next up is white balance. If you haven't already, try using one of those color balance cards.

[@lorpen4535]

Idk, Matt looked kind of ill this episode, his nose was too colorless.

[@Pllayer064]

Oof

[@TactileCoder]

God damn! ease up Steven Spielberg!

[@kingkilburn]

@@TactileCoder I didn't say it's terrible. In fact I said the visual quality is getting better.

[@Silverwind87]

"Finally, I've found the first north monopole!" "Finally, I've found the first south monopole!" They then both bump into each other, and the two monopoles collide and become a regular dipole. "Aw, dangit."

[@pavelrozhkov3239]

A magnetic field is not the same as an electric field. The misconception about their similarity comes from the fact that they are often viewed superficially, as two vectors. But, the electromagnetic field is a 4-dimensional bivector, in which the electric and magnetic fields separately have different roles. This becomes clearer if we consider the electromagnetic 4-potential, in which the magnetic vector potential is only a projection onto the spatial axes of the electric scalar potential located in the moving frame of reference. This is just a mathematical coincidence that a 4-dimensional bivector can be represented in the form of two other 3-dimensional vectors, in smaller or larger dimensions this can no longer be done. 4-vector representation is more fundamental in this regard. The electromagnetic 4-potential is created in space-time in the same direction as the electric 4-current that creates it, which is also parallel to the 4-speed of the charged particle. For a particle to create only a magnetic potential, it must be a tachyon. Also, such a particle will still not create a magnetic field monopole, since its magnetic potential will have a zero rotor. It is even impossible to describe the electromagnetic potential of a magnetic monopole so that it is continuous. This is important because the electromagnetic potential is more fundamental than the electromagnetic field.

[@mykulpierce]

That's one of the problems with this philosophy about supersymmetry. They want to have a superficial balance of fundamental forces as they currently see them. Rather than accepting that they are either not symmetrical or the models are not correct.

[@Scribe13013]

That's what I was gonna say

[@pk_xiv2856]

This comment woke up my special relativity PTSD, and now everything is contracting and time is going slower…

[@sacr3]

@@mykulpierce it is unfortunate but that's how humans work, once they find a theory that somewhat works they stick to it and only provide funding to those who continue to push for it. Therefore science becomes a little bit stagnant before they are forced to change. We're in a time right now where change is being forced as we dig deeper into the quantum realm.

[@ivan-Croatian]

I don't understand AT ALL what this comment is about, but I'm giving it a thumb up because it sounds smart.

[@RyanOlander]

USB physics is now my favorite field of scientific interest.

[@MegaBrokenstar]

Re: neutron degeneracy, the problem is so many people are taught a version of the basic concept that goes something like “once it gets heavy enough, not even the Pauli exclusion principle can stop it” which implies that the principle is violated. What should really be taught is “once it gets heavy rain enough, electrons near atomic nuclei get forced inside, and the depletion of electrons removes support from the star”

[@QDWhite]

How do you reconcile magnetic monopoles with the fact that a magnetic field is just the relativistic perception of the electric field?

[@meleardil]

I cant prove of course (I would be world famous), but my physicist instinct suggests that there are no magnetic monopoles. In particles there is the "electric charge" which has polarity, and there is the "magnetic momentum" correlating with "spin" which has a "polarity". This has a sense of completeness by similarity to me. I think the main problem is that we do not completely know what the magnetic field REALLY is, so we try to use the same "source + propagation" QED model which had the great success for electric charges. Bot for that we need a "monopole" just the reduce the mathematics to the same basics. But I don't think we really need it. This is just the model working down to a certain detail... below that there is something else we don't know yet.

[@mike-youknowtheone5670]

Because of the simple equation: quantum physics = magic

[@LoganKearsley]

That's no problem; the electric field is just the relativistic perception of the magnetic field, so if you discount magnetic monopoles on that basis, you should discount electrons as well.

[@AngDavies]

There is an interplay between the electric and magnetic fields -by changing reference frame you can make the magnetic field disappear along one direction, but it must be compensated by an increase in magnetic field in different directions, in fact even more magnetic field in those other directions, there is no frame where it disappears in all directions. Unless it is also charged- the magnetic field made by a moving charge can be mads to disappear by being in the reference frame in which it is stationary. The field produced by a coil of wire has frames where there is no charge, thus there is always a residual msgnetism

[@richardsrichards2984]

No expert but a moving magnetic monopole if it exists would induce a dipole electric field...now imagine a world in which there are no electric charges..will they not believe that an electric field is just a relativistic effect of moving magnetic charges.To them the concept of a stationary electric charge will be only theoretical as magnetic monopoles are to us.

[@Demongornot]

So, magnetic monopoles from knots in Higgs field and after a quick search I found out that they could be either "pointing in" or "pointing out" making monopoles and anti-monopoles. So I have questions from this : 1) Are positive and negative polarity magnetic monopoles represented by monopoles and anti-monopoles, or are they both represented by the monopoles and the anti-monopoles give something else? 2) As opposite magnetic charges attract, a positively and negatively polarized monopoles couple would inevitably end-up together, but in this case, what would happen? *Would they cancel each other out? *Would they get infinitely stuck together, acting like a totally neutral thing? *Something else? 2.5) If positive and negative magnetic monopoles are different from monopoles and anti-monopoles, what would happen if a monopole and an anti-monopole meet?

[@dsdy1205]

Given the description of the Dirac string it seems monopoles and antimonopoles are basically positive and negative; if that's so then my guess is if the two ends met you'd basically get a completely undetectable dirac torus, so uhm I guess they'd annihilate?

[@Demongornot]

@@dsdy1205 That's what I find the most logic. They get stuck together and act as if nothing was there or cancel each other out. In such a case, would there be a link with quantum fluctuation? Maybe those pairs are everywhere, and sometimes they get slightly out of alignment one with the other and give the illusion of a particle+anti-particle pair popping in and out of existence?

[@jasonreed7522]

The pointing in/out is just how mag fields work, they flow from north to south (earths field is currently upsidedown btw). And since they attract i would assume they would attempt to become super imposed, the question is what happens on contact. Do they stick together like magnetized balls and if so how big are they (you would theoretically detect this dipole with an axis of 1 monopole diameter, which is probably super insanely hard to sort out from all other background noise). Other options are merging together the way an electron + a proton = a neutron, or they could phase into eachother which while wierd would also make it impossible to detect the cancelled out "magnetic charge". Granted i don't think they exist because magnetic fields are a result of moving electric charges and not a fundamental property like gravity or electrostatic charges. (And gravity is weird for not having negative values only positive mass)

[@DnastyHypnosis]

I think that dipoles work on the same principle as electrons flowing through a circuit. You cannot have a monopole because that would be the same thing as having a positive or negative part of a power source, since there is no flow, there is no force. This may also explain the second law of thermodynamics as energy flows from hot to cold, dipoles can only work when there is transfer of energy.

[@d3vitron779]

Well not to mention magnetism is just electrostatic attraction with relativity considered, and you would need to break geometry to see something receding or approaching from every angle around it

[@tesmat1243]

Yes magnet are created by moving charges that is how solenoids work.

[@zweisteinya]

It was called magnetic flux, or fluid

[@DnastyHypnosis]

@@d3vitron779 ah

[@technocore1591]

When Maricourt was about to cut his first magnet in half were people afraid he would destroy the Earth?

[@jeremy4461]

Yes. Yes they were.

[@Luna_Kirisame]

i'd imagine there's a lot of experiments that scared people that way.

[@LuisSierra42]

He was a death eater

[@KingMut16]

Given the description of the Dirac string, would it be accurate to assume that positive and negative monopoles would be equal in number, and would they be paired like entangled particles?

[@SladeShadows]

Sounds like a genius workaround

[@merykjenkins3274]

I've got a whole drawer full of these. I call them "bar magnets".

[@abcdss1806]

The dirac string is not a monopole though, it's just a big magnet. I don't get too much of the explanation of the monopoles in the quantum examples, my first idiom is not english after all, but for a north monopole to exist, it needs to create magnetic field, and a south monopole needs to delete it (maybe if you transform that magnetic field from, or in, other energy, it works too) The dirac string just moves the magnetic field from the south part, to the north part trought the string, so, even if the poles are far away, they still are conected, so its not a monopole. Also, this is an opinion of mine, but i don't think that the magnetic field can be transformed in other energy, but i don't know what the magnetism really is and from where come from.

[@SladeShadows]

@@abcdss1806 thats because magnets are incomprehensible, their poles can never be separated every time there's a north pole the inequality cancels out because it causes another pole at the opposite end that's why it's such a big deal because even if you break a magnet in half it's polarized by definition that's what separates magnets from non-magnets.

[@AwfulnewsFM]

@@abcdss1806 magnetic fields are not energy. The Dirac string is observationally equivalent to two electric monopoles but for magnetism

[@Achrononmaster]

@11:00 The 't Hooft-Polyakov monopole is a soliton which has a smooth structure right down to r=0, it does not require a topological "defect," or, if you like, it is the defect itself. It can occur in any model with symmetry breaking, so does not require a Higgs.

[@QDWhite]

12:04 when I hear that a speculative idea is saved by yet another speculative idea, I instantly think “epicycles on epicycles”.

[@danieljensen2626]

A little speculation is okay as long as it's not dominating an entire field.

[@QDWhite]

@@danieljensen2626 You can say it out loud - string theory

[@cherubin7th]

Epicycles is just an approximation method similar to Fourier transform. Nothing wrong with that.

[@fredthemanish]

Yeah good luck. Use that 11 dimension to prove something that cannot exist in any other dimension.

[@QDWhite]

@@cherubin7th With the benefit of hindsight we know that now, but in its time it was considered the be-all-and-end-all of celestial theories.

[@ericvilas]

I'm early enough to notice the error in Maxwell's equations at 3:30 :P

[@stasbucik6234]

error

[@Inception1338]

Btw. If I remember correctly, then there was discussions about rot B not being zero which leads to that scalar waves /energy discussion. Konstantin Meyl was one Electrophysisist from Germany was active on the Topic. He also traced everything back to vortex structures. - when talking about modifying the maxwell laws, I suggest having a look at his work.

[@antoniocaamano5115]

Fantastic content. Just a small correction: The photo you posed from Blas Cabrera Navarro is actually from his father, Nicolás Cabrera, also a Spanish physicist. Keep up with the great work!

[@borisbozhkov9980]

This is actually awesome. I just started my Masters project 2 weeks ago on magnetic monopoles and everything that has been said in this video is everything that I’m doing. Talk about a happy coincidence. Great video!!! You’re making me more excited for my project!!

[@Amariarv]

This is my PhD thesis and yes! It is such an interesting topic!

[@ancientbuilds3764]

You can't SEE a monopole in our spacetime. It can only exist if you are 90° to it. All magnets are monopoles depending on you're viewpoint. And yes, you can phase 90 if you want. It's called induced split dynamics. You lot are going to have a great time when you figure it out. Which you are extremely close to doing. Easy way of visualizing: grab a bar magnet and look at it from above. Usual stuff. Now hold it directly in your line of sight. Singular pole. Especially when it is shifted 90° in dead center laterally. Instead of field lines, you get wall fields that the facing field lines can normalize into.

[@connecticutaggie]

So, under the conjecture of Dirac's String, would magnetic monopoles have to exist in pairs?

[@chriskennedy2846]

I look at the improbability of finding MM in this way: +/- charge can be either / or for any fundamental particle that carries charge. When you finally get to just 1 electron, it is just negative only. But try to do the same with N/S magnetism of just one electron and you can't. In a magnet you get alignment of many spin up electrons that aren't equally counteracted with the same amount of spin down. So we have an organized net magnetic field emanating from a group of iron atoms (for example). But continue to isolate down to a single spin up electron in an iron atom or even the individual atom itself and you won't ever find N without S. That's how I look at this problem.

[@pyro1813]

Perhaps, there is something wrong with the Dirac string concept.

[@HeyIFoundACamera]

"GUT theories," the physicist's equivalent of "ATM machines."

[@mateusnicolinibezerra9757]

Lmao

[@Pepsimaximo1]

@@mateusnicolinibezerra9757 true but GUTs would sound a little janky

[@nkchenjx]

What if we assume that there is only a magnet and no electricity? All particles are curled-up magnets that have angular momentum. The charges are consequences of the asymmetric rotation of the two poles and the chiral fields surrounding them? Thus we don't need to search for monopoles, the charges are.

[@jezaiavanderwatt9256]

I love learning about magnets, they're continuously fascinating.

[@slevinchannel7589]

Mind if i recommend my fellow Science-Fans some Stuff? Science or just Education in General or even just Fun in General?

[@triplezgames3882]

Somehow I expected a pun :(

[@joelhaggis5054]

5:30 He did it, he said the line

[@oblonghas]

Not that I don’t love this channel, but it’s also the best sleepytime channel

[@deathscreton]

The Dirac String on the surface, sounds like spooky action at a distance.

[@shardator]

That is EPR (entanglement), this is more like ER (wormholes). Ok, some think that those are the same (like Susskind).

[@whichgodofthousandsmeansno5306]

There are people who think magnetism is spooky action at a distance and that gravity doesn't exist. They had trouble with 5th grade level physics.

[@deathscreton]

You aren't traveling down a Dirac string. It's more like you take a measurement of one end of the string, a single monople, then you instantly know the value of the other end. They aren't connected in any fundamentally detectable way, you can only know the value of one if you measure it, and based on what I'm seeing here, they can be stretched infinitely apart. That screams Entanglement, not Einstein-Rosen bridges.

[@shardator]

@@deathscreton you aren't traveling down wormholes either. There are theories which assume equivalence of emitted particle-antiparticle pairs and Planck-scale wormholes.

[@OuroborosVengeance]

@@shardator some? Lol no, they are mathematically the same, susskind really did showed that they are equivalent

[@Darkblitz9]

I'm sure someone's already mentioned it but: 11:09 , that's Gell Mann's picture again instead of Polyakov

[@douglasstrother6584]

"Classical Electrodynamics" (2nd ed.) by J.D. Jackson contains an interesting discussion on Magnetic Monopoles in §6.12 "On the Question of Magnetic Monopoles" and §6.13 "Discussion of the Dirac Quantization Condition" plus references in the bibliography.

[@t00by00zer]

There is no particle associated with magnetism. A magnetic field results from a moving charge. That field is a vortex, therefore an "in" and an "out." It's a torus.

[@oldbloke135]

Not strictly true. The Maxwell / Faraday equation says curl(E) = -dB/dt where E and B are vectors that I can't write properly! So it is a time varying electric field rather than a moving charge that is needed to generate a magnetic field. There is no charge in a radio wave. The time varying E field and B field maintain each other.

[@t00by00zer]

@@oldbloke135 however, a "static" magnetic field has the shape of a torus. What we call a magnet is a vortex. What maintains the vortex in an atom of iron for example? The N/S physics of the field of the atom is there at all times. The aether, that thing which "waves," is the discarded but essential missing piece to the physics of fields.

[@richardsrichards2984]

@@oldbloke135 good...just 1 question . What is current bt a derievative of the electric field....derievative=rate of change as we know.

[@pyro1813]

How many gluon fields are associated with quarks?

[@t00by00zer]

@@pyro1813 as many as they think they need for a particle they will never find.

[@KatieK-OnYt]

I know this wouldn't be a mathematical magnetic monopole, but imagine with me for a second; You have a sphere made of a very solid material. You drill countless holes into the sphere in a symmetrical fashion. You install hooks with springs in each hole, so that when you insert a specially manufactured rod into the hole, it would get caught by the hook, and can't be pulled out anymore. Say these rods where magnets, and you'd isert them all with the south pole facing toward the inside of the sphere. Sure, the more you put it, the harder it should become, since they start to repel each other, but the force can't be infinite. Eventually you have an object with only the north poles facing outward. Would that have any viability?

[@Z1ncanTungsten]

I *believe* that this is fine because the field lines would line up such that there us net 0 flux through the sphere (e.g. the sphere would be attractive and repulsive to a + charge at different points on its surface)

[@KatieK-OnYt]

@@Z1ncanTungsten @Z!nc & Tungsten I'm assuming you're talking about a specifically directed magnet, since unmoving electric charges do not interact with unchanging magnetic fields. If I understand you correctly, you mean that the field lines of the sphere are non-homogeneous and add up to a net of 0? How would any of the south field lines point out from the center of the sphere?

[@Z1ncanTungsten]

@@KatieK-OnYt because each rod has its own magnetic field lines which go through the sphere, and charged particles will travel along those lines. Adding more charged rods will only make the zones where the field goes in or out smaller if I am thinking about this correctly

[@5ty717]

I loved the ending you did on USB cables… lol… perfect Matt.

[@garybeharrie]

im sure hundreds of years of science never thought of this: are we not looking at magnets incorrectly... meaning take a piece of string, we see 2 separated ends of the string, so we cut it in half to get each end on it's own, but at the moment we half the string, each half instantaneously created a "top" and "bottom" end again. there is not 2 ends of the string, just the string itself. cutting it just keeps creating more strings. so instead of us seeing a north and south pole, we are actually just seeing "M" for magnet and halving "M" just makes more "M's". "N" & "S" is what we invented in our heads.

[@uninspired3583]

The magnet exerts a measurable force in the area around it. What were saying here is that measurable force changes as we split the magnet. Early in this very video, he explains this with electric polarity. If you take the same shape as the magnet, and make one half positive charged and the other half negative, when you split them you end up with two pieces that are entirely charged either positive or negative. But this isn't what happens with magnets. Measuring the force this object applies before and after the split confirms this to be a real change in force, not just labeling something top and bottom

[@garethdean6382]

Right, but WHY can we do that? You can have a proton and electron making loops of electric current, 'strings' tying them together. But when you cut the string you don't get a new proton and electron on the ends of the two new strings. Why? An electron doesn't have a positive and negative end, but any magnetic field it creates has a north an south, WHY? Why is the magnetic field like a string when it seems it doesn't have to be?

[@cloudytheconqueror6180]

Magnetic monopoles would be so cool, Imagine several ball-shaped magnets, some colored red and some blue. The same colored ones repel each other no matter what, and a pair of differently colored ones will always attract each other.

[@bilalbaig8586]

We already have that. It is called electric charge.

[@Testgeraeusch]

Prof. Steve Barnett added a remark on the magnetic monopole during a conference once: If we assume magnetic charges/monopoles to exist, and assume that the ratio of magnetic to electric charge is fixed for any given piece of matter, then you can use the (then usually broken) Heaviside-Lorentz symmetry to find a mixing angle theta such that all resulting force fields are the same as without the magnetic charge. In other words: Adding the magnetic charge does not necessarily imply a "more symmetric theory"; it might be just be a gauge choice.

[@ByHugo99]

Maxwell’s equations at 3:30 are wrong. Left hand side of 2 and 3 should be swapped

[@ErikLevin]

Every major hardware store carries an assortment of magnets. So while they aren't forbidden by the laws of economics, in practice I think there are no magnetic monopolees.

[@umamaheshwaranl8554]

laws of economics?

[@chir0pter]

you guys do such a good job on these

[@PaulPaulPaulson]

I bought every magnet and every magnet producer on earth, yet I somehow couldn't establish a magnetic monopole. I wish I had watched this video earlier.

[@WindsorMason]

👏

[@feynstein1004]

Lmao mate

[@SoftSemtex]

you missed one

[@douggale5962]

This is a great example of physicists coming up with elaborate convoluted explanations of things which they wish existed, but have never observed.

[@dsdy1205]

Define "observed"

[@douggale5962]

@@dsdy1205 Detected in reality.

[@dsdy1205]

@@douggale5962 Your mileage may vary on what counts as "detected" though. If someone came to you with a giant list of numbers that went through 5 years of processing to arrive at the answer would that qualify?

[@JosefHabdank]

pretty much this is how all science is created. You imagine things existing and look for them and wow, sometimes actually you were right :)

[@gallowglass719]

So... they're doing physics, where postulations must occasionally be made, *as in any other science*? You understand that to find "things" in reality you must often first postulate these "things", correct? Instead of taking umbrage with the scientific method, maybe read up on how science is actually *done*.

[@OMNI_INFINITY]

Basically macro dioole magnets are supposedly the macro edition of the electron’s “intrinsic quantum spin” and that SUPERPOSITION supposedly collapses into a dipole mode when interacted with, so SUPERPOSITION state IS conceptually a MONOPOLE. Channeled that right now, so let Me know if I won a Nobel Prize for that👍🏻

[@fvckyoutubescensorshipandt2718]

Sounds like the particle physics version of hunting for Bigfoot.

[@SoftSemtex]

i saw a picture of a monopole once. it was kinda blurry, and it kinda waved to the camera

[@UtahSustainGardening]

Monopoles and dark matter are hanging out together in a dive bar in Salt Lake City!

[@ceddavis]

There’s a bar in Salt Lake City?

[@daviddougherty5714]

Loved the bit of humor at the end. I submit that a discussion of the many species of USB-C cable deserves an episode of its own. We certainly could use some guidance in dealing with the damn things, in particular the growing body of evidence that the theorized external monitor exclusion principle is real.

[@latifoljic]

Do the GUTs that predict monopoles predict them to form in pairs like the pairs of monopoles connected by virtual strings that Dirac predicted? Also would massive monopoles very quickly just annihilate themselves by crashing into eachother, or could they be likely to orbit each other to become effectively a spinning dipole magnet?

[@pyro1813]

What would be the strength of the coupling constant for a GUT magnetic monopole? How would it compare to the value for the fine structure constant alpha? What is "The Power of Alpha"?

[@simonmultiverse6349]

There is a game called "Twister" which involves people putting their hands and feet on specified coloured circles on a large plastic sheet. The game is played by generating random numbers using a die, or a spinning disc to select body part and colour. This seems to be the ideal model of quantised spin and charge. Could the inventors of this game be trying to tell us something fundamental about subatomic physics and associated quantised properties such as mass, spin, colour and charge?

[@user-rm2qj2jh4l]

I love physicists; Spaghettification, Super Massive Black Holes, and now The Hedgehog Configuration.

[@brixomatic]

Wait, following the animation, shifting the wave by one phase and recombining it would not exactly keep the wave packet unaltered, it would just make it harder to observe. The recombined packet in the animation has shifted peaks and appears as if the amplitude raise and drop is slower, i.e. the location of the particle just got a tad more uncertain, didn't it?

[@HH-mw4sq]

My take away is that "magnetic monopoles" are the "snipes" of the physics world? Something physics professors and graduate students send the incoming freshmen to hunt for while on physics camping trips.

[@slevinchannel7589]

Mind if i recommend my fellow Science-Fans some Stuff? Science or just Education in General or even just Fun in General?

[@MineTitanDragon]

I'm leaving a random comment, but someone might appreciate it: Monopoles would be extremely instable in chemical sense, if they exist, which honestly is very plausible, they would exist for an extremely short time. If we divide a magnet in 2, it will quickly become a dipop for stability (energy potential) reasons. But if we were able to measure in less time (probably under attoseconds), we might measure the predictes monopoles.

[@myothersoul1953]

What would a magnetic monopole even look like? When it moved would it create a electric field? With positive and negative charges or just one charge? Would it repel or attract a dipole? Like a water molecule? Would it be hydrophilic or a hydrophobes? If north monopole spotted a dipole could it entice the south to dipole with it? Leaving the other north to monopole on it's own?

[@nenmaster5218]

The Learning never ends, so call it silly, but i do have the hobby of asking people if i an recommend them science-chanenl or just education-channel in general to them! Mind if i do?

[@dontknow2371]

Does this mean, there should always be an even number of monopoles? (The same number of positive and negative ones?)

[@briansammond7801]

I was wondering the same thing.

[@plemli]

And what about the total electric charge of the universe, is it negative, exactly zero or positive ? An accountant can only be happy when meticulously tallying all the charges in the entire universe yields exactly zero.

[@ingoseiler]

@@plemli Why is there matter in the first place? If the same amount of matter and antimatter got created in the big bang, it should have annihilated to 0, but yet we have a little bit of matter left!

[@plemli]

@@ingoseiler That's slightly different. Positive and negative electric charges are common and do not annihilate.

[@ingoseiler]

@@plemli Sorry, I did two steps at once here, so yes, charges don't annihilate, but antimatter is the same as matter, but with flipped charge. So why were there more positive Protons than Anti-Protons and more negative Electrons than Positrons? And did the cause for this disparity have the exact same effect on both hadrons and leptons? If that is the case, the charge in the universe should be 0.

[@assosiation]

As we know now, electron charge is shielded by virtual particles so we don't know it's 'actual' value and if it's in fact quantized

[@VGAstudent]

It makes me wonder if the quantum component of electromagnetism isn't a guon, in the example of trying to separate quarks, you generate enough energy to spontaneously create another pair of quarks. Doesn't that seem to someone that that is an incredible mechanical advantage somewhere? Isn't it an act of creating sub-atomic particles with nothing but space itself?

[@user-Loki-young0515]

maybe space is some kind of energy, like particles are just condensed energy

[@Xnoob545]

You're creating them from the energy you used to pull them apart

[@devdecker7812]

@@Xnoob545 the implications of that are immense , that’s the opposite of entropy . Particles came from the Big Bang and have been fading into pure energy… if pure kenetic energy can create particles then that’s the start of the ability to reverse entropy and create new matter from space

[@Kalimoor]

@@devdecker7812 yes but you lose more energy doing that

[@takashitamagawa5881]

Well, doesn't GUT predict proton decay as well? No one has seen that happen yet, for all the huge sums spent on detectors for such events.

[@garethdean6382]

Right, but it's not expected to be common. (And detectors for it are surprisingly cheap.) Standard nuclear physics predicts that lead should decay and we only detected bismuth's decay relatively recently. Some surprisingly iron-clad stuff is out there that's just really tricky to pick up.

[@talltroll7092]

Some do and some don't, but even ones that do predict ridiculously long lifetimes for protons, so it isn't surprising that we haven't seen one, and might not even if we spend a trivial amount of time like a million years looking

[@RedRocket4000]

GUT has several versions there are no agreed ones and there is no accepted version of GUT.

[@hosersupreme]

The USB cable part might just be the most entertaining scientific explanation I've ever heard

[@meekrab9027]

My man's developing a quantum theory of USB cables while Apple is just like "our cables are symmetric under 180 degree rotation."

[@unbounded_intellect]

All the magnetic monopoles in the universe exist inside a black hole's event horizon.

[@idontknowmyfirstname69]

That only might make sense if there's an equal number of positive and negative monopoles... If the numbers are not equal then the black hole itself becomes one gigantic monopole as if I'm not mistaken they can possess an electromagnetic field

[@rowangallagher4579]

the pure, dry sarcasm on that USB question both made it technically correct and infinitely funny.

[@astralshore]

Summarizing what I’ve just heard, it kinda seems like it’s still a coinflip, but physicists really WANT them to exists because the implications are cool?

[@johnnamkeh1290]

It seems to me it's one of those predictions for such extreme conditions that observing it would prove and show more about such extreme conditions (e.g it ll probably help learn about cosmic expansion if there is a measurable, definite background of magnetic monopoles)