WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.319 Hey there, ready for another deep dive? Today, 00:00:03.560 --> 00:00:05.919 we're taking a close look at the work of Dr. 00:00:06.280 --> 00:00:09.859 James Peebles, this incredible cosmologist who 00:00:09.859 --> 00:00:12.939 actually won the Nobel Prize back in 2019. Yeah, 00:00:13.060 --> 00:00:14.900 he's a pretty big deal. He's kind of a legend, 00:00:15.080 --> 00:00:17.379 right? And for good reason. He spent his whole 00:00:17.379 --> 00:00:19.800 career trying to figure out what the universe 00:00:19.800 --> 00:00:22.219 is made of, like literally. Yeah, he's tackled 00:00:22.219 --> 00:00:24.420 some of the biggest mysteries out there. Especially, 00:00:24.539 --> 00:00:26.500 you know, the stuff we can't even see. A dark 00:00:26.500 --> 00:00:29.199 side of the cosmos. Exactly, dark matter and 00:00:29.199 --> 00:00:32.280 dark energy. And get this, this stuff makes up 00:00:32.280 --> 00:00:36.299 a huge chunk of the universe. Like, think 95%. 00:00:36.299 --> 00:00:39.200 It's mind -blowing, right? The vast majority 00:00:39.200 --> 00:00:41.460 of the universe is invisible to us. It really 00:00:41.460 --> 00:00:43.539 makes you wonder, like, what else is out there? 00:00:43.640 --> 00:00:45.359 But don't worry, today we're going to unpack 00:00:45.359 --> 00:00:47.640 how scientists figured out these invisible forces 00:00:47.640 --> 00:00:50.200 even exist. It's a pretty wild detective story. 00:00:50.340 --> 00:00:52.240 And we'll also get a glimpse into the mind of 00:00:52.240 --> 00:00:54.880 the scientific trailblazer, Dr. Peebles himself. 00:00:55.060 --> 00:00:57.659 He's got some fascinating insights into how science 00:00:57.659 --> 00:01:00.119 works and how we make these groundbreaking discoveries. 00:01:00.560 --> 00:01:03.530 Oh, and I almost forgot. We'll uncover this really 00:01:03.530 --> 00:01:06.750 cool story about a dirty little secret at Bell 00:01:06.750 --> 00:01:10.010 Labs. It actually led to a major cosmological 00:01:10.010 --> 00:01:15.730 discovery. That story is... major breakthroughs 00:01:15.730 --> 00:01:17.790 in the most unexpected ways. Okay, so before 00:01:17.790 --> 00:01:20.209 we get to that dirty little secret, let's rewind 00:01:20.209 --> 00:01:23.370 a bit. Let's trace people's path to becoming 00:01:23.370 --> 00:01:26.180 this like... cosmology superstar. Because it's 00:01:26.180 --> 00:01:28.280 not your typical, you know, straight A physics 00:01:28.280 --> 00:01:30.959 prodigy story. Not at all. Peoples actually started 00:01:30.959 --> 00:01:33.000 out with this passion for building things. He 00:01:33.000 --> 00:01:35.159 was a tinkerer at heart, you know? Yeah, he talks 00:01:35.159 --> 00:01:37.540 about how he loved to take apart electronics 00:01:37.540 --> 00:01:39.439 and put them back together. So that led him to 00:01:39.439 --> 00:01:41.439 study engineering. It makes sense, right? It 00:01:41.439 --> 00:01:43.920 does. But as it turns out, engineering wasn't 00:01:43.920 --> 00:01:46.079 quite the right fit for him. He realized his 00:01:46.079 --> 00:01:49.159 true calling was physics. And thankfully, he 00:01:49.159 --> 00:01:52.000 had this professor who recognized his potential 00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:55.439 and steered him towards Princeton. Ah, Princeton, 00:01:55.680 --> 00:01:58.280 the mecca of physics research. Exactly. It was 00:01:58.280 --> 00:02:00.420 a turning point in his journey. And at Princeton, 00:02:00.780 --> 00:02:03.760 he ended up studying under not one but two giants 00:02:03.760 --> 00:02:06.379 in the field. Oh yeah, John Wheeler and Bob Dick, 00:02:06.799 --> 00:02:09.520 two legendary figures in physics. I mean, talk 00:02:09.520 --> 00:02:11.460 about an incredible opportunity. They both had 00:02:11.460 --> 00:02:13.919 such different approaches to gravity, and that 00:02:13.919 --> 00:02:16.240 really shaped people's thinking. It's like you 00:02:16.240 --> 00:02:18.719 got the best of both worlds. So... Tell me more 00:02:18.719 --> 00:02:21.120 about these two titans of physics, Wheeler and 00:02:21.120 --> 00:02:24.639 Dick. How did their contrasting styles influence 00:02:24.639 --> 00:02:27.240 people's? Well, Wheeler, he was all about the 00:02:27.240 --> 00:02:30.159 beauty and the elegance of Einstein's theory 00:02:30.159 --> 00:02:33.000 of general relativity. He was captivated by, 00:02:33.000 --> 00:02:35.710 like, the theoretical side of things. OK. So 00:02:35.710 --> 00:02:38.889 he was drawn to the big ideas, the grand concepts. 00:02:39.110 --> 00:02:41.210 Yeah. And Dick, on the other hand, he was a staunch 00:02:41.210 --> 00:02:44.069 experimentalist. He believed that theories were 00:02:44.069 --> 00:02:45.969 only as good as the experiments that could test 00:02:45.969 --> 00:02:48.530 them. Yeah. So he was all about putting those 00:02:48.530 --> 00:02:50.889 big ideas to the test, seeing if they held up 00:02:50.889 --> 00:02:53.530 in the real world. Precisely. And this emphasis 00:02:53.530 --> 00:02:56.750 on experimental verification is key to understanding 00:02:56.750 --> 00:02:59.689 the story of cosmic background radiation. This 00:02:59.689 --> 00:03:01.830 is where that dirty little secret comes in, right? 00:03:02.090 --> 00:03:05.270 You got it. So we have these two scientists at 00:03:05.270 --> 00:03:09.069 Bell Labs, Arno Pentheus and Robert Wilson, and 00:03:09.069 --> 00:03:12.310 they're working with this giant microwave receiver. 00:03:12.449 --> 00:03:14.969 This is back in the 1960s, right? Yep. And they 00:03:14.969 --> 00:03:16.969 kept picking up this annoying noise they couldn't 00:03:16.969 --> 00:03:19.349 get rid of, no matter what they tried. They even 00:03:19.349 --> 00:03:21.789 cleaned out pigeon droppings, thinking that was 00:03:21.789 --> 00:03:23.849 the culprit. Wait, so they're trying to eliminate 00:03:23.849 --> 00:03:26.750 this noise, and it turns out to be like a signal 00:03:26.750 --> 00:03:28.780 from the Big Bang. I know, right. It's pretty 00:03:28.780 --> 00:03:31.500 incredible. That's wild. But hold on, how did 00:03:31.500 --> 00:03:33.300 they even know what they were looking at? Well, 00:03:33.300 --> 00:03:35.479 this is where Dick's team at Princeton comes 00:03:35.479 --> 00:03:38.479 in. They were actively searching for this radiation. 00:03:39.039 --> 00:03:40.960 They had a theoretical framework to make sense 00:03:40.960 --> 00:03:43.860 of it. So when word got around about this persistent 00:03:43.860 --> 00:03:46.360 noise, the two teams met. And that's when they 00:03:46.360 --> 00:03:50.039 realized the noise was actually the cosmic background 00:03:50.039 --> 00:03:52.800 radiation. The afterglow of the Big Bang. It 00:03:52.800 --> 00:03:55.300 was a monumental discovery. It confirmed that 00:03:55.300 --> 00:03:58.090 the universe had a hot, dense beginning. So two 00:03:58.090 --> 00:04:00.669 teams, one amazing discovery. What happened next? 00:04:00.990 --> 00:04:02.849 They decided to publish their findings separately. 00:04:03.409 --> 00:04:05.770 One paper detailing the experimental discovery 00:04:05.770 --> 00:04:08.789 and the other focusing on the theoretical implications. 00:04:09.409 --> 00:04:12.150 It was a really great example of scientific collaboration. 00:04:12.629 --> 00:04:14.490 It makes sense. But what about the Nobel Prize? 00:04:14.650 --> 00:04:16.910 I know Penzias and Wilson won it for this discovery. 00:04:17.269 --> 00:04:19.389 What about Dick? Well, that's where things get 00:04:19.389 --> 00:04:22.720 a little controversial. Oh. Yeah, because some 00:04:22.720 --> 00:04:24.259 people believe that Dick should have shared the 00:04:24.259 --> 00:04:27.399 Nobel Prize since his team was actively looking 00:04:27.399 --> 00:04:29.879 for this radiation. It raises questions about 00:04:29.879 --> 00:04:32.620 how we attribute credit in science, especially 00:04:32.620 --> 00:04:37.040 when discoveries involve a mix of chance and 00:04:37.040 --> 00:04:39.879 theoretical predictions and experimental confirmation. 00:04:40.319 --> 00:04:42.519 It's a good point. And it really reminds us that 00:04:42.519 --> 00:04:46.490 science is rarely A solo endeavor. It's a collective 00:04:46.490 --> 00:04:49.089 effort. Absolutely. And to add another layer 00:04:49.089 --> 00:04:51.769 to this whole story, the cosmic background radiation 00:04:51.769 --> 00:04:54.149 was actually predicted even earlier, although 00:04:54.149 --> 00:04:56.850 less prominently, by George Gamow and his collaborators. 00:04:57.149 --> 00:04:59.170 So it's like this chain of discoveries, each 00:04:59.170 --> 00:05:01.430 one building on the previous one. Exactly. Science 00:05:01.430 --> 00:05:03.709 is full of these winding paths and interconnected 00:05:03.709 --> 00:05:05.910 breakthroughs. OK, so we've got this evidence 00:05:05.910 --> 00:05:08.509 of a hot early universe, thanks to the cosmic 00:05:08.509 --> 00:05:11.139 background radiation. But this is where we start 00:05:11.139 --> 00:05:13.420 to see the cracks in our understanding of what 00:05:13.420 --> 00:05:15.420 the universe is actually made of, right? You're 00:05:15.420 --> 00:05:17.860 right. There was this puzzle. If the universe 00:05:17.860 --> 00:05:21.160 started out so hot and dense, how did it end 00:05:21.160 --> 00:05:23.860 up with the clumpy distribution of galaxies we 00:05:23.860 --> 00:05:27.480 see today? The cosmic background radiation suggested 00:05:27.480 --> 00:05:30.279 a smooth, uniform beginning, but the universe 00:05:30.279 --> 00:05:33.759 we observe is anything but smooth. So how did 00:05:33.759 --> 00:05:37.040 Peebles tackle this cosmic conundrum? This is 00:05:37.040 --> 00:05:39.279 where dark matter enters the picture. Exactly. 00:05:39.680 --> 00:05:41.879 Peebles had the audacity to propose something 00:05:41.879 --> 00:05:44.939 radical. What if there was an invisible substance 00:05:44.939 --> 00:05:46.699 out there, something that didn't interact with 00:05:46.699 --> 00:05:49.220 light but still had mass and gravity? He called 00:05:49.220 --> 00:05:52.060 it dark matter. So Peebles just throws out this 00:05:52.060 --> 00:05:54.339 idea of dark matter, like out of nowhere. Was 00:05:54.339 --> 00:05:56.980 there anything that led him to this radical idea? 00:05:57.199 --> 00:06:00.040 Well, it wasn't completely a guess. Astronomers 00:06:00.040 --> 00:06:02.220 had already noticed something strange, like galaxies 00:06:02.220 --> 00:06:04.939 were rotating way faster than they should based 00:06:04.939 --> 00:06:06.819 on what we could see, you know, the visible matter. 00:06:06.899 --> 00:06:08.800 That's like something was missing. Yeah, exactly. 00:06:08.920 --> 00:06:11.319 Like some invisible glue was holding these galaxies 00:06:11.319 --> 00:06:14.360 together, providing extra gravity. So dark matter 00:06:14.360 --> 00:06:16.980 was like the missing piece of the puzzle. It 00:06:16.980 --> 00:06:19.519 explains why galaxies behave the way they do. 00:06:19.939 --> 00:06:23.160 But how do we actually know this isn't just like 00:06:23.160 --> 00:06:25.939 a made up concept? How do we know dark matter 00:06:25.939 --> 00:06:29.129 is real? OK, so. Peebles didn't just propose 00:06:29.129 --> 00:06:32.029 the idea of dark matter. He went a step further 00:06:32.029 --> 00:06:36.069 and suggested that it was cold, meaning it moves 00:06:36.069 --> 00:06:38.990 slowly compared to the speed of light. Cold dark 00:06:38.990 --> 00:06:41.230 matter, okay. And this was a crucial insight 00:06:41.230 --> 00:06:43.170 because it led to some very specific predictions 00:06:43.170 --> 00:06:47.040 about how dark matter would... clumped together 00:06:47.040 --> 00:06:49.500 over time. So this cold dark matter would have 00:06:49.500 --> 00:06:51.839 shaped the large -scale structure of the universe, 00:06:51.959 --> 00:06:53.839 you know, like the way galaxies are distributed. 00:06:54.199 --> 00:06:56.560 But how do we test that idea? I mean, we can't 00:06:56.560 --> 00:06:58.920 see dark matter, right? Right. But remember that 00:06:58.920 --> 00:07:00.819 cosmic background radiation we talked about, 00:07:01.079 --> 00:07:03.319 the afterglow of the Big Bang? Well, it turns 00:07:03.319 --> 00:07:06.100 out those tiny temperature variations in the 00:07:06.100 --> 00:07:08.420 cosmic background radiation, the wiggles, are 00:07:08.420 --> 00:07:10.980 like fingerprints. Fingerprints of matter. Yeah, 00:07:10.980 --> 00:07:13.860 exactly. They reveal the presence and properties 00:07:13.860 --> 00:07:16.639 of dark matter. Okay, hold on. I need a bit more 00:07:16.639 --> 00:07:18.680 explanation on those wiggles. Can you break it 00:07:18.680 --> 00:07:21.180 down for me? Sure. So imagine you're taking a 00:07:21.180 --> 00:07:24.399 snapshot of the baby universe. This snapshot 00:07:24.399 --> 00:07:27.360 would show tiny differences in temperature, like 00:07:27.360 --> 00:07:31.360 hot spots and cold spots. These wiggles are essentially 00:07:31.360 --> 00:07:33.600 a map of those temperature differences. Okay, 00:07:33.680 --> 00:07:35.560 it's starting to get it. And the pattern of those 00:07:35.560 --> 00:07:37.800 wiggles tells us a lot about what the universe 00:07:37.800 --> 00:07:40.819 is made of, including dark matter. So people's 00:07:40.819 --> 00:07:43.240 theory of cold dark matter actually predicted 00:07:43.240 --> 00:07:46.259 these wiggles. Exactly. And here's the amazing 00:07:46.259 --> 00:07:49.500 thing. When astronomers measured the cosmic background 00:07:49.500 --> 00:07:52.500 radiation with super high precision, the pattern 00:07:52.500 --> 00:07:54.660 of the wiggles matched people's predictions almost 00:07:54.660 --> 00:07:57.500 perfectly. Wow. So it was like a confirmation 00:07:57.500 --> 00:08:00.779 of his theory. Exactly. Strong evidence for the 00:08:00.779 --> 00:08:02.439 existence of dark matter. That's really cool. 00:08:02.519 --> 00:08:04.600 It's amazing how these theoretical predictions 00:08:04.600 --> 00:08:06.920 can be tested by looking at this faint light 00:08:06.920 --> 00:08:09.230 from the Big Bang. It is pretty mind blowing. 00:08:09.529 --> 00:08:11.910 So we've got dark matter, this invisible glue, 00:08:12.290 --> 00:08:14.790 holding galaxies together and shaping the universe. 00:08:15.310 --> 00:08:17.290 But the story doesn't end there, does it? There's 00:08:17.290 --> 00:08:19.750 more to the dark universe. Oh, yeah, there's 00:08:19.750 --> 00:08:23.050 more. The plot thickens, you could say, because 00:08:23.050 --> 00:08:25.449 the universe isn't just expanding, it's expanding 00:08:25.449 --> 00:08:28.730 at an accelerating rate. And this is where Einstein's 00:08:28.730 --> 00:08:31.250 cosmological constant comes back into play. Wait, 00:08:31.350 --> 00:08:33.690 the cosmological constant, the thing he called 00:08:33.690 --> 00:08:36.649 his biggest blunder. The one and only. OK, so 00:08:36.649 --> 00:08:39.509 back up a sec. What is this cosmological constant 00:08:39.509 --> 00:08:41.750 and why did Einstein think it was such a blunder? 00:08:42.190 --> 00:08:45.610 OK, so Einstein added this constant to his equations 00:08:45.610 --> 00:08:48.230 of general relativity because he believed the 00:08:48.230 --> 00:08:51.190 universe was static, like neither expanding nor 00:08:51.190 --> 00:08:54.450 contracting, you know. So this constant was a 00:08:54.450 --> 00:08:56.309 way to counteract gravity and keep the universe 00:08:56.309 --> 00:08:59.629 in balance. But then Edwin Hubble discovered 00:08:59.629 --> 00:09:01.809 that the universe was actually expanding and 00:09:01.809 --> 00:09:04.480 Einstein was like, oops. My bad. He abandoned 00:09:04.480 --> 00:09:06.840 the cosmological constant, calling it his biggest 00:09:06.840 --> 00:09:08.500 mistake. So why are we even talking about it 00:09:08.500 --> 00:09:10.360 now? What does this have to do with dark energy? 00:09:10.620 --> 00:09:13.419 OK, so in the 1990s, astronomers were looking 00:09:13.419 --> 00:09:16.600 at distant supernovae. These are exploding stars, 00:09:16.720 --> 00:09:19.259 right? And they realized these supernovae were 00:09:19.259 --> 00:09:21.639 dimmer than expected, suggesting they were farther 00:09:21.639 --> 00:09:23.759 away than they should be. That's interesting. 00:09:24.080 --> 00:09:26.220 Yeah. And the only way to explain this was if 00:09:26.220 --> 00:09:28.379 the expansion of the universe was speeding up. 00:09:28.649 --> 00:09:30.690 You know, not slowing down like gravity would 00:09:30.690 --> 00:09:32.809 suggest. So the universe is not only getting 00:09:32.809 --> 00:09:35.190 bigger, but it's doing so at a faster and faster 00:09:35.190 --> 00:09:38.289 rate. Exactly. It's accelerating. And to explain 00:09:38.289 --> 00:09:41.110 this accelerating expansion, scientists needed 00:09:41.110 --> 00:09:43.909 something new, something more than just dark 00:09:43.909 --> 00:09:47.009 matter. Enter dark energy. Right. So they resurrected 00:09:47.009 --> 00:09:49.909 Einstein's cosmological constant, this idea he 00:09:49.909 --> 00:09:53.389 discarded, and linked it. to this mysterious 00:09:53.389 --> 00:09:56.470 force, this dark energy that seems to be pushing 00:09:56.470 --> 00:09:58.929 everything apart. So Einstein was right all along. 00:09:59.389 --> 00:10:02.309 This biggest blunder of his might actually be 00:10:02.309 --> 00:10:04.409 a crucial part of understanding the universe. 00:10:05.230 --> 00:10:07.409 That's pretty wild. It just goes to show you 00:10:07.409 --> 00:10:09.970 that science is constantly evolving and that 00:10:09.970 --> 00:10:12.830 sometimes old ideas can come back in a big way. 00:10:12.990 --> 00:10:15.669 And Peebles. He played a role in this whole dark 00:10:15.669 --> 00:10:18.720 energy saga, didn't he? Oh, absolutely. He was 00:10:18.720 --> 00:10:22.279 one of the first cosmologists to really seriously 00:10:22.279 --> 00:10:25.259 consider the cosmological constant again as a 00:10:25.259 --> 00:10:27.740 way to explain this accelerating expansion. He 00:10:27.740 --> 00:10:29.860 even joked about, you know, a younger scientist 00:10:29.860 --> 00:10:31.759 accusing him of bringing it back just to annoy 00:10:31.759 --> 00:10:33.860 people. He seems like he has a good sense of 00:10:33.860 --> 00:10:36.700 humor about all of this. Definitely. But beyond 00:10:36.700 --> 00:10:40.289 the jokes. His willingness to revisit old ideas, 00:10:40.490 --> 00:10:43.169 to consider these unconventional solutions, it 00:10:43.169 --> 00:10:45.590 was critical to moving the field forward. That's 00:10:45.590 --> 00:10:47.669 amazing. So we've gone from a universe we thought 00:10:47.669 --> 00:10:50.629 was mostly made up of stars and galaxies to one 00:10:50.629 --> 00:10:53.149 dominated by these invisible forces. Dark matter 00:10:53.149 --> 00:10:55.549 holding things together and dark energy pushing 00:10:55.549 --> 00:10:57.730 them apart. It really changes our whole perspective 00:10:57.730 --> 00:11:00.690 on the cosmos. It does. And it raises a ton of 00:11:00.690 --> 00:11:02.590 new questions, like what are dark matter and 00:11:02.590 --> 00:11:05.309 dark energy really? How will this accelerating 00:11:05.309 --> 00:11:08.350 expansion affect the fate of the universe? You 00:11:08.350 --> 00:11:10.830 know, the big picture stuff. It's mind boggling. 00:11:11.090 --> 00:11:13.289 But before we get too lost in the vastness of 00:11:13.289 --> 00:11:15.330 it all, let's zoom in a bit. Let's talk about 00:11:15.330 --> 00:11:17.669 this specific galaxy that Peebles talks about, 00:11:17.929 --> 00:11:21.649 M101. Ah, yes, M101. It's a beautiful spiral 00:11:21.649 --> 00:11:24.870 galaxy. And people sees it as like a microcosm 00:11:24.870 --> 00:11:26.490 of all these cosmic puzzles we've been talking 00:11:26.490 --> 00:11:30.370 about. So what makes this particular galaxy so 00:11:30.370 --> 00:11:32.870 special? Why M101? Well, first off, it's just 00:11:32.870 --> 00:11:35.049 a really beautiful galaxy visually. I mean, with 00:11:35.049 --> 00:11:39.769 these bright blue star forming regions and and 00:11:39.769 --> 00:11:42.809 red patches of ionized plasma and the central 00:11:42.809 --> 00:11:45.929 yellow glow, it's just a stunning reminder of 00:11:45.929 --> 00:11:48.009 just the beauty and the complexity of the universe. 00:11:48.149 --> 00:11:50.370 It sounds gorgeous. I mean, just like this cosmic 00:11:50.370 --> 00:11:52.419 masterpiece. But you're saying there's more to 00:11:52.419 --> 00:11:54.539 it than just how it looks, right? Right. Peebles 00:11:54.539 --> 00:11:57.299 points out that M101 probably has billions of 00:11:57.299 --> 00:11:59.919 planets. Wow. Most of which we'll never even 00:11:59.919 --> 00:12:01.759 be able to observe directly. It's just this thought 00:12:01.759 --> 00:12:03.899 that's so humbling that there's so much out there 00:12:03.899 --> 00:12:06.519 beyond our reach. It really is. But even with 00:12:06.519 --> 00:12:08.440 the parts of M101 we can observe, there's still 00:12:08.440 --> 00:12:10.960 so many, like, puzzles, right? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. 00:12:11.740 --> 00:12:14.580 One of the big mysteries is its thin disk and 00:12:14.580 --> 00:12:17.720 these really tightly wound spiral arms. Even 00:12:17.720 --> 00:12:20.100 with everything we know about dark matter, our 00:12:20.100 --> 00:12:22.320 current simulations, they still can't really 00:12:22.320 --> 00:12:24.159 reproduce those features. So it's like something's 00:12:24.159 --> 00:12:26.620 still missing from our models of how galaxies 00:12:26.620 --> 00:12:29.120 actually form and evolve. It seems like it, yeah. 00:12:29.259 --> 00:12:31.440 Like there might be this key ingredient or some 00:12:31.440 --> 00:12:33.799 process we just haven't fully accounted for yet. 00:12:34.139 --> 00:12:35.740 And then there's the question of whether M11 00:12:35.740 --> 00:12:38.179 even has a supermassive black hole at its center. 00:12:38.600 --> 00:12:40.860 I thought most galaxies had supermassive black 00:12:40.860 --> 00:12:43.039 holes at their centers. Yeah, a lot of them do, 00:12:43.500 --> 00:12:46.340 including our own Milky Way. But for M101, it's 00:12:46.340 --> 00:12:48.899 still kind of an open question. But the James 00:12:48.899 --> 00:12:51.299 Webb Space Telescope, with its amazing sensitivity, 00:12:52.100 --> 00:12:53.799 it might be able to detect the signs of a black 00:12:53.799 --> 00:12:56.740 hole hiding there. That would be so cool. Speaking 00:12:56.740 --> 00:12:58.639 of the James Webb Telescope, it's been making 00:12:58.639 --> 00:13:00.919 all these groundbreaking discoveries about early 00:13:00.919 --> 00:13:03.779 galaxies. And some of them seem to, like, challenge 00:13:03.779 --> 00:13:06.220 our current understanding of galaxy formation, 00:13:06.220 --> 00:13:08.820 you know, how quickly they formed. What does 00:13:08.820 --> 00:13:11.360 Peebles think about these new observations? Well, 00:13:11.360 --> 00:13:13.559 he basically sees it as another clue, another 00:13:13.559 --> 00:13:16.080 piece of the puzzle. He knows these observations. 00:13:16.659 --> 00:13:18.860 They kind of challenge our models, and it might 00:13:18.860 --> 00:13:20.799 mean we need to rethink our understanding of 00:13:20.799 --> 00:13:23.340 galaxy formation. He seems excited to see how 00:13:23.340 --> 00:13:25.360 the next generation of cosmologists are going 00:13:25.360 --> 00:13:27.440 to take on these new challenges. It's amazing 00:13:27.440 --> 00:13:29.320 how even with everything we've learned, there's 00:13:29.320 --> 00:13:31.440 still so much we don't know about the universe. 00:13:31.840 --> 00:13:34.279 I know, it's really humbling. And Peebles actually 00:13:34.279 --> 00:13:36.100 has a great perspective on this. He talks about 00:13:36.100 --> 00:13:38.720 how important it is to go back and look at these 00:13:38.720 --> 00:13:41.919 little oddities, these weird observations that 00:13:41.919 --> 00:13:44.440 might have been ignored or overlooked. Like those 00:13:44.440 --> 00:13:47.580 pigeon droppings. Exactly. Sometimes the biggest 00:13:47.580 --> 00:13:49.759 breakthroughs come from paying attention to those 00:13:49.759 --> 00:13:53.000 little details that don't quite fit. It seems 00:13:53.000 --> 00:13:55.059 like Peebles, he's really comfortable with not 00:13:55.059 --> 00:13:57.559 having all the answers. He is. He thinks that 00:13:57.559 --> 00:14:00.419 some questions like the ultimate origin of the 00:14:00.419 --> 00:14:03.440 universe might be just beyond our reach for now. 00:14:03.639 --> 00:14:05.399 And he doesn't see that as a failure of science, 00:14:05.500 --> 00:14:07.919 but just the acknowledgement of how vast and 00:14:07.919 --> 00:14:10.340 complex the universe really is. That's a really 00:14:10.340 --> 00:14:12.639 cool way to think about it. And it makes me think 00:14:12.639 --> 00:14:15.279 about all those billions of planets in M101 that 00:14:15.279 --> 00:14:17.460 we might never be able to see. What if we could 00:14:17.460 --> 00:14:19.919 see them? What would we find? I know, right? 00:14:20.320 --> 00:14:22.159 The question that really sparks the imagination. 00:14:22.240 --> 00:14:25.059 Would we find life, maybe even intelligent life? 00:14:25.539 --> 00:14:27.159 Would those planets be like ours or would they 00:14:27.159 --> 00:14:29.100 be completely different, shaped by forces we 00:14:29.100 --> 00:14:31.220 can't even imagine? It's incredible to think 00:14:31.220 --> 00:14:33.899 about all the possibilities out there. This deep 00:14:33.899 --> 00:14:36.860 dive into people's work has been amazing. It's 00:14:36.860 --> 00:14:38.720 really opened my eyes to all these mysteries, 00:14:38.860 --> 00:14:40.980 the invisible forces that shape the universe, 00:14:41.460 --> 00:14:43.600 and those big questions about its origin and 00:14:43.600 --> 00:14:47.000 its fate. It's been a wild ride. Yeah, it has. 00:14:47.480 --> 00:14:50.200 And it's a journey that never really ends. The 00:14:50.200 --> 00:14:52.360 more we explore, the more we observe, the more 00:14:52.360 --> 00:14:54.500 we'll uncover new and amazing things about the 00:14:54.500 --> 00:14:57.029 cosmos. So to everyone listening, keep looking 00:14:57.029 --> 00:14:58.990 up at the night sky with that sense of wonder. 00:14:59.169 --> 00:15:01.509 Keep asking those big questions and keep exploring. 00:15:02.210 --> 00:15:04.730 You never know what you might discover out there.