The Tiny Experiment That Transformed Physics

In 1956, a team of scientists conducted an experiment that, seemed kind of trivial, but the results would challenge one of our fundamental beliefs about the entire universe.
Hosted by: Hank Green
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Sources:
journals.aps.org/pr/abstract/...
journals.aps.org/pr/abstract/...
journals.aps.org/pr/abstract/...
journals.aps.org/pr/abstract/...
www.thestargarden.co.uk/Weak-n...
physicsworld.com/a/credit-whe...
www.slac.stanford.edu/pubs/bea... [PDF]
hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/...
inspirehep.net/record/1257158/... [PDF]
tlabs.ac.za/wp-content/upload... [PDF]
inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLC...
bh0.physics.ubc.ca/People/ainw... [PDF]
pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c70d... [PDF]
www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/1...
Image Sources:
www.videoblocks.com/video/gal...
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
www.istockphoto.com/photo/par...
www.istockphoto.com/photo/can...
www.istockphoto.com/photo/cho...
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...

[@ephemeralvapor8064]

"I'm weak? Your understanding of physics is weak!" -Sincerely the "weak" force.

[@ShutItKyle]

Scientists: “This is how The Universe works.” The Universe: “Lol.”

[@KR-wc5uh]

LOL=lol=101 ;)

[@RobertHinchey]

Weak Nuclear Force: If you don't start paying attention to me I'll break everything you care about. NOTICE ME!!!!

[@someoneonline5192]

Universe: "I'm about to end this man's whole career."

[@adamarens3520]

I think it shows just how far we are from a comprehensive understanding of the universe.

[@philipagtuca5486]

And atheists think they know the universe. Idiots!

[@Master_Therion]

Cobalt: It's my *parity* and I'll cry if I want to.

[@danwic]

thanks now I got that song stuck in my head :p

[@stargarden2577]

Youre like the justin y of sci show

[@apple54345]

why are there pun jokes around my anus?

[@JamesSpeiser]

lol

[@Breezey_Dubz]

you would cry too if it happened to you 🎶🎵

[@purplefire2834]

As I learn more about science, especially quantum physics, I realize more and more: The universe is weird.

[@Tonatsi]

It's like a computer dynamically chunkloading with the way light behaves when not being looked at

[@Mangofretchen]

Hank made a song about this years ago: kzbin.info/www/bejne/sJTanIJ8iNd_fKs

[@icedragonaftermath]

@@HoboWithWifi Nah, science is a process for finding out the rules for how stuff works. It has nothing to do with what those answers actually are. That said, the universe is not inherently intuitive, which is a inconvenient.

[@notchbeard9007]

@@Tonatsi That thought is what led me down the rabbit hole to the Holographic Universe and resulted with me being convinced it is the best current explanation.

[@purplefire2834]

@@Mangofretchen I was referencing this song :) love it

[@danielm.1441]

A GIGANTIC CAN OF PHYSICS WORMS! Mmm, my favourite.

[@ElTurbinado]

They're frictionless, massless worms.

[@TheLehster]

@@ElTurbinado that are perfectly spherical lol (or pointlike... hmm)

[@limiv5272]

You must be Klingon

[@ElTurbinado]

Limi V or a bird. a physics bird.

[@enigmusII]

Not to be confused with a can of Shai Hulud

[@X6XH3lli0n6X6]

I ended my 20's today, I must say over the last 5 years Scishow (more resently Eons and Microcosmos) has ment a lot to me. Thanks! I love the personalities here I would like to see an extra long episode of all the narrator's favorite episodes?

[@purplefire2834]

I agree, favorites complications from the hosts would be cool!

[@sonarbuge7958]

H3lli0n 30 years old and still can’t spell meant

[@dghost7876]

H3lli0n happy birthday 🎉

[@X6XH3lli0n6X6]

@@sonarbuge7958 Thankfully you're so smart you knew what I mint tho.

[@Scorch428]

20s is the best time of your life. 30s suck ass. Good luck!

[@sussekind9717]

I love videos about experiments that have strange outcomes. More please!

[@daniellewilson8527]

Susse Kind me too

[@jackc8621]

It's cool when you're watching a YT video at such a time that no one else has finished it yet

[@RafiesAwesomeChannel]

you made me realize this was just posted and not a year old video lol

[@saga4731]

How?

[@apple54345]

don't people who contribute $$ to them get early access to the videos?

[@muaddibdu77]

Isn't it because of this experience (and the discovery of supra conductivity) that MRI was thought of? The direction of the spin of atoms in a magnetic field is the way a MRI work, it spin a certain way for cancer cells for exemple so you can detect it! You forgot to mention that ;) Anyway its amazing that two separate unrelated discoveries made over 70 years ago has given us such a tool, thx to quantic physics! Little experiments can become big thing so we should let more freedom to scientist to experiment anything, it could make a big difference a hundred years from now :)

[@masterimbecile]

Hold me closer tiny cobalt. Count the electrons in the chamber. I write you down on sheets of paper. We've had a busy day today.

[@Original-Phantom]

No

[@mastod0n1]

@@Original-Phantom while I'm not sure why that commenter decided that the chorus to Tiny Dancer was an appropriate comment, I can't be mad about it. Such a great song.

[@negativeperson7358]

You’d have to be a Madman Across the Water to want to hold Cobalt-60 closer. It’s super-duper radioactive.

[@nathanielhellerstein5871]

Parity isn't about left vs right; it's about left-handed vs right-handed. Clockwise vs counterclockwise.

[@kunalsanwalka]

Was just going to make a comment regarding this. The direction of the spin is what matters here, not the direction of motion

[@altrag]

@@kunalsanwalka Its actually the direction of spin _relative_ to the direction of motion. Of course, the fact that spin is not a "real" rotation in the sense that we intuitively understand the word, even talking about a "direction" of spin a bit tenuous as well. . For the most part, as long as someone understands what you're trying to say its good enough. Certainly its better to use the most common terminology to reduce potential confusion, but at the end of the day particle physics is so freaking weird that almost none of our macroscopic metaphors end up being terribly accurate. They're just convenient as a tool to get an idea of what _kind_ of math you're looking at, even if the specifics are quite different from its human-scale counterpart. . Spin for example is, as noted above, not an intuitively "real" rotation but it shows up in the math as an angular momentum and can be treated as a rotation mathematically in most cases even though nothing is physically "spinning." The concepts of "left handed" and "right handed" chirality similarly are not "real" in the intuitive sense, but mathematically they correspond to the idea of the "left hand rule" and "right hand rule" from 3-dimensional geometry (ie: choosing the direction of your third axis.) . To that end, "clockwise" and "counterclockwise" are slightly more misleading as they imply a true direction of motion while "left handed" and "right handed" only really imply a relative orientation (at least, if you recognize the connection to 3-d geometry. Of course, one could assume a different connection such as turning a car steering wheel left or right, in which case the clockwise/counterclockwise terminology seems to fit equally well. That's just not the "correct" metaphor, purely due to the fact that the literature generally uses the 3-d geometry metaphor more commonly.)

[@w01dnick]

left & right just a short for left-handed and right-handed

[@w01dnick]

But I agree that this video should've clarified that.

[@jacksonpercy8044]

@altrag So does that mean that if the cobalt was at a stationary point in the universe with no motion or acceleration, the decay would either act in the plane of the particle's spin or evenly in all directions, thus making sense?

[@christelheadington1136]

I've looked at electrons from both sides now, from up and down and feel somehow, it's electron's illusion I recall, I really don't know electrons at all.

[@trying2understand870]

I miss you Joannie.

[@AsheOdinson]

This and the connected video are absolutely fascinating. I love that they're explained in terms just about anyone can understand, too. This is why I have alerts set for your video releases, SciShow! I wouldn't mind a somewhat deeper dive into subjects like this.

[@FalbertForester]

I've ... actually never heard of this experiment before, and I have been a physics fan for years, taking quite a few courses at the college level... Thank you, SciShow!

[@deborahhanna6640]

I am guessing but: because it was a woman.

[@sdfkjgh]

4:15 Wouldn't it be more accurate to call them turnwise and widdershins, to reflect going with or against the particle spin? #Discworld

[@notchbeard9007]

No because with an object like a quark you are not talking about spin from its perspective but yours while looking at it. Also, how would one decide where a quark was "facing" in order to determine left - right, up-down, back-forth. It would just be an arbitrary point you chose as its "face" and would not have consistent value unless you defined that point in a way that could be reproduced without error.

[@pocarski]

@@notchbeard9007 big r/woooosh but to each their own

[@TheRABIDdude]

Dude Lebowski pretty sure in the video he was specifically talking about the spin of atomic nuclei (made of quarks) in determining left or right (turnwise or widdershins).

[@tttITA10]

"So, yeah, something was very wrong with parity symmetry: it didn't exist!" So that's a phrase. I wish I get to use it some day.

[@seanm7445]

I’m glad you changed the title on this video.

[@aidanwansbrough7495]

This was really interesting to learn about! Love your videos!

[@Cammy_1999]

*Just about to go to bed* Sci show uploads *I DONT NEED SLEEP I HAVE SCIENCE!!!!!*

[@purplefire2834]

Ah, but you see, you do need sleep. Science says so. Don't disobey science. It won't go well.

[@Cammy_1999]

@@purplefire2834 it's a joke ik u need sleep 😂 its what helps you function and grow without it your just a mess😂

[@purplefire2834]

@@Cammy_1999 :)

[@Cammy_1999]

@renderinggg na 13 i dont listen much in class so I just come to this channel to learn sum

[@Cammy_1999]

@renderinggg ok👍😀

[@nerine9301]

Physics worms. Awesome visual imagery Hank!

[@Frownlandia]

Wow I read the thumbnail as "Can elections tell left from right?" and what a different video this is!

[@samuelevans5750]

Max Barrentine Well the Right is Right and the Left is Wrong. Thats just a Scientific Fact.

[@shatterdpixel]

Samuel Evans thank you for bringing politics in this.

[@meetjes4510]

Im honestly happy as long as the particles follow the "right-hand rule"

[@Dann0343]

I follow the left hand rule: left hand on weekdays, right on weekends

[@naser3000x]

they will because there is a force pushing them usually.

[@Abdega]

They are electrons so I believe it’s left hand rule for them

[@mrchordstriker]

Great report awesome!!

[@thomas.02]

it's like learning photosynthesis throughout your childhood: your current teacher always says "what you learnt from the previous teacher is not entirely correct, things are more complicated than that"

[@cristianfuller9261]

Great video 👍🏻

[@kebsis]

How did the scientists know which way the atoms were spinning?

[@admiralnips8294]

I wonder if anyone else thinks that there could be more than one correct answer to some questions we already have one answer for.

[@jeiaz]

If there is more than one answer to a scientific question, either the question must be reframed so that it allows for only one correct answer, or the actually correct answer is a new answer which incorporates all of the seemingly correct answers. Probably?

[@lc9245]

Since we build our scientific methods based on mathematics, we want the “answers” to be able to converge into a single, general, all-encompassing answer. By convergence, I meant the other answers are mathematically special cases or derivations of the singular answer. We use maths as the backbone of science because science is about prediction. We want to understand and explain events in order to make relatively accurate predictions.

[@code4chaosmobile]

My favorite video yet

[@SophiaAstatine]

Im glad Im not the only one who took a little longer than expected to get a grasp and care about left and right.

[@joopthejop2186]

It's amazing to think one experiment changed so much

[@pukkandan]

Yes, more videos on cpt. It is a very interesting topic

[@derradfahrer5029]

left and left-handed spin (or right and right-handed spin) is not the same thing. That summary between 3:43 and 3:53 is very close to misleading. There is a difference bewteen spin and direction in my vocabulary.

[@aznmarty256]

I think the anomaly lies in that the direction of beta decay should be independent of the spin of the atomic nuclei. The best analogy I can think of is likening the radioactive atom to a grenade, how it spins to how the grenade rolls, and the direction of beta decay to the flight of shrapnel: Imagine if someone rolled a grenade between two soldiers who are both within an arms' reach from it. You would think that it wouldn't matter how that grenade rolled, those two dudes should be more or less equally doomed. But it turns out that soldier #1 took 80% of the shrapnel that hit and is dead meat, while soldier #2 only took 20% and comes out with a limp when it rolled clockwise. Okay, that's weird. It should be roughly 50/50, but it could be a statistical unicorn, so you look at another case. In this case, with the soldiers in the same spot but the grenade rolling counter-clockwise, you find that soldier #1 only took 20% of the shrapnel that hit and soldier #2 took 80% of it. Strange again, but you look at the next case and 100 others, and they suggest the same thing - that if the grenade rolls clockwise, you should be where soldier #2 was to limit your injuries and vice-versa. If it was truly random, there shouldn't be a rule about who got hit more. Then what if there's something about the grenade? Well here's the thing. You're an explosives expert, as are your 50 colleagues. Everything you guys know about grenades and all that data you have on grenade shrapnel dispersion would tell you all that that grenade, regardless of how it was rolling, how it was oriented, how hard it was thrown, etc, would have an equal dispersion of shrapnel. But it doesn't when it rolls a certain way. And that's what happened in the cobalt-60 experiment.

[@danbodine7754]

Nuclear spin is not left handed or right handed in anyway. There are different spin states and we described them with numbers not left and right.

[@danbodine7754]

@@aznmarty256 What you think is the exact opposite what the experiment found. Your analogy doesn't work. You can't make analogies for quantum systems.

[@aznmarty256]

@@danbodine7754 If there aren't analogies for quantum phenomenon, how would you go about explaining it? And how would you explain the results of the cobalt-60 experiment?

[@danbodine7754]

@@aznmarty256 I wouldn't. This is what they said in the paper. "If an asymmetry in the distribution between theta and 180'-theta (where theta is the angle between the orientation of the parent nuclei and the momentum of the electrons) is observed, it provides unequivocal proof that parity is not conserved in beta decay. This asymmetry effect has been observed in the case of oriented Co60" journals.aps.org/pr/abstract/10.1103/PhysRev.105.1413

[@mrnarason]

would like to see a crash course particle physics with Hank.

[@g1n059]

Honestly this makes perfect sense to me for some reason

[@29C1C]

3:54 what I would give to see Kevin from vsauce2 saying this sentence

[@Roosterwbass]

Awesome!

[@xzonia1]

So this explains why time only moves in one direction, I'm guessing? Has anyone done experiments on this idea yet? Loved this video, Hank! I hope you do a follow-up when they know more. :)

[@mike814031]

5:18 it doesn't break our understanding it helps us understand it even better

[@thstroyur]

Some errata: 0:20 The directions weren't random in the Wu experiment, thanks to the preliminary magnetization of the Co 3:15 What was actually detected weren't the electrons, but the radiation emitted _opposite_ to them *Parity isn't simply 'left-right' swapping - it is 'left-right, up-down, front-rear' swapping, overall *Trivia: not only did the Wu experiment show parity violation, it showed that it was 'as much violated as it could have been'

[@kenmacallister]

Can of physics worms. Laughed out loud at that.

[@Babuus]

When I was an undergrad, I wrote a paper about the state of the field regarding the origin of almost all sugars and amino acids in ALL of biology having the same chirality. One of the silliest (but fascinating) ideas I found was the one that applied the results of the Co60 experiment: The thinking goes that since some amino acids formed by non-biological processes will have radioactive isotopes in them, and since radioactive atoms emit particles in a certain direction, perhaps radioactive decays contributes to the slight excess of L-amino acids we found on the Murchison meteorite. Personally, I think circularly polarized light is a more likely culprit. That's also an interesting source because it implies that if a few specks of dust had been spinning the opposite way while the solar system was coalescing (causing the light reflected off them to be circularly polarized in the other direction), we might all have D-amino acids and L-sugars instead.

[@Nmethyltransferase]

Homeopath: "We transformed physics too!" Physicist: "Ugh... Not tonight--I am _not_ in the mood!"

[@maliceflare]

ugh, i read your thumbnail as "Can Elections tell Left from Right?" time to stop watching M5M...

[@donaldbaird7849]

I read it as "Can electronics tell left from right?"

[@hundejahre]

Ok, now I want to see Physics Worms in the DFTBA store. Thanks Hank.

[@denelson83]

The _gravity_ of this experiment was huge. And since this experiment was using spinning atoms, you maybe should have used the words "north" and "south" instead of "left" and "right".

[@w01dnick]

Magnetic poles are defined by our "right-hand rule", so left/right is more correct.

[@billdooder2558]

Having opened that can, they should have plenty of bait to catch physics fish with

[@JamesSpeiser]

excellent

[@sandrakranzwinther3286]

I will think about this all day. The Direction of the Universe✨

[@Rasecz]

Very cool video. Is there anything on PBS Spacetime about this ?

[@DeityHorus]

The universe has no obligation to make sense to you.

[@lilrubberducky2]

Very good science!

[@stewitr]

We need more experiments like this that prove how little we actually know. We have become too confident and complacent in what we know that it takes a fringe outlier to open people's eyes and minds whilst dealing with a barrage of abuse from the mainstream.

[@rexlongfellow]

Physics is always one weird discovery away from breaking 🤣

[@phonomancer_thepossum6279]

It's like a universal gyroscope!

[@ivorydelights]

Holy moly 😲 I wouldn't play trivia against this guy

[@Vgamer311]

At this point it seems clear that the universe itself is making an active effort to ensure that we can never fully understand it.

[@pencilfriendpaperscribbler6032]

Is this another excellent fish shirt, or am I remembering wrongly?

[@tiggerbiggo]

I don't understand this experiment... Supposedly they are saying that there is no defined left and right in the universe, but that "left" and "right" in the experiment were relative to the machine they built, right? So you could reorient the machine and get a different "left" and "right"? To me that means that there is still no defined left or right, because you could just flip the machine around, and left is now right and right is now left... Does anyone else understand this better? Maybe i'm just misunderstanding but I don't understand how this is an inherent left or right in the universe, just that this particle is going in a direction corresponding to some property of itself, which doesn't intuitively violate anything in my head.

[@Hippopotatamus]

The directions of the emitted electrons are relative to the direction of the Co atom's nuclear spin. That should not have been the case if parity symmetry is observed in the weak interaction. "left" and "right" in context here mean left-handed or right-handed, referring to the direction of the nucleus' spin.

[@w01dnick]

they've built 2 "machines" which were mirrored, so left and right were swapped, but top-down were preserved. If parity would be symmetric, they every process would be mirrored for left-right, but same for top-down. E.g. left turn coil and right coil both produce same magnetic field. But weak force was mirrored in top-down, so basically it was rotated, not mirrored (mirroring twice means no mirroring, just rotation), and that violates parity symmetry, so parity is asymmetric.

[@TheNaturalnuke]

Mykola Krachkovsky very helpful thank you for the explanation.

[@tiggerbiggo]

@@w01dnick Thanks for explaining, I still don't fully understand it but I guess that's why i'm the one watching a youtube video, not doing actual particle physics experiments lol

[@w01dnick]

@@tiggerbiggo don't give up, this not that complex, it just need more explanations. Are you familiar with coordinate systems?

[@LuxinNocte]

not a physicist: What Hank ment at 5:10 is that the Weak Nuclear Force indeed brakes parity with spin, time and matter/antimatter, but still keeps parity when you reverse all THREE of them. So left spin time forward matter behaves like right spin time backwards antimatter. If in the future scientists find out that that parity is broken as well, the whole concept of it brakes down.

[@colleanobrien3288]

I thought Cobalt has the chemical abbreviation "Co" and that "CO" was for Carbon Monoxide. The graphic at the beginning says "CO" rather than "Co" but the Voice over refers to it as Cobalt.

[@xzonia1]

You are correct. Cobalt is Co and carbon monoxide is CO.

[@thelegendarywizard]

So atoms know directions, but my mom confuses left from right all the time? Fascinating

[@ThatOneIrishFurry]

_Scientists huddled around in a lab_ "I swear weak nuclear force if you dont chill your gonna break Physics"

[@robinsuj]

Nah, just our understanding of it. The universe won't work any differently if we find out that (most of) what we know about it was (technically) "wrong"

[@mjbrennan99]

Sounds sinister and spooky from a distance

[@devashishdahiya4446]

Seeker is like 40 seconds of info stretched into 6 mins video

[@charlestucker1949]

You have to account for ALL variables and one that I don’t think we have gone over is the fact that we are doing particle physics studies on earth which has a large gravitational pull just food for thought

[@unknownentity4620]

Sorry for commenting on a 2.5 year old video, but there was a really cool interview with Dr. Wu's granddaughter on NPR's Shortwave podcast back in March!

[@jkoh93]

are we not gonna talk about charge and time symmetry like veritasium did?

[@Scorch428]

"If you stand on your head, that doesnt mean that gravity is going to pull you up toward the sky.." Me: Hold my beer. For science.

[@dr.ofdubiouswisdom4189]

It seems EVERYTHING in the Universe has to spin, rotate, orbit or some variable combination. Science is indeed a dizzying study.

[@altrag]

In a sense, yes. Though its the kind of "sense" that you typically have to apply to particle physics! Angular momentum is quantized, so it is subject to an equivalent of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which in turn implies that you can't really ever have a zero angular momentum in the same way that you can never have a zero linear momentum (ie: particles can never be _perfectly_ still.)

[@dr.ofdubiouswisdom4189]

@@altrag Unless, of course, you capture & bring it to *absolute zero* . Something the wife once achieved with the credit card limit - she ran out of things to Discover.

[@deltadesigns4269]

Hey guys, what's the name of the picture behind the text at 2:30? Thank you.

[@fingerling1231]

Surely gravity is still "weirder" than the weak nuclear force in the sense that it's behaves the most unlike the other forces.

[@petercarioscia9189]

Because gravity isn't a "force" it's the result of mass deforming space-time

[@fingerling1231]

@@petercarioscia9189 Gravity is one of the fundamental forces. We believe it's caused by the deformation of spacetime but that doesn't mean it's not a force.

[@TheNaturalnuke]

Gravity’s effects behave the same to the principle that explains why a horizon can look flat. Just a matter of scale

[@kayvee256]

@@petercarioscia9189 ::smirks::

[@nolanwhite1971]

Gravity is probably an emergent "force" though, not a true force with it's own carrier particle. Probably.

[@obsideonyx7604]

Can you guys do a video on tongue posture AKA "mewing".

[@MattJasa]

Understanding the universe is like catching lightning in a bottle. Careful not to get shocked

[@tdawgmaster1729]

Let's start a petition to re-name the weak force to the "weird force."

[@saicharan9708]

At 0:15 you mentioned that electrons are expected to fly out in random directions and the observed result was that they flew in a specific direction. The argument may be wrong although the facts are correct. I would deal this in two cases: 1. No Magnetic Field: Electrons were expected to fly out in random directions when there is no Magnetic field aligning the Cobalt nuclei. In such a case, electrons would not have been emitted in a specific direction as has been mentioned. But in fact, electrons would have indeed been randomly emitted. 2.Strong Magnetic Field: In this case, almost all the Cobalt nuclei are aligned in the direction of Magnetic Field. Here expectation was that electrons will be emitted in either parallel or anti-parallel direction of the field. But the observed result was that beta particles flew predominantly in a specific direction. So although both the original statements are true, they are actually of two different cases.

[@SuperVstech]

We’re not walking down that path... we are crawling on our hands and knees...

[@SirBoden]

Next: Gauge Theory Bwahahahaha ;-)

[@Epicmonk117]

*Scientist:* I think I've figured out how the universe works! *Weak Nuclear Force:* I'm about to end this man's whole career!

[@ShadowRifft]

YES!!!, Much more to Learn!😌.. 😳🙈

[@fl097]

I read "elections" at first and then left and right, I was like "no please no....." but then I got relieved 😂😂

[@567secret]

1:15 Also we often forget that gravity doesn't pull down, it makes, in this example, the Earth and the apple fall together.

[@eru6ite]

Humans: These are the laws of the universe Physics: Hold my 🍺

[@kyrlics6515]

Quantum physics*

[@flashgordon3715]

All of these weird things prove we're just slime on a rock.

[@ryufan13]

I actually have a question about when Hank mentioned that the electrons tended to exit the cobalt in a direction based on its spin. This may be me being confused but how spin if classified, but wouldn't spin also change direction depending from what angle you view something?. For example if a ball appears to be spinning clockwise and you walk around it to the opposite side, would it not appear to be spinning counter-clockwise? I'm having difficulty wrapping my head around this so i don't know exactly how this would relate to the initial topic.

[@dingo137]

ryufan13 It is a bit confusing. The parity transformation is effectively "mirroring" but in all 3 dimensions. If you apply this to a spinning thing, the end result will be unchanged - it will still be spinning the same way. But if particles are being emitted only in one direction along the spin axis, then this direction will be flipped if you apply the parity transform. Therefore, there would be a way to tell the difference between a parity-transformed universe and the current one - look at which way the electrons come out compared to the direction of spin.

[@ethanwagner6418]

Clearly I'm missing something, perhaps it's my lack of understanding of particle spin. It sounds like the electron spin is always opposite to the spin of the atom, so I don't understand how that is a distinction between left and right.

[@rickkwitkoski1976]

Chien-Shiung Wu A VERY intelligent woman who won a Nobel Prize through her persistence against so many odds. Read "Nobel Prize Women in Science" by Sharon Bertsch McGrayne for her story and many other women in science.

[@Sam_on_YouTube]

That's great, but I can't help but feel Emmy Noether got snubbed for her contribution in this video.

[@rickkwitkoski1976]

@@Sam_on_KZbin So many women have contributed so much to science and so few have had worldwide recognition. Noether has a chapter in the book I mention as does Rosalind Franklin who did not win a Nobel. Hopefully, some editing of history can make up for this a bit.

[@Sam_on_YouTube]

@@rickkwitkoski1976 I explained who Rosalind Franklin was to my 79 year old father a couple of weeks ago.

[@rickkwitkoski1976]

@@Sam_on_KZbin You should read the book. I am sure that you will like it.

[@thomasewing2656]

Oh, boy! One step closer to anti-gravity!

[@tyler___3]

5 hours. This video was up for 5 hours before I knew about it????!!! Bullshit. I want this shit beamed into my fucking skull as soon as it’s posted. Keep up the great work guys 👍

[@purplealice]

I want a can of physics worms.

[@DanStaal]

Can we have a video on the weak nuclear force? Basically all I know about it is 'it governs some types of radioactive decay' - what exactly is it? What exactly does it do? I'm betting it doesn't cause things to decay, it just sets rules for how they do so - but there are stranger things in physics.

[@n3v3rg01ngback]

Curl your fingers. Point your right thumb. Wait to be picked up by a stranger.

[@bcubed72]

Speeding electrons preferentially pick up hitchhikers using their LEFT hand, just so you know...

[@ThrottleKitty]

The biggest breakthroughs aren't followed by "EUREKA!" in actuality they are almost always followed by "Huh... That's funny."

[@DrummertheCody]

Very well presented Hank! You’re one of the best teachers on KZbin. 👍

[@InfansDeAter]

I bet someone told those cobalt atoms about the experiment and they decided to play a prank on the scientists but it very quickly got very out of hand.

[@Breezey_Dubz]

so if the universe has a left and right then you could be able to figure out up n down etc, could make mapping out the galaxy alot easier for the future like a 3d map

[@weepingangel2564]

and it set us on a path to understanding the laws of the universe; a path, through the twilight zone.

[@kerissaarmstead329]

Does anyone have a resource to explain how this is connected to the spins that I remember from orbital diagrams in general chemistry?

[@kankanabanerjee7541]

Wow!!

[@tankkali9699]

Maybe the weak force is actually just the small attractions and movements of the universe which could be somewhat like a very thin, supercooled superfluid in which everthing in the universe is moving through like bubbles under the water in a large body of water. The bubbles may be small compared to the actual body the reside in but with the right perspective the bubble can be a non measurable vast distance.

[@BerryTheBnnuy]

It's my parity and I'll cry if I want to.