PBS Space Time

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Space Time explores the outer reaches of space, the craziness of astrophysics, the possibilities of sci-fi, and anything else you can think of beyond Planet Earth with our astrophysicist host: Matthew O’Dowd. For all business inquiries and sponsorship opportunities please reach out to: pbsspacetime@lighthouseagents.com Matt O'Dowd spends his time studying the universe, especially really far-away things like quasars, super-massive black holes, and evolving galaxies. He uses telescopes in space to do it. Matt completed his Ph.D. at NASA's Space Telescope Science Institute, followed by work at the University of Melbourne and Columbia University. He's now a pr...

Fermions Vs. Bosons Explained with Statistical Mechanics!
Today at 2:30 PM

Check Out Changing Planet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ut0Qdvnsd_s&ab_channel=PBS Comment Repsonse Live Stream with Matt: https://www.youtube.com/live/HmOQrEdhsuI?feature=share Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime If I roll a pair of dice and you get to bet on one number, what do you choose? The smart choice is 7 because there are more ways for 2 dice to come up 7 than any other number. Well, it turns out that you can apply the same logic to predicting the behavior of...


Can a Particle Be Neither Matter Nor Force?
Today at 1:30 PM

Get NordVPN 2Y plan + 4 months extra + up to 20Gb Saily data here ➼ https://nordvpn.com/spacetime It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! Check out the Space Time Merch Store https://www.pbsspacetime.com/shop Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime All particles belong to two large groups: fermions like protons and electrons make everything we consider "matter", while bosons like photons and gluons transmit the fundamental forces. And that about covers the universe: matter moving through space and time under the action of forces. But what if we...


Does Space Emerge From A Holographic Boundary?
Today at 12:30 PM

Check out the Space Time Merch Store https://www.pbsspacetime.com/shop Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime Space seems fundamental. To build a universe, surely you need something to build it on or in. Many, maybe most physicists now think that the fabric of space emerges from something deeper. And perhaps the most existentially disturbing such proposal is that our 3-D universe is just the inward projection of an infinitely distant boundary. A hologram, or sorts. Let’s see how that can actually work, and what the holographic pr...


What If The Cosmological Constant Is NOT Constant?
Today at 11:30 AM

Weathered: Earth's Extreme is available globally at: https://to.pbs.org/WeatheredST or the PBS App (US Only) Check out the Space Time Merch Store https://www.pbsspacetime.com/shop We know that the universe is getting bigger. And we know that the speed that the universe is getting bigger is also getting bigger. The standard assumption is that the acceleration rate is itself constant, which will surely result in ultimate heat death. But a recent survey of primordial sound waves frozen into the way galaxies are sprinkled through the universe reveals that this fate is now in question. PBS...


Does the Planck Length Break E=MC^2?
Today at 10:30 AM

On November 29th, 20% off the whole merch store! https://www.pbsspacetime.com/shop Every good nerd knows that E=mc^2. Every great nerd knows that, really, E^2=m^2c^4+p^2c^2 Want to know what that even means? Sure, I’ll tell you, but today I’d like to invite you to an even higher level of nerdom with extra bits to Einstein’s famous equation that will make even the greatest nerds quiver in their … space time merch if they turn out to be real. PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to:http...


How Supernovas Act as Universe’s Largest Particle Accelerators
Today at 9:30 AM

Check out the Space Time Merch Store https://www.pbsspacetime.com/shop Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime Cern's Large Hadron Collider routinely collides particles at energies equivalent to a fraction of a second after the Big Bang. If this worries you, then the following fact will either put you at ease or scare the hell out of you. And that's that a particle with the energy of an LHC collision hits every square kilometer of the Earth every single second. And we only relatively recently figured out where...


Is Our Model of Dark Energy WRONG? | New 4.2σ Results
Today at 8:30 AM

Learn More About Anydesk: https://anydesk.com/spacetime The biggest news in cosmology in recent years is that the mysterious universe-accelerating entity we call dark energy may be fading away. The evidence for this is now strong enough that enormous effort is going into confirming this result. So what’s it going to take, and when are we going to know? Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Patreon Livestream with Looking Glass Universe! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime https://www.youtube.com/lookingglassuniverse Check out the Space Time Merch Store https://www.pbsspacetime.com/shop Sign up fo...


Do Neutron Stars Shine In Dark Matter?
Today at 7:30 AM

👉 Head to https://brilliant.org/spacetime/ for a 30-day free trial + 20% off your annual subscription Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime Neutron stars aren't dark matter--we figured that out a while ago. But new research is telling us that they may be dark matter factories. They may produce the exotic axion, one of the most popular dark matter candidates. Check out the Space Time Merch Store https://www.pbsspacetime.com/shop Sign up for the mailing list to get episode notifications and hear special announcements! https://mailchi.mp/1a6eb8...


The NEW SCIENCE of Moon Formation
Today at 6:30 AM

To Learn More Languages Check Out: https://speakly.app.link/Speakly PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to:http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime Einstein once asked whether “the moon exists only when I look at it?". It was rhetorical objection to the idea that measurement in quantum mechanics causes reality to become real. But there was a time when the moon didn’t exist, and then hours later suddenly did. At least, according to the late...


Do Black Holes Have to Be Black?
Today at 6:30 AM

Check out the Space Time Merch Store https://crowdmade.com/collections/pbsspacetime Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime The primary characteristic that defines black holes is in the name. Black holes are black. The gravitational pull at the event horizon is so powerful that not even light can escape. In this case, black means absence of light. We also think of black as indicating absence of colour. But it turns out there is a way to make a coloured black hole—as long as by colour you mean quantum ch...


The Crisis In Physics: Are We Missing 17 Layers of Reality?
Today at 5:30 AM

Remove your personal information from the web at https://joindeleteme.com/SPACETIME Big things are made of smaller things, and those smaller things are made of smaller things still. That’s reductionism in a nutshell, and digging our way to the smallest layer has been one of the primary goals of physics for ever. But what if, just before we reach the bottom, we find out that reductionism fails? Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime Check out the Space Time Merch Store https://www.pbsspacetime.com/shop Sign up fo...


What Happens To Quantum Information Inside A Black Hole?
Today at 4:30 AM

Check out the Space Time Merch Store https://www.pbsspacetime.com/shop Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime Meet Alice and Bob, famous explorers of the abstract landscape of theoretical physics. Heroes of the gerdankenexperiment—the thought experiment—whose life mission is to find contradictions in the deepest layers of our theories. Today our intrepid pair are jumping into a black hole. Again. Why? Well, to determine the fundamental structure of spacetime and its connection to quantum entanglement of course. PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To supp...


What’s Your Brain’s Role in Creating Space & Time?
Today at 3:30 AM

PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to:http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime Physics is the business of figuring out the structure of the world. So are our brains. But sometimes physics comes to conclusions that are in direct conflict with concepts fundamental to our minds, such as the realness of space and time. How do we tell who’s correct? Are time and space objective realities or human-invented concepts? Episode Companion Playlist https://www.youtube.co...


How Can Humanity Become a Kardashev Type 1 Civilization?
Today at 2:30 AM

Learn More About Anydesk: https://anydesk.com/spacetime Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime Imagine a world where humanity masters every planetary resource available to it—our first step on the famous Kardeshev scale of technological advancement. How distant is that step? Will we even become a true Type-1 civilization, and how can we get there? Check out the Space Time Merch Store https://www.pbsspacetime.com/shop Sign up for the mailing list to get episode notifications and hear special announcements! https://mailchi.mp/1a6eb8f2717d/sp...


Are The Fundamental Constants Finely Tuned? | The Naturalness Problem
Today at 1:30 AM

Learn More About Anydesk: https://anydesk.com/spacetime Did God have any choice in creating the world? So asked Albert Einstein. He was being poetic. What he really meant, was whether the universe could have been any other way. Could it have had different laws of physics, driven by different fundamental constants. Or is this one vast and complex universe the inevitable result of an inevitable and unique underlying principle, perhaps expressible as a supremely elegant Theory of Everything. It certainly seems that Einstein thought this should be the case … that God had no choice in whether or how to cr...


What If There's A Black Hole Inside The Sun? | Hawking Stars
Today at 12:30 AM

Check out the NEW Space Time Merch Store: https://www.pbsspacetime.com/shop Use Code: PBS at Checkout for 15% off in December PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to:http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime A fun nightmare sci-fi scenario is the sun being consumed by a black hole. Fortunately the chance of a black hole randomly wandering into our solar system is pretty tiny. That’s good news. But what if it’s already here, hidi...


Does Axionic Dark Matter Bind Galaxies Together?
Yesterday at 11:30 PM

PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to:http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime Quantum mechanics is our best theory of the fundamental nature of reality, but it's usually only distinguishable from familiar classical mechanics on the smallest scales. However, there are some fringe cases where its distinct features manifest on scales we can observe—in things like superfluids, or the interiors of collapsed stars. But it’s also possible that our entire galaxy is filled with a re...


Could LIGO Find MASSIVE Alien Spaceships?
Yesterday at 10:30 PM

PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to:http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime Whenever we open a new window on the universe, we discover things that no one expected. Our newfound ability to measure ripples in the fabric of spacetime—gravitational waves—is a very new window, and so far we’ve seen a lot of wild stuff. We’ve observed black holes colliding, and their oddly high masses challenges our understanding of black hole formation and grow...


What if Singularities DO NOT Exist?
Yesterday at 9:30 PM

Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord & 10% Off All Merch! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime It's not too often that a giant of physics threatens to overturn an idea held to be self-evident by generations of physicists. Well, that may be the fate of the famous Penrose Singularity Theorem if we're to believe a recent paper by Roy Kerr. Long story short, the terrible singularity at the heart of the black hole may be no more. Roy Kerr Paper: Do Black Holes have Singularities? https://arxiv.org/pdf/2312.00841.pdf Check out the Space Time Merch...


What If Space is NOT Empty?
Yesterday at 8:30 PM

To Learn More About Surfshark Check Out: http://surfshark.deals/spacetime PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to:http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime Spacetime on its smallest scales is a seething ocean of black holes and wormholes flickering into and out of existence—or so many physicists think has to be the case. But why should we take this spacetime foam seriously if we’ve never seen any evidence of it? Check out the Space Time...


Can Space Time Remember?
Yesterday at 7:30 PM

Thank you to Raycon for supporting PBS. Go to https://www.buyraycon.com/spacetime for up to 30% off your order, plus free shipping! Brought to you by Raycon. There are cosmic events so powerful that they leave permanent marks on the fabric of the universe itself. Imagine two colossal black holes spiraling into each other, yes they send ripples in the fabric of spacetime—gravitational waves that we’ve only recently learned to sense. Ripples pass, leaving the pond … or the universe … unchanged when they’re gone. But ripples aren’t the only type of wave. There’s another type of wave that l...


Why Is All DNA Right Handed?
Yesterday at 2:30 PM

PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to:http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE The molecular basis of all life is mysteriously asymmetric, only using molecules on one side of what should be the equivalent mirrored pairs. The universe has a similar mirror asymmetry, and it may be that our very DNA inherited its twist from the underlying handedness of reality. Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime Check out the Space Time Merch Store https://www.pbsspacetime.com/shop Sign up for the...


How Will We (Most Likely) Discover Alien Life?
Yesterday at 1:30 PM

PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to:http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime The first discovery of extraterrestrial life will almost certainly NOT be when it visits us, nor when we visit it. It won’t be when we see it’s stray TV signals. It’ll be in the excruciatingly faint changes in the color of alien sunsets glimpsed hundreds of light years away. Today we’re going to talk about the first such hint, why it's...


What If The Universe Is Math?
Yesterday at 1:00 PM

PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to:http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime In his essay “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics”, the physicist Eugine Wigner said that “the enormous usefulness of mathematics in the natural sciences is something bordering on the mysterious”. This statement was inspired by the observation that so many aspects of the physical world seem to be describable and predictable by mathematical equations to incredible precision especially as quantum phenomena. But quantum phenomena have no...


Why The Multiverse Could Be Real
Yesterday at 12:30 PM

Thanks to Displate for sponsoring the video. Use code SPACETIME at checkout for exclusive discounts on your order at https://displate.com/@spacetime 25% off for 1 Displate, 32% off for 2 to 3, 37% off for 4 and more. Valid on Textra. Not valid on Limited Edition & Lumino. The multiverse pops out of quite a few theories in physics, and has been proposed as a solution to certain vexing problems. But it’s also been argued that the very idea of a multiverse is just bad science. That it’s unfalsifiable and a dead-end to inquiry and as bad a violation of Occam’s razor as you co...


The NEW Ultimate Energy Limit of the Universe
Yesterday at 11:30 AM

Remove your personal information from the web at https://joindeleteme.com/SPACETIME and use code SPACETIME for 20% off DeleteMe international Plans: https://international.joindeleteme.com Is there a limit to how much energy you can cram into, or pull out of one patch of space? Well, we thought so, but the James Webb Space Telescope has found a quasar that simultaneously breaks a century-old theoretical limit and may explain the conundrum of gigantic black holes in the early universe. Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime 15% Off the Entire Merch...


What If Gravity is NOT A Fundamental Force? | Entropic Gravity
Yesterday at 10:30 AM

PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to:http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime There are four fundamental forces - the strong and weak nuclear forces, electromagnetism, and gravity. Except maybe gravity is no more fundamental than the force of a stretched elastic band. Maybe gravity is just an entropic byproduct—an emergent effect of the universe’s tendency to disorder. If you allow entropy to keep you in your seat for a bit, I’ll tell you al...


What If Black Holes ARE Dark Energy?
Yesterday at 9:30 AM

PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to:http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime We tend to imagine there are connectings between things that we don’t understand. Quantum mechanics and consciousness, aliens and pyramids, black holes and dark matter, dark matter and dark energy, dark energy and black holes. Usually there’s no real relationship whatsoever, but this last pair—black holes and dark energy being the same thing—has received some recent hype in the press. L...


Is There Evidence For a Vast Multiverse?
Yesterday at 8:30 AM

Learn More About Anydesk: https://anydesk.com/spacetime In 1987, Steven Weinberg wrote a cute little paper entitled “Anthropic Bound on the Cosmological Constant”. I say cute little paper because it feels minor in comparison to, say, electroweak unification theory that won him the Nobel Prize. Weinberg was foundational in establishing the standard model of particle physics, and represented an enormous leap in understanding how this universe works. But his little 1987 paper, though more obscure, may tell us something about how the multiverse works, and can even be thought of as evidence for the existence of an enormous number of other univ...


What Does An Electron ACTUALLY Look Like?
Yesterday at 7:30 AM

Enjoy 10% OFF on all Hoverpens and free shipping to most countries with code PBS: North America / UK / Australia / International: https://bit.ly/pbs_novium EU: https://bit.ly/pbs_noviumeu Take the PBS Annual Survey Here: https://to.pbs.org/2024SurveyST What does an electron really look like? I mean, if we zoom in all the way. Is it a sizeless speck of charge? Is it a multidimensional vortex of quantum strangeness? Is it the boundary of a tiny universe with universe-electrons of its own? Let’s find out. 15% off the Space Time Merch Store all December!!! https://www.pbsspacetime.co...


The Most Important Satellite You’ve (Probably) Never Heard Of
Yesterday at 6:30 AM

Remove your personal information from the web at https://joindeleteme.com/SPACETIME One of the most important reasons we go to space is to know our own planet better. Today I'm going to tell you about an orbiting facility that literally watches Earth's biosphere breath and grow and die with incredible resolution. I'll talk about its profound existential and economic importance, and about why it's in danger of being lost. PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to:http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space...


What NEW SCIENCE Would We Discover with a Moon Telescope?
Yesterday at 5:30 AM

PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to:http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime In order to see the faint light from objects in deepest space, astronomers go to the darkest places on the planet. In order to listen to their quite radio signals, they head as far from any radio-noisy humans as possible. But there’s nowhere on the earth, or even orbiting the Earth, that’s far enough to hear to the faint radio hum from...


Are Room Temperature Superconductors IMPOSSIBLE?
Yesterday at 4:30 AM

PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to:http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime Superconductive materials seem miraculous. Their resistanceless flow of electricity has been exploited in some powerful ways—from super-strong magnets used in MRIs, particle accelerators and fusion plants. And then there’s, their bizarre ability to levitate in magnetic fields. But the broader use of superconductors is limited because they need to be cooled to extremely low temperatures to work. But what if we coul...


Does Infinity - Infinity = an Electron?
Yesterday at 3:30 AM

Thanks to Radiacode for sponsoring this video. Use the promo code "PBS" to get an exclusive 10% discount at: https://103.radiacode.com/PBS What do you get if you take something that’s infinitely massive and combining with something else that’s negative infinitely massive? You get a single electron, at least that’s what it looks like in our most precise way of describing the quantum world. 15% Off The Entire Merch Store https://www.pbsspacetime.com/shop Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime Sign up for the mailing list to get...


What If The Speed of Light is NOT CONSTANT?
Yesterday at 2:30 AM

PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to: http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime One of the most fundamental physics facts is that the speed of light in a vacuum is constant for all observers. But can we really be sure that the speed of light wasn’t different in the past, or perhaps in other parts of the universe? In fact, variable speed of light theories have long been used to try to explain everything from da...


At What Point Does Spacetime Become Quantum?
Yesterday at 1:30 AM

Learn More About Anydesk: https://anydesk.com/spacetime To observe the quantum nature of gravity and of spacetime itself, we need a particle collider the size of the solar system. Or we could just physics smarter and build one on a lab bench. Here’s how. Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime Check out the Space Time Merch Store https://www.pbsspacetime.com/shop Sign up for the mailing list to get episode notifications and hear special announcements! https://mailchi.mp/1a6eb8f2717d/spacetime PBS Member Stations re...


Is It IMPOSSIBLE To Cross The Event Horizon? | Black Hole Firewall Paradox
Yesterday at 12:30 AM

Check out the Space Time Merch Store https://www.pbsspacetime.com/shop Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime So you’ve decided to jump into a black hole. Good news: as long as the black hole is big enough you can sail through the event horizon without harm and get to experience the interior of the black hole before you’re annihilated by the central singularity. Or so we once thought. These days, quite a few physicists believe that the only way to avoid horrible contradictions in fundamental physics gene...


Is 'Perpetual Motion' Possible with Superfluids?
Last Wednesday at 11:30 PM

Thank you to Brilliant for Supporting PBS. To learn more go to https://brilliant.org/SpaceTime/ PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to:http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime The weird rules of quantum mechanics lead to all sorts of bizarre phenomena on tiny scales— particles teleporting through walls or being in multiple places at once or simultaneously existing and not. Shame all this magical behavior doesn’t happen on scales large enough for us to see...


Can We Create New Elements Beyond the Periodic Table?
Last Wednesday at 10:30 PM

Go to https://www.buyraycon.com/spacetime for 20-40% off your order, plus free shipping! Brought to you by Raycon. Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime Scientists have been slowly extending the periodic table one element at a time, pushing to higher and higher masses, and have discovered some incredibly useful materials along the way. But the elements at the current end of the table are so unstable that they decay almost as soon as they’re created in our particle accelerators. Have we reached the end of the li...


How To Detect Faster Than Light Travel
Last Wednesday at 9:30 PM

Check out the Space Time Merch Store https://www.pbsspacetime.com/shop Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime Warp drives may or may not be possible, but if they are then could a distant alien civilization’s warp fields produce gravitational waves that we could see here on Earth? According to a recent study.. Actually maybe, at least eventually. And we now know just what to look for and how to look for it. PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to:ht...