Q&A The Big Picture - with Sean Carroll

Does religion carry any scientific relevance? How did the universe become asymmetrical? Will we be able to overcome death? Sean Carroll addresses audience questions after his lecture.
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Dr Sean Carroll is an astrophysicist at the California Institute of Technology. He has written a variety of popular science books along with textbooks and has long been interested in the biggest questions in astronomy: Where does probability come from? How does time work? What is dark matter and dark energy?
Watch the full talk here: • The Big Picture: From ...
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[@flymypg]

I love it when a physics lecture is genuinely uplifting. That the audience felt it to was reflected in the great questions that were asked.

[@BattleBunny1979]

The plugging of his book is very humorous when he does it. I like his classy style of gentle advertising. :)

[@vMaxHeadroom]

A simply brilliant lecture. Sean Carroll has a way to break complex things down into understandable...

[@spridle]

Sean is such a class act. If I ever have a kid I want them to look up to scientists.

[@KieranGarland]

Wonderful, wonderful stuff.

[@jazzvec]

there is a rich secular tradition revolving around the question of "how to be a good person" going back at least 400 years BC to ancient greece, see eg stoicim (in fact the maxim that you should love your enemy was taken over by christianity from stoicism).

[@DavidRuizTijerina]

I wish someone had asked what he thinks of the idea that the theory that we think of as fundamental (the standard model) might be simply an emergent phenomenon of some underlying, more fundamental physics.

[@jesseaustin2438]

One main thing of this comment is to Q about living forever. At 14:25 its said maybe there is a highest entropy then times arrow ceases but wudnt that just be that the forces or fields reassert themselves emergent in other ways. Like thru what dark stuff is. Like theres many dimensionalities and they are rebalanced to play out a certaint way, but, in our macroscopic, inertia is kept like frictionless in space so there isnt interacting fields CAUSING a friction equal and opposite force. So logical laws are there. Like 2 plus 2 is always 4 and there is a provem law that theres conservation of momentum energy or inertia and it is logical as 2 plus 2. So thatd seem to show that there isnt dark stuff interacting, thusly leaving and showing room for another interpretation of dimensionality into another read, like a conscious living in our space or universe but the fields have a different time dimenion. Like a space dimension as time and time as a space. It isnt likely. If u know it is likely thoroughly express how it is but why our view shows inertia, like logically something moving isnt gonna stop unless it is acted on by some other field. I have a view theory thats maybe inverse view of the Standard Model of particle and force fields and my fields are like e,m and c of coincidentally e=mc^2, but they are all 3d space w a time and they intertwin to make our 3d space w time but from different 3d spaces and times making a hyperverse we experience as 3d space and a time but with different particles and force which are just interactions or products of interactions or emergent things of e,m and c fields. The core theory has forces and matter in equation so maybe it supports this, but they are multiplied thru a spacetime that must be another superspacetime cuz each field has a spacetime of its own but they play out in a grander out of the box space and time. But cant we extract entropy for life sustainment from space itself and then we override entropy by creating a cluster of reverse entropy then thenuniverse expands but creates more space but itd be of the inner space not of the grander space n time and thats what dark stuff will show, and what like other universes as in like a different bubble of a space and time that is in the grander space and time and that is like a grander hyperspace of my theorized hyperspace existance of parellel universe like different 3d w own time fields comingling. Theres an aether and i think thats ehat nazis meant when they said there was an aether and Einstein was wrong. And i happen to be related to Hermann Goering. ..and to john wilkes boothe and my best friend from 7th to 10th grade was related to abe Lincoln and his mom was 6ft6 and had dark hair and a mole like abe. I have 2 moles so thats another weird thing. Hashtag, lol jk, get this to elon musk, proof we are living in a simulation. But on like september 7 or 8th of 2017 i thot of multiple parellel fields that are 3d w a time and multiple times make a time construct that has a time that is gravity, but thatd support that there is another way to see time and thats weird, but we are only conscious 8n the way we are cuz the laws make us evolve this way but still iery momentum keeps going but like i thot of my fields, they move differently, so why does this happen, and id think its cuz a base first principle rule makes a base field then it interacts w itself to create more fields but it is one field but it is like addition making multiplication and division and calculus and theres grand unification of the one field w maybe something like feynman interactions of one or one set of things that head somewhere else but then looped back around but w new or differed laws, and thats a next level of laws that the one set of laws can interplay w eachother after leaving then distroting or contorting relativisticly to new laws. I also sent am email to sean carroll march 9th 2019 and resent it other times and maybe added another email later but dont 'member.

[@SteveLamberts]

Well done SkyDivePhil for asking a very good question. Prof Carroll does not dish those out too frequently. I admit the answer was over my head.

[@beenaplumber8379]

At times like this, I just love being a true nerd! B-)

[@scowell]

Telling that crowd Leibniz invented Calculus might piss them off!

[@philaypeephilippotter6532]

Especially as *Isaac Newton* invented it independently at the same time.

[@wqeasd7107]

​@@philaypeephilippotter6532The concept itself was present much earlier, at least smaller parts so not really invention, but instead a formal notion of it instead, and leibniz version is more thorough

[@philaypeephilippotter6532]

@@wqeasd7107 Yes, I'm aware of that. The leap was from minute differences to infinitesimal ones.

[@Majere3]

Doug Stanhope sure knows his science.

[@theycallmegertthatsnotmyna2042]

Haaa

[@extremeuzer3]

To the question about religion. Hinduism pretended the multiverse 5000 years ago and Prof. Carol is trying to prove the relationship between Brahma, Vishnu, and shiva

[@tomlee2651]

Suppose our universe is the 3D "surface" of a 4D "sphere". Suppose there's a input of energy at the center which is ballooning the 4D sphere, and our 3D surface along with it, hence our observing of expansion of our universe. Suppose this is what we label as Dark Energy. Then the discrepancy between the theoretical and measured value, which amounts to some 10^120 of magnitude, could actually happens to be the ratio between 3D surface and 4D sphere, and if so give us a mean to calculate the radius of the 4D sphere itself.

[@SteveMcHarald]

Hey genius, this is a great idea. Let's start calculating!

[@benjamincleveland9717]

Are you trying to one up Sean Caroll lol

[@uh1100]

Would religion show the same level of tolerance to atheism? Hangi tarikat ateisme ayni hoşgörüyü sergiler?

[@shirleymason7697]

Where do neutrinos that go through everything wind up?

[@thedeemon]

Most of them just keep flying through the universe. And only very rarely when they travel through matter some of them interact with it via W/Z bosons (the weak interaction).

[@tjthreadgood818]

I’m not a physicist, but maybe they just stay unwound. 😉 Perhaps some of them decay(into what?), but I’m under the impression they stick around for a pretty long while. [Later ...] Apparently they (at least muon ones) are completely stable according to the standard model ... something to do with violating various conserved properties like lepton number if they were to decay into something else.

[@hmbs1630]

Guy at 17:11 speaks quite like Chomsky.

[@alexandrugheorghe5610]

Excellent talk as always. A bit disappointed that nobody mentioned to Sean that he cheated a little bit. He mentioned that any particle that isn't interacting much and discovered by LHC (let's say) isn't affecting your life as much. Well, he mentioned Higgs and kind of crawled not to be hit back by it. Certainly, Higgs field affects us every single day. What if there're other fields like it that we haven't thought about yet?

[@GregDAgostino13]

Higgs discovery wasn't an accident. It was the last holdout of the standard model and was predicted to exist more than forty years ago. Any new fields discovered will be at energy levels far weaker or higher than are relevant in the conditions in which we exist.

[@colinshawhan8590]

Also, the Higgs is not quite as meaningful to us as media and pop culture would have us believe - Higgs field "creates mass" or something. As I understand it (and I don't but I try) the Higgs is responsible for quark masses, maybe 2% or your total mass? The rest of your apparent "mass" is a result of the collective kinetic and potential energy of particle motion, proteins bound together in complex ways (thus 'storing' energy) and so on. That energy has 'mass' as through E = mc^2, so if somehow you magically "take away" Higgs mass you probably wouldn't notice (even though you'd probably die is some cosmic space-time, matter annihilation type of apocalyptic scenario). Theoretically anyway, Higgs does not account for the lions share of your mass.

[@Tastou]

@Greg D'Agostino I don't think the prediction is relevant here. The point is that it's surprising to hear that potential new fields will be irrelevant to us because they're too hard to detect when we just detected a very relevant field at the limit of what we can do, whether we knew about it or not. From what I understand, the Higgs boson itself is irrelevant because it decays almost instantly, so maybe that's part of the answer. And maybe the other part is that it's not a dynamic field. It doesn't sit at zero, it has an effect, but you can't change it easily. If it sat at zero, it would be irrelevant. (I don't pretend to answer or challenge, I'm just asking for clarification)

[@ULTD8]

i love u

[@bbouchan1]

Whenever I see videos like this I always ask the question.....How long does the present last? For example it's not a second that's far too long, we're moving through time so the present must have a value.

[@Doge00]

*Very good explanation, I think consciousness should be added here, how 5 sense organs combine to produce consciousness to survive from Predators, and how humans after ensuring survival developed intelligence*

[@arturgrzesiak1130]

not sure but seems the guy behind is Terry Rudolph - his awesome lecture here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gHyqi3eehtSFb6c

[@IanWilkinson]

Sean refers to 'Pat' @ 19:35

[@percih70]

I do believe you right

[@onlypranav]

Another great lecture! Thanks for the link

[@gabetower]

13:10 There is, as yet, insufficient data for a meaningful answer.

[@TechyBen]

The meaningful answer would be "no, but we are not required to".

[@akureiokamii]

You fucker! I am at 13:43 and had the same idea. I went to the comments and LITERALLY the ONLY comment I find is this. Get out of my head, won't you ;) Well we can assume she never read any Asimov. I would have like it if Sean had answered "There is as of yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer" and just left it at that.

[@nsnick199]

It's an allusion to Asimov's wonderful short story The Last Question: multivax.com/last_question.html

[@desmo750f1]

NSNick also Mike Moorcock’s Dancers at the End of Time series.

[@RedBatRacing]

Perhaps we will advance to the point we will have the ability to create a new universe before we are torn apart by the heat death. Then simply step into our new universe and carry on

[@danbreeden5481]

The idea of magic was a precursor to science

[@Corvaire]

*Grand Fission* ;O)-

[@rustycherkas8229]

19:35 "This is your job. It's Pat's day job; looking for the dark matter. ... Haven't found it yet..." Obvious suggestion: Tell 'Pat' to try looking AT NIGHT! (sorry... feeling kinda 'silly' today...)

[@Doge00]

*I know how consciousness emerged and many people know it but don't have platform to express it, so it will be lost forever.*

[@donchristie420]

Are neutrinos better than 5G network??

[@lisaadler507]

don christie no my life revolves around 5g WiFi, tbh

[@ryantan8666]

Why is Sean pronounced as Shawn?

[@TheRoyalInstitution]

Because languages, and names in particular, are weird and wonderful. Sean, Shaun, Shawn, Seann, Seun, Shon, and Eoin (!)are all alternate spellings of the same name. How amazing is that?

[@philaypeephilippotter6532]

It's *Gaelic. Niamh* is pronounced *Neeve* too.

[@hyrumtanner5584]

In English, as you are clearly aware, we indicate the sound shifting from "s" to the "sh" sound with h. But that is completely arbitrary. Other related languages, from which many names are taken historically, have different patterns. In this case for the name Sean, the pattern for the "sh" sound is s followed by e. Just as in English the h in sh does not make a separate sound, in a language that uses se, the e does not make a separate sound. It is a silent marker. Someone used to reading that language would find it just as odd that in English se is pronounced "see" and sh is pronounced "sh". As for the "awn" part, that's more localized. I pronounce the "an" part more like "on" which sounds like the "a" sound in Latin, Italian or Spanish. If where you live it's elongated out to "awn" that's merely an artifact of your local accent. If this topic truly interests you, I suggest studying a little Italian. How are each of these letter combinations pronounced: "ci", "ce", "chi", "che", "gn", "gl", "gio", "ghi" (and others)? Can you see those patterns in common words used by English speakers?

[@Raison_d-etre]

Scientists didn't talk about ethics and morality because they were afraid of Church persecution. That's starting to change. Sexual attitudes, for example, is a topic science has a lot to say about.

[@jenniferfardaei3388]

Check the Gravity is Myth by Javad Fardaei, you would be amazed.

[@bikeboy6674]

Was that last question, good as it was, submitted by a 10 year old!?

[@charlesbrightman4237]

"Dark Matter" might be chemical element #119 (8s1) that only has 1 electron in it's outer shell with room for only 1 more electron. Energy enters the atom through this opening, most gets trapped inside, and hence we perceive 'dark matter'.

[@Broan13]

Not possible. It wouldn't be stable and it would interact with light. The matter cannot interact with light at all!

[@charlesbrightman4237]

Brian Roper Consider though: When electrons fill up the shells in atoms: 2, 8, 18, 32, 32, 18, 8 (seven shells), and realizing that energy could freely flow in this universe if nothing stopped it from doing so, then a natural bell shaped curve would suggest an eighth energy shell with a maximum of 2 chemical elements in it, #119 and #120 to finish off the periodic table of the elements. #119 (8s1) I put at the bottom of the hydrogen group, it would be the most electrically active element on the table as far as I understand it to be, as the further one goes down in that group the easier the outer electron is given up. Now sure, maybe it's not 'dark matter', but if it truly exists in this universe, it must be somewhere. Maybe even at the center of black holes? #120 (8s2) I put at the bottom of the helium group as it's outer shell is full of electrons. No more than 120 electrons can fit in an atom. But, even if the theory that a 'g' shell exists, then chemical elements #119 and #120 would still exist with that theory too. #120 I believe exists inside the center of stars. When a neutron splits inside of this atom, 1 proton, 1 electron and energy are given off. Since the proton and electron have no place to go inside of the atom, they are ejected outside of the atom. 1 proton and 1 electron being basic hydrogen of which the Sun is primarily made up of and the Sun certainly gives off energy. Since it was a neutron that split and not a proton, 120 protons would still exist inside of the atom so chemical element #120 would still exist. It makes the star last longer that way. But now also, 'if' my latest theory of everything idea is really true, that what is called gravity is a part of the photon (it's the force that makes the sine wave of em expand and contract and acts basically 90 degrees to the em forces which of course act basically 90 degrees to each other), and that the pulsating, swirling photon is the energy unit in this universe that makes up everything in existence in this universe, 'then' it might be possible that internal interactions of the photon might have at times a photon with high gravitational effects with low em interactions, basically stationary neutrinos. Hence also 'dark matter' with high gravitational effects. I have a test for the gravity portion of this idea, just not the resources to do so at this time. Of course you also say that 'The matter cannot interact with light at all!'. If it's 'matter' then it would have protons and electrons in it, charged particles that have their own associated magnetic fields with them. The em of protons and electrons would interact with em of the photons and the em of the photons would interact with the em of the protons and electrons. Hence also why QED and QCD work. Also why 'light' bends around a planet that is made up of matter. The em interactions.

[@Broan13]

Charles Brightman we have a full theory of what you speak already. Not possible.

[@charlesbrightman4237]

Brian Roper "Theory", that means you don't "Know" then yet. Just like: What exactly is 'space' for you? What exactly is 'time' for you? What exactly is 'space time' for you? What exactly is the 'energy unit' of this universe? What exactly is 'gravity' and how does it come to be and do what it does? So, since you don't 'know' and only have theories, I have my ideas too.

[@charlesbrightman4237]

Tastou Then talk to modern science, they are the ones who came up with the term "theory of everything". I guess modern science must be wrong about that too then. Just like the 'big bang' theory. It's just an idea then.

[@TheRobdarling]

Sean needs to see a proper tailor.

[@philosopher0076]

Rob Darling A brilliant lecture on the physics that makes up our lives, our universe...and you put forth that moronic comment? Wow.

[@kevinagee5085]

I'm smarter than him

[@vicachcoup]

Atheistic claptrap in the first question. I'm glad Sean gave a fairly reasonable answer to that.

[@lisaadler507]

Dark energy is not real.

[@OzkanArac]

Why, did your homemade particle collider disprove it?

[@jflow5601]

Right. An atheist commenting on the relevance of religion. Please.