WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.279 I want you to try something for a second. Just 00:00:02.279 --> 00:00:06.080 imagine you are standing outside on a completely 00:00:06.080 --> 00:00:09.859 clear, like perfectly dark night. Oh, that's 00:00:09.859 --> 00:00:12.160 the best kind of night. Right. And you look up 00:00:12.160 --> 00:00:15.599 and you are just overwhelmed by the sheer number 00:00:15.599 --> 00:00:18.859 of stars. I mean, billions of them, galaxies 00:00:18.859 --> 00:00:21.739 swirling. It feels like you are looking at literally 00:00:21.739 --> 00:00:25.640 everything there is to see. Yeah, it's a profound 00:00:25.640 --> 00:00:27.920 feeling. It really is. But what if I told you 00:00:27.920 --> 00:00:29.820 that everything you are looking at, every star, 00:00:30.100 --> 00:00:32.880 every glowing cloud of gas, every planet, is 00:00:32.880 --> 00:00:35.340 basically just a rounding error? Wow, a rounding 00:00:35.340 --> 00:00:37.659 error. Yeah, like what if 90 % of the universe 00:00:37.659 --> 00:00:40.380 is actually completely invisible to you? It's 00:00:40.380 --> 00:00:42.880 a profoundly humbling thought. I mean, we are 00:00:42.880 --> 00:00:46.320 so visually oriented as a species that we naturally 00:00:46.320 --> 00:00:49.469 assume what we can see is... Well, all that exists. 00:00:49.590 --> 00:00:51.469 Right. The cosmos, however, doesn't really care 00:00:51.469 --> 00:00:53.490 about our assumptions. It definitely doesn't. 00:00:53.590 --> 00:00:56.149 So today we are going on a deep dive into the 00:00:56.149 --> 00:00:59.789 notes, research, and primarily this really comprehensive 00:00:59.789 --> 00:01:02.609 Wikipedia article detailing the life of a woman 00:01:02.609 --> 00:01:04.950 who completely shattered those assumptions. The 00:01:04.950 --> 00:01:08.060 American astronomer Vera Rubin. Exactly, Vera 00:01:08.060 --> 00:01:11.260 Rubin. And our mission today isn't just to talk 00:01:11.260 --> 00:01:14.140 about how she, you know, provided the very first 00:01:14.140 --> 00:01:16.439 persuasive evidence for dark matter. Though that 00:01:16.439 --> 00:01:19.340 is huge. Huge. But we are also going to look 00:01:19.340 --> 00:01:22.140 at how she spent her entire life battling and 00:01:22.140 --> 00:01:25.159 frankly defeating systemic barriers in the scientific 00:01:25.159 --> 00:01:27.500 community. And she did it all with an incredible 00:01:27.500 --> 00:01:31.680 amount of grace, relentless curiosity, and just 00:01:31.680 --> 00:01:34.719 an absolute refusal to accept the word no. Yeah. 00:01:34.829 --> 00:01:37.969 Her story is, I mean, it's a masterclass in why 00:01:37.969 --> 00:01:39.989 we have to question the things everyone else 00:01:39.989 --> 00:01:41.950 just takes for granted. Okay, let's unpack this, 00:01:42.030 --> 00:01:44.129 because her story starts in a way that is just, 00:01:44.129 --> 00:01:47.090 it's so incredibly relatable. It really is. It's 00:01:47.090 --> 00:01:49.430 Washington, D .C., around 1938. She's 10 years 00:01:49.430 --> 00:01:52.030 old, and she's just staring out her bedroom window 00:01:52.030 --> 00:01:55.030 at the stars. Like so many kids do. Right. And 00:01:55.030 --> 00:01:57.969 she and her dad, his name was Pete Cooper, they 00:01:57.969 --> 00:02:00.409 actually built a crude cardboard telescope together 00:02:00.409 --> 00:02:03.250 so she could track meteors. That is such a beautiful, 00:02:03.430 --> 00:02:06.430 vivid image to start a career. Like just a kid 00:02:06.430 --> 00:02:08.770 with a cardboard tube. And there's a quote from 00:02:08.770 --> 00:02:11.530 her about that specific time in her childhood 00:02:11.530 --> 00:02:14.669 that I think really gets to the core of her personality. 00:02:15.189 --> 00:02:17.370 Oh, yeah, the one about the questions. Exactly. 00:02:17.729 --> 00:02:20.210 She said, quote, even then I was more interested 00:02:20.210 --> 00:02:23.210 in the question than in the answer. I decided 00:02:23.210 --> 00:02:25.569 at an early age that we inhabit a very curious 00:02:25.569 --> 00:02:29.129 world. I love that. That right there is the pure 00:02:29.129 --> 00:02:33.129 essence of a scientific mind. It's not just about, 00:02:33.129 --> 00:02:35.389 you know, memorizing facts from a textbook. Right. 00:02:35.430 --> 00:02:37.810 It's about being fundamentally comfortable with 00:02:37.810 --> 00:02:41.569 the unknown. Exactly. The problem was that the 00:02:41.569 --> 00:02:44.280 world she inhabited wasn't quite ready for her 00:02:44.280 --> 00:02:46.659 question. No, it really wasn't. She goes to high 00:02:46.659 --> 00:02:50.719 school and she has the science teacher who literally 00:02:50.719 --> 00:02:53.819 advises her to avoid a career in science and 00:02:53.819 --> 00:02:56.780 become an artist instead. Which is just, and 00:02:56.780 --> 00:02:58.479 unfortunately, that was just the first of many 00:02:58.479 --> 00:03:00.219 institutional roadblocks she would run into. 00:03:00.460 --> 00:03:03.099 Yeah. I mean, when she tried to enroll in the 00:03:03.099 --> 00:03:05.199 graduate astronomy program at Princeton, she 00:03:05.199 --> 00:03:07.439 was completely barred. Just flat out barred. 00:03:07.620 --> 00:03:09.680 Completely. Yeah. And not because of her grades. 00:03:09.979 --> 00:03:12.379 or because of her aptitude, solely because of 00:03:12.379 --> 00:03:16.000 her gender. Which is crazy. And incredibly, Princeton 00:03:16.000 --> 00:03:18.879 maintained that policy of excluding women from 00:03:18.879 --> 00:03:22.319 their graduate astronomy department until 1975. 00:03:23.379 --> 00:03:26.120 1975, that is wild to think about. I mean people 00:03:26.120 --> 00:03:27.780 were wearing bell bottoms and they still wouldn't 00:03:27.780 --> 00:03:30.349 let women study astronomy. It's absurd. But she 00:03:30.349 --> 00:03:33.770 clearly didn't let it stop her. In 1948, she 00:03:33.770 --> 00:03:36.370 became the only astronomy graduate from Vassar 00:03:36.370 --> 00:03:38.189 College. Which was an all -women's school at 00:03:38.189 --> 00:03:39.830 the time. Great, with a really strong history 00:03:39.830 --> 00:03:42.629 of astronomy, actually. Then she goes on to Cornell 00:03:42.629 --> 00:03:44.969 for her master's, where she actually worked with 00:03:44.969 --> 00:03:46.930 heavyweights like Richard Feynman. Talk about 00:03:46.930 --> 00:03:49.590 a scientific titan. Seriously. And eventually 00:03:49.590 --> 00:03:53.349 she goes to Georgetown for her PhD. But I was 00:03:53.349 --> 00:03:55.550 reading through the notes about her early career 00:03:55.550 --> 00:03:58.289 and I have to admit the media coverage of her 00:03:58.289 --> 00:04:00.710 work Completely threw me off. Oh, I know exactly 00:04:00.710 --> 00:04:02.949 what you're gonna say. I was physically frustrated 00:04:02.949 --> 00:04:05.550 reading it Yeah, the 1950 presentation at the 00:04:05.550 --> 00:04:08.009 American Astronautical Society meeting is a perfect 00:04:08.009 --> 00:04:10.490 example of what she was up against. It's infuriating 00:04:10.490 --> 00:04:13.909 So she's at Cornell and she compiles this data 00:04:13.909 --> 00:04:17.110 showing early observations of deviations from 00:04:17.110 --> 00:04:19.850 the Hubble flow, right? Which, just to make sure 00:04:19.850 --> 00:04:22.509 we're all on the same page, the Hubble flow was 00:04:22.509 --> 00:04:25.310 basically the prevailing idea at the time that 00:04:25.310 --> 00:04:28.069 everything in the universe is just smoothly expanding 00:04:28.069 --> 00:04:30.529 outward together. Sort of like dots drawn on 00:04:30.529 --> 00:04:33.009 a balloon being inflated. Perfect analogy, yeah. 00:04:33.129 --> 00:04:35.829 So she proposes that galaxies actually have an 00:04:35.829 --> 00:04:38.790 orbital motion. It's highly controversial. Her 00:04:38.790 --> 00:04:40.709 advisors are hesitant, but she gets permission 00:04:40.709 --> 00:04:43.069 to present it. Right. Now, keep in mind, she 00:04:43.069 --> 00:04:45.009 is not even a member of the society, and she 00:04:45.009 --> 00:04:48.069 had just given birth to her first child three 00:04:48.069 --> 00:04:51.310 weeks ago. Three weeks. Three weeks. And how 00:04:51.310 --> 00:04:54.629 does the Washington Post cover this highly technical, 00:04:54.629 --> 00:04:57.009 groundbreaking presentation? Oh, it's so bad. 00:04:57.230 --> 00:04:59.509 They run a front page headline that reads, Young 00:04:59.509 --> 00:05:02.870 Mother has Own Theory of Universe. They completely 00:05:02.870 --> 00:05:05.569 sidestep the physics. They reduced a brilliant 00:05:05.569 --> 00:05:08.810 scientific mind to a novelty act. Young Mother. 00:05:09.100 --> 00:05:11.399 as if she just like cooked up a theory of the 00:05:11.399 --> 00:05:14.040 cosmos between warming bottles. What's fascinating 00:05:14.040 --> 00:05:17.240 here is why the scientific community also reacted 00:05:17.240 --> 00:05:19.519 so negatively to that early work. Okay, why? 00:05:19.860 --> 00:05:22.660 Well, it wasn't just the rampant sexism of the 00:05:22.660 --> 00:05:25.939 era, though that was obviously a massive suffocating 00:05:25.939 --> 00:05:29.000 factor. Sure. It was that her data fundamentally 00:05:29.000 --> 00:05:31.939 challenged the prevailing scientific belief of 00:05:31.939 --> 00:05:35.180 the time. In 1950, the establishment preferred 00:05:35.180 --> 00:05:38.579 the idea of a neatly ordered, predictable universe. 00:05:38.779 --> 00:05:41.620 The balloon expanding evenly. Exactly. The Hubble 00:05:41.620 --> 00:05:44.319 flow model was clean. Rubin comes along and says, 00:05:44.439 --> 00:05:47.220 actually, no, things are moving in a much messier, 00:05:47.220 --> 00:05:49.360 more complex way. And people don't like having 00:05:49.360 --> 00:05:51.800 their neat models disrupted. They hate it. And 00:05:51.800 --> 00:05:54.079 her paper wasn't even published. But it seems 00:05:54.079 --> 00:05:55.660 like she learned a really critical lesson from 00:05:55.660 --> 00:05:58.579 that rejection. Which was? Well, if you are going 00:05:58.579 --> 00:06:00.800 to propose a controversial theory that disrupts 00:06:00.800 --> 00:06:03.410 the neat models, You can't just have a good argument. 00:06:03.589 --> 00:06:06.310 No, you need proof. You need undeniable bulletproof 00:06:06.310 --> 00:06:09.290 data. And to get data that no one else has, you 00:06:09.290 --> 00:06:10.910 need to be able to see things that no one else 00:06:10.910 --> 00:06:13.529 can see. Right. And to do that, she needed a 00:06:13.529 --> 00:06:15.769 revolutionary piece of technology. Which brings 00:06:15.769 --> 00:06:20.149 us to 1965. Yes. By 1965, she was at the Carnegie 00:06:20.149 --> 00:06:22.850 Institution of Washington, and she teamed up 00:06:22.850 --> 00:06:25.410 with an instrument maker named Kent Ford. Kent 00:06:25.410 --> 00:06:27.670 Ford. Yeah, and Ford had developed a device called 00:06:27.670 --> 00:06:31.129 an image tube spectrograph. Now from what I understand, 00:06:31.230 --> 00:06:33.889 this was essentially a highly advanced image 00:06:33.889 --> 00:06:36.750 intensifier, almost like night vision for a telescope. 00:06:37.009 --> 00:06:38.949 That's a great way to think about it. But before 00:06:38.949 --> 00:06:41.990 we get into what she found, how does looking 00:06:41.990 --> 00:06:45.170 at a smear of light through a spectrograph actually 00:06:45.170 --> 00:06:48.029 tell an astronomer how fast a star is moving? 00:06:48.379 --> 00:06:50.399 I think we need to explain that. Okay, it comes 00:06:50.399 --> 00:06:52.600 down to the Doppler effect. Yeah. Specifically 00:06:52.600 --> 00:06:55.000 redshift and blueshift. Okay. Think about how 00:06:55.000 --> 00:06:57.699 a police siren sounds when it drives past you. 00:06:57.920 --> 00:07:00.120 Oh, like the wee -wee -wee -wee sound changing 00:07:00.120 --> 00:07:03.319 pitch? Exactly. As it moves towards you, the 00:07:03.319 --> 00:07:05.620 sound waves get compressed, so the pitch sounds 00:07:05.620 --> 00:07:08.139 higher. Right. As it drives away, the sound waves 00:07:08.139 --> 00:07:11.000 stretch out and the pitch drops. Well, light 00:07:11.000 --> 00:07:13.720 does the exact same thing. Wait, really? Light 00:07:13.720 --> 00:07:16.920 waves compress? Yes. If a star is moving toward 00:07:16.920 --> 00:07:19.060 us, its light waves compress and look slightly 00:07:19.060 --> 00:07:22.220 more blue. If it's moving away from us, the light 00:07:22.220 --> 00:07:24.060 waves stretch out and look slightly more red. 00:07:24.399 --> 00:07:27.920 OK. So by measuring exactly how red or blue the 00:07:27.920 --> 00:07:30.819 light from a specific star is, she could calculate 00:07:30.819 --> 00:07:33.920 its exact speed and direction. That's the mechanism. 00:07:35.279 --> 00:07:38.339 And Ford's new spectrograph was incredibly sensitive. 00:07:38.439 --> 00:07:41.060 Which changed the game. Totally. Before this 00:07:41.060 --> 00:07:43.439 instrument, Astronomers were mostly limited to 00:07:43.439 --> 00:07:45.800 studying the bright, obvious centers of galaxies. 00:07:46.300 --> 00:07:48.160 They simply couldn't get clear readings on the 00:07:48.160 --> 00:07:50.759 faint, dusty outer edges. Because the light was 00:07:50.759 --> 00:07:54.060 just too weak. Exactly. It's like, imagine trying 00:07:54.060 --> 00:07:56.199 to understand the full population of a country, 00:07:56.740 --> 00:07:59.399 but your map only shows the brightly lit downtown 00:07:59.399 --> 00:08:01.319 of the capital city. You're missing everyone 00:08:01.319 --> 00:08:03.540 in the suburbs and the countryside. Right. Kent 00:08:03.540 --> 00:08:05.439 Ford's instrument basically turned on the streetlights 00:08:05.439 --> 00:08:07.379 for the rest of the continent. So she points 00:08:07.379 --> 00:08:09.300 this new instrument at the Andromeda galaxy, 00:08:09.519 --> 00:08:11.899 which is relatively close and bright, and she 00:08:11.899 --> 00:08:14.160 starts measuring the speeds of the material on 00:08:14.160 --> 00:08:17.220 the absolute outermost edges. The suburbs? The 00:08:17.220 --> 00:08:19.699 suburbs of Andromeda. And she makes a discovery 00:08:19.699 --> 00:08:21.800 that completely breaks the rules of physics as 00:08:21.800 --> 00:08:23.899 they understood them. Yeah, she discovers what 00:08:23.899 --> 00:08:26.819 are called flat rotation curves. OK, flat rotation 00:08:26.819 --> 00:08:29.720 curve. To understand why this was so earth shattering, 00:08:30.439 --> 00:08:32.620 we have to think about the basic rules of orbital 00:08:32.620 --> 00:08:35.940 mechanics. Take our own solar system. Okay. The 00:08:35.940 --> 00:08:39.039 planets closest to the Sun, like Mercury, move 00:08:39.039 --> 00:08:41.460 incredibly fast because the Sun's gravitational 00:08:41.460 --> 00:08:44.279 pull is strongest there. Makes sense. The planets 00:08:44.279 --> 00:08:47.740 further out, like Neptune, move much, much slower. 00:08:48.240 --> 00:08:50.340 Basically, the further away from the center of 00:08:50.340 --> 00:08:52.700 mass you are, the slower you should be moving. 00:08:52.919 --> 00:08:55.200 But that is not what Rubin found in Andromedo. 00:08:55.500 --> 00:08:57.659 No, it isn't. She found that the stars on the 00:08:57.659 --> 00:08:59.720 outermost edges of the galaxy were moving just 00:08:59.720 --> 00:09:02.330 as fast as the stars close to the center. Exactly. 00:09:02.490 --> 00:09:04.450 The rotation curve wasn't dropping off. It was 00:09:04.450 --> 00:09:07.289 completely flat. Which presents a massive physical 00:09:07.289 --> 00:09:10.029 impossibility based on the visible matter in 00:09:10.029 --> 00:09:12.990 that galaxy. Massive. OK. To make this intuitive 00:09:12.990 --> 00:09:15.389 for you listening, I like to think of it as a 00:09:15.389 --> 00:09:16.990 playground merry -go -round. Oh, I like this 00:09:16.990 --> 00:09:18.549 analogy. Right. So if you get a bunch of kids 00:09:18.549 --> 00:09:20.470 on a merry -go -round and you spin it incredibly 00:09:20.470 --> 00:09:24.990 fast, what happens? Chaos. Total chaos. The kids 00:09:24.990 --> 00:09:27.690 on the very outer edge are going to fly off into 00:09:27.690 --> 00:09:30.009 the sandbox unless they are holding on for dear 00:09:30.009 --> 00:09:32.500 life. Right, they need a strong physical force 00:09:32.500 --> 00:09:35.960 to hold them in place. Exactly. And for galaxies, 00:09:36.539 --> 00:09:40.460 that holding force is gravity. The gravity generated 00:09:40.460 --> 00:09:43.779 by all the mass, the stars, the gas, the dust, 00:09:44.279 --> 00:09:46.679 is what keeps those fast -moving outer stars 00:09:46.679 --> 00:09:50.370 from just flying apart into deep space. That 00:09:50.370 --> 00:09:53.129 analogy perfectly highlights the problem Ruben 00:09:53.129 --> 00:09:54.889 uncovered. Because there wasn't enough stuff 00:09:54.889 --> 00:09:57.529 to hold them, right? Exactly. When she calculated 00:09:57.529 --> 00:09:59.830 the amount of visible stuff in the Andromeda 00:09:59.830 --> 00:10:03.590 galaxy, there simply wasn't enough mass to generate 00:10:03.590 --> 00:10:05.809 the gravity needed to hold those fast -moving 00:10:05.809 --> 00:10:09.610 outer stars in place. Not even close. Her calculations 00:10:09.610 --> 00:10:12.370 showed that galaxies must contain five to ten 00:10:12.370 --> 00:10:14.669 times more mass than we can actually observe 00:10:14.669 --> 00:10:17.210 through light. Five to ten times more. But wait, 00:10:17.250 --> 00:10:18.929 I have to play devil's advocate here. Go for 00:10:18.929 --> 00:10:21.190 it. So instead of assuming her math was wrong 00:10:21.190 --> 00:10:23.870 or her telescope is broken, or maybe our fundamental 00:10:23.870 --> 00:10:25.970 understanding of how gravity works was just slightly 00:10:25.970 --> 00:10:28.529 off, the scientific community eventually just 00:10:28.529 --> 00:10:30.710 accepts that 90 % of the universe is made of 00:10:30.710 --> 00:10:33.190 invisible ghost matter. It does sound crazy when 00:10:33.190 --> 00:10:35.230 you put it like that. It seems like a massive 00:10:35.230 --> 00:10:37.750 leap to make, just to make the math work. It 00:10:37.750 --> 00:10:39.850 absolutely was a massive leap and the scientific 00:10:39.850 --> 00:10:44.240 community fought it tooth and nail. Right. Ruben's 00:10:44.240 --> 00:10:46.639 data was utterly bulletproof. She didn't just 00:10:46.639 --> 00:10:48.820 have one data point. No, she didn't just look 00:10:48.820 --> 00:10:51.120 at one galaxy. She looked at dozens of them. 00:10:51.240 --> 00:10:53.899 And she kept getting the exact same flat rotation 00:10:53.899 --> 00:10:56.720 curves over and over again. Wow. She eliminated 00:10:56.720 --> 00:11:00.059 every other possibility. If her math was right, 00:11:00.559 --> 00:11:03.259 and our understanding of gravity held true, which 00:11:03.259 --> 00:11:05.919 all other observable physics suggested it did, 00:11:06.110 --> 00:11:08.870 then the only logical conclusion left was that 00:11:08.870 --> 00:11:10.970 the galaxy was filled with something massive 00:11:10.970 --> 00:11:14.230 that did not interact with light. And this invisible 00:11:14.230 --> 00:11:17.129 mass became the first truly persuasive evidence 00:11:17.129 --> 00:11:19.669 supporting the theory of dark matter. Yes. And 00:11:19.669 --> 00:11:21.889 just to clarify, dark matter wasn't a brand new 00:11:21.889 --> 00:11:23.889 concept she invented out of thin air, right? 00:11:23.889 --> 00:11:26.769 Right. Because the sources mention a physicist 00:11:26.769 --> 00:11:29.330 named Fritz Zwicky had proposed it back in the 00:11:29.330 --> 00:11:32.269 1930s. Right. Zwicky had coined the term decades 00:11:32.269 --> 00:11:34.830 earlier based on how whole clusters of galaxies 00:11:34.830 --> 00:11:37.779 were moving. But his ideas were largely ignored 00:11:37.779 --> 00:11:40.980 or considered too fringe, partly because the 00:11:40.980 --> 00:11:43.360 data back then just wasn't precise enough. So 00:11:43.360 --> 00:11:45.639 it was just a hypothesis, basically? Pretty much. 00:11:45.700 --> 00:11:49.460 It was Rubin's meticulous, undeniable data on 00:11:49.460 --> 00:11:52.399 individual galaxy rotation, using that cutting 00:11:52.399 --> 00:11:55.559 edge spectrograph that finally forced the scientific 00:11:55.559 --> 00:11:57.919 establishment to accept that the universe is 00:11:57.919 --> 00:12:00.100 dominated by something we literally cannot see. 00:12:00.179 --> 00:12:01.940 She looked where no one else could, and she found 00:12:01.940 --> 00:12:04.220 the missing 90 % of the universe. She really 00:12:04.220 --> 00:12:06.980 did. And what's so fascinating is that she deliberately 00:12:06.980 --> 00:12:11.240 chose to look there. In the 1960s, everyone in 00:12:11.240 --> 00:12:14.159 astronomy was obsessed with quasars. Oh, quasars 00:12:14.159 --> 00:12:16.360 were the hot new topic. They were, but she intentionally 00:12:16.360 --> 00:12:18.860 avoided them. She wanted to stay away from the 00:12:18.860 --> 00:12:21.519 crowded, like highly competitive, ego -driven 00:12:21.519 --> 00:12:24.419 areas of astronomy and just quietly do her work 00:12:24.419 --> 00:12:27.200 on the quiet outer reaches of galaxies. And by 00:12:27.200 --> 00:12:29.860 trying to avoid controversy, she ended up triggering 00:12:29.860 --> 00:12:31.639 one of the biggest revolutions in the history 00:12:31.639 --> 00:12:34.620 of astrophysics. The irony is amazing. It is. 00:12:34.960 --> 00:12:37.840 That willingness to explore the unglamorous, 00:12:38.240 --> 00:12:41.500 ignored corners of the sky led to even more discoveries 00:12:41.500 --> 00:12:43.580 that challenged the status quote. Right, like 00:12:43.580 --> 00:12:47.659 counter rotation. Our sources note that she discovered 00:12:47.659 --> 00:12:50.500 that in some galaxies there are stars and gas 00:12:50.500 --> 00:12:53.159 that actually move in the exact opposite direction 00:12:53.159 --> 00:12:55.539 to the rotation of the rest of the galaxy. Yeah. 00:12:55.899 --> 00:12:58.340 Which, wait a minute, I have to pause here. If 00:12:58.340 --> 00:13:01.500 a galaxy is essentially a giant spinning disk 00:13:01.500 --> 00:13:05.559 of material, how on earth can part of it be spinning 00:13:05.559 --> 00:13:07.940 backwards? It seems impossible. That completely 00:13:07.940 --> 00:13:10.039 defies logic. Well if we connect this to the 00:13:10.039 --> 00:13:12.690 bigger picture, It makes perfect sense, but it 00:13:12.690 --> 00:13:15.370 required a total paradigm shift in how we viewed 00:13:15.370 --> 00:13:18.110 the lifespan of a galaxy. OK, explain. Before 00:13:18.110 --> 00:13:20.429 this, the prevailing theory was that galaxies 00:13:20.429 --> 00:13:22.309 were basically born perfectly formed, spinning 00:13:22.309 --> 00:13:24.490 in one direction, and they just stayed that way 00:13:24.490 --> 00:13:27.409 in isolation. Just giant lonely pinwheels. Right. 00:13:27.649 --> 00:13:30.149 But the discovery of counter rotation provided 00:13:30.149 --> 00:13:33.110 the very first solid evidence for galaxy mergers. 00:13:33.269 --> 00:13:35.230 Mergers, like galaxies actually crashing into 00:13:35.230 --> 00:13:38.330 each other. Precisely. It proved that galaxies 00:13:38.330 --> 00:13:42.460 are messy. violent entities. They grow over billions 00:13:42.460 --> 00:13:45.940 of years by colliding and consuming other smaller 00:13:45.940 --> 00:13:49.220 galaxies. Oh, wow. Yeah. So if a massive galaxy 00:13:49.220 --> 00:13:52.259 absorbs a smaller galaxy that happens to be spinning 00:13:52.259 --> 00:13:55.100 in the opposite direction, the core material 00:13:55.100 --> 00:13:57.860 of that smaller galaxy will retain its momentum 00:13:57.860 --> 00:13:59.980 and continue to counter rotate within the larger 00:13:59.980 --> 00:14:03.759 one. So she essentially found the forensic evidence 00:14:03.759 --> 00:14:06.850 of ancient galactic collisions. That's exactly 00:14:06.850 --> 00:14:09.149 what it is. That is wild. And she didn't stop 00:14:09.149 --> 00:14:11.909 there. She and Kent Ford also discovered something 00:14:11.909 --> 00:14:14.909 called the Rubenford effect. Or large -scale 00:14:14.909 --> 00:14:17.529 streaming. Right. The sources say they found 00:14:17.529 --> 00:14:19.789 that entire groups of galaxies were moving in, 00:14:19.789 --> 00:14:23.330 quote, bizarre anisotropic ways on a massive 00:14:23.330 --> 00:14:25.769 scale, like 100 million light years across. Yeah, 00:14:25.990 --> 00:14:28.730 a massive scale. What does anisotropic actually 00:14:28.730 --> 00:14:31.409 mean in practice here? Anisotropic just means 00:14:31.409 --> 00:14:33.370 they weren't moving uniformly in all directions. 00:14:33.659 --> 00:14:36.200 Imagine watching a massive flock of birds scattered 00:14:36.200 --> 00:14:39.279 across the sky and suddenly a huge chunk of them 00:14:39.279 --> 00:14:41.480 all dart to the left instead of flying randomly. 00:14:41.740 --> 00:14:45.399 Oh, I see. If entire clusters of galaxies are 00:14:45.399 --> 00:14:48.220 moving together in one specific direction rather 00:14:48.220 --> 00:14:50.980 than just expanding outward evenly, it means 00:14:50.980 --> 00:14:54.059 there is some unimaginably massive gravitational 00:14:54.059 --> 00:14:57.080 force out there in the dark pulling them. Which 00:14:57.080 --> 00:15:00.559 completely broke the idea of a perfectly uniform, 00:15:00.940 --> 00:15:03.000 smooth universe. Shattered it. It seems like 00:15:03.000 --> 00:15:05.659 she had a habit of being right when the entire 00:15:05.659 --> 00:15:07.559 establishment said she was wrong. She made a 00:15:07.559 --> 00:15:09.639 career out of it. But the resistance she faced 00:15:09.639 --> 00:15:12.080 wasn't just in the pages of scientific journals 00:15:12.080 --> 00:15:16.039 or debates over data. The barriers were literal 00:15:16.039 --> 00:15:18.700 and physical. Very physical. We talked about 00:15:18.700 --> 00:15:21.720 Princeton barring her from enrollment earlier. 00:15:21.980 --> 00:15:25.080 But the story of the Palomar Observatory in 1965 00:15:25.080 --> 00:15:29.279 is just iconic. Palomar was the premier observatory 00:15:29.279 --> 00:15:32.279 in the world at the time. the absolute peak of 00:15:32.279 --> 00:15:34.940 astronomical research. So she applies to be the 00:15:34.940 --> 00:15:37.639 first female astronomer permitted to observe 00:15:37.639 --> 00:15:40.519 there. Yeah. And she is reluctantly granted access. 00:15:40.700 --> 00:15:42.860 Reluctantly being the key word. Right. But the 00:15:42.860 --> 00:15:44.840 director pulls her aside and says, look, your 00:15:44.840 --> 00:15:46.340 time on the telescope is going to be extremely 00:15:46.340 --> 00:15:48.179 limited because we don't have a women's bathroom 00:15:48.179 --> 00:15:51.700 in the building. Which? Thesaurus' note was a 00:15:51.700 --> 00:15:54.860 remarkably common ruse back then to keep women 00:15:54.860 --> 00:15:58.000 out of professional spaces. A completely fabricated 00:15:58.000 --> 00:16:00.740 excuse. So what does she do? She cuts a skirt 00:16:00.740 --> 00:16:03.700 out of a piece of paper, walks over to the men's 00:16:03.700 --> 00:16:05.820 room door, tapes it over the stick figure of 00:16:05.820 --> 00:16:08.580 the man, turns around and says, now you have 00:16:08.580 --> 00:16:10.960 a ladies' room. I love that so much. And then 00:16:10.960 --> 00:16:13.659 she just goes straight to work. It is a brilliantly 00:16:13.659 --> 00:16:16.909 pragmatic solution. to an absurd manufactured 00:16:16.909 --> 00:16:19.909 problem. Definitely. And sadly, it wasn't an 00:16:19.909 --> 00:16:22.509 isolated incident. Throughout her career, she 00:16:22.509 --> 00:16:25.929 faced this constant drumbeat of sexism. Yeah. 00:16:26.230 --> 00:16:27.690 When she was at Georgetown, which is a Catholic 00:16:27.690 --> 00:16:29.889 university, she wasn't even allowed to meet her 00:16:29.889 --> 00:16:32.429 own advisor in his office because women weren't 00:16:32.429 --> 00:16:34.309 permitted in that specific part of the building. 00:16:34.490 --> 00:16:36.870 It's infuriating to even picture that. Like, 00:16:36.870 --> 00:16:38.710 you can unravel the mysteries of the universe, 00:16:38.750 --> 00:16:41.029 but you can't walk down this hallway. Literally, 00:16:41.309 --> 00:16:43.769 yes. But she managed to navigate all of it, and 00:16:43.769 --> 00:16:46.490 she did it while raising a large family. She 00:16:46.490 --> 00:16:49.570 had four kids. Four kids. There's a detail from 00:16:49.570 --> 00:16:53.529 a 1963 report on Vassar alumni that noted she 00:16:53.529 --> 00:16:57.559 fulfilled the quote, utopian aim of being a full 00:16:57.559 --> 00:16:59.919 -time professional without handing her children 00:16:59.919 --> 00:17:02.139 over to someone else. Yeah, she did a ton of 00:17:02.139 --> 00:17:04.279 her analytical work from home while raising her 00:17:04.279 --> 00:17:07.259 kids. And get this, all four of her children 00:17:07.259 --> 00:17:10.619 grew up to earn PhDs in the natural sciences 00:17:10.619 --> 00:17:13.420 or mathematics, every single one of them. That 00:17:13.420 --> 00:17:15.640 speeds volumes about the environment she created 00:17:15.640 --> 00:17:18.079 in her home. Her children later recalled that 00:17:18.079 --> 00:17:21.039 she made a life of science appear desirable and 00:17:21.039 --> 00:17:23.569 genuinely fun. Which is how it should be. She 00:17:23.569 --> 00:17:26.029 didn't just break barriers. She modeled a way 00:17:26.029 --> 00:17:28.430 of living that integrated her deep passion for 00:17:28.430 --> 00:17:31.019 the universe with her love for her family. Here's 00:17:31.019 --> 00:17:32.819 where it gets really interesting to me. It's 00:17:32.819 --> 00:17:35.119 a profound irony. Let's hear it. Here's a woman 00:17:35.119 --> 00:17:38.079 who spends her nights mapping the invisible hidden 00:17:38.079 --> 00:17:42.099 mass of the universe. And by day, she is simultaneously 00:17:42.099 --> 00:17:44.819 working tirelessly to make the hidden demographic 00:17:44.819 --> 00:17:47.940 of female scientists visible to the world. Oh, 00:17:47.940 --> 00:17:50.180 that is a great way to put it. She was an absolute 00:17:50.180 --> 00:17:52.079 force for women in astronomy. Absolutely. In 00:17:52.079 --> 00:17:54.500 1981, she was elected to the National Academy 00:17:54.500 --> 00:17:57.259 of Sciences, but she was only the second woman 00:17:57.259 --> 00:17:59.900 astronomer ever elected. The first being her 00:17:59.900 --> 00:18:02.660 colleague, Margaret Burbitch. And despite earning 00:18:02.660 --> 00:18:05.740 that incredible honor, she said the consistently 00:18:05.740 --> 00:18:08.720 low number of women elected each year was the 00:18:08.720 --> 00:18:11.609 saddest part of her life. That really stuck with 00:18:11.609 --> 00:18:13.490 me. Yeah, she didn't just pull the ladder up 00:18:13.490 --> 00:18:16.089 behind her once she made it. She advocated constantly 00:18:16.089 --> 00:18:18.369 for more women to be placed on review panels 00:18:18.369 --> 00:18:21.190 and academic search committees. She knew from 00:18:21.190 --> 00:18:24.289 firsthand experience how much brilliant talent 00:18:24.289 --> 00:18:27.210 was being actively squandered simply because 00:18:27.210 --> 00:18:29.750 it didn't look like the traditional male -dominated 00:18:29.750 --> 00:18:31.990 establishment. Which brings us to a topic that 00:18:31.990 --> 00:18:34.170 we really can't avoid when talking about Vera 00:18:34.170 --> 00:18:36.829 Rubin, especially since her death in 2016 at 00:18:36.829 --> 00:18:39.589 the age of 88. Right. And that is the Nobel Prize. 00:18:39.920 --> 00:18:42.680 The big one. Now, we are going to look at this 00:18:42.680 --> 00:18:44.680 impartially based strictly on what the sources 00:18:44.680 --> 00:18:47.200 say, because there is a massive debate here. 00:18:47.319 --> 00:18:49.460 There really is. In the decades since she passed, 00:18:49.799 --> 00:18:52.180 many have argued passionately that she was blatantly 00:18:52.180 --> 00:18:54.960 snubbed for the Nobel Prize in physics. Some 00:18:54.960 --> 00:18:57.779 argue this was primarily due to her gender. Which, 00:18:57.880 --> 00:19:00.900 given her history, is a valid suspicion. Exactly. 00:19:01.319 --> 00:19:03.779 Other prominent physicists have argued it was 00:19:03.779 --> 00:19:06.779 simply an egregious oversight or a glaring omission 00:19:06.779 --> 00:19:09.319 by the committee, perhaps because they were debating 00:19:09.319 --> 00:19:12.279 exactly which specific scientific principle to 00:19:12.279 --> 00:19:15.480 award, since dark matter itself remained mysterious. 00:19:15.920 --> 00:19:17.680 It's still a theoretical particle, essentially. 00:19:17.880 --> 00:19:20.319 Right. But regardless of the underlying reason, 00:19:20.480 --> 00:19:22.619 the debate itself has become a huge part of her 00:19:22.619 --> 00:19:25.500 modern legacy. The Nobel conversation is loud, 00:19:25.900 --> 00:19:28.220 but if you look at the posthumous honors she 00:19:28.220 --> 00:19:30.559 actually has received, you could argue they are 00:19:30.559 --> 00:19:32.460 much more fitting for someone whose eyes were 00:19:32.460 --> 00:19:34.799 always on the stars. Oh, definitely. The biggest 00:19:34.799 --> 00:19:38.200 one, literally, is the Vera C. Rubin Observatory 00:19:38.200 --> 00:19:41.019 in Chile, which is set to be fully operational 00:19:41.019 --> 00:19:44.720 in 2025. That is massive. It is. This isn't just 00:19:44.720 --> 00:19:47.180 a commemorative plaque. It is a massive, cutting 00:19:47.180 --> 00:19:49.839 -edge observatory specifically dedicated to the 00:19:49.839 --> 00:19:52.400 ongoing study of dark matter and dark energy. 00:19:52.599 --> 00:19:56.240 Not to mention, she is being honored on a 2025 00:19:56.240 --> 00:19:59.380 U .S. quarter. Oh, right. NVIDIA just named their 00:19:59.380 --> 00:20:02.740 next generation GPU architecture Rubin after 00:20:02.740 --> 00:20:05.099 her. I saw that. She has an asteroid named after 00:20:05.099 --> 00:20:07.819 her and even a ridge on Mars. Honestly, she is 00:20:07.819 --> 00:20:09.940 everywhere now. Through all of this, I think 00:20:09.940 --> 00:20:12.180 it's vital to understand her personal philosophy. 00:20:12.319 --> 00:20:14.539 Tell me more. Well, the sources mentioned she 00:20:14.539 --> 00:20:17.859 was Jewish and she saw absolutely no conflict 00:20:17.859 --> 00:20:20.619 between science and religion. Oh, that's interesting. 00:20:20.720 --> 00:20:23.779 She viewed religion as a moral code and a history 00:20:23.779 --> 00:20:26.940 and science as the tool to understand our role 00:20:26.940 --> 00:20:29.700 in the physical universe. She wasn't doing any 00:20:29.700 --> 00:20:32.390 of this for the accolades or the fame. So what 00:20:32.390 --> 00:20:35.089 does this all mean? I think the best way to summarize 00:20:35.089 --> 00:20:38.009 her perspective is with her own words. She once 00:20:38.009 --> 00:20:40.849 said, quote, don't worry about prizes and fame. 00:20:41.190 --> 00:20:43.849 The real prize is finding something new out there. 00:20:43.890 --> 00:20:45.950 Yeah, that gets right to the heart of her core 00:20:45.950 --> 00:20:49.130 belief. Knowledge is most valuable when it is 00:20:49.130 --> 00:20:51.710 understood and applied. Her legacy isn't just 00:20:51.710 --> 00:20:54.630 the discovery of dark matter evidence as monumental 00:20:54.630 --> 00:20:58.619 as that is for physics. Her legacy is also every 00:20:58.619 --> 00:21:00.819 single young girl who looks through a telescope 00:21:00.819 --> 00:21:03.460 today. Because Vera Rubin was the one who wedged 00:21:03.460 --> 00:21:06.180 the observatory door open for them and absolutely 00:21:06.180 --> 00:21:08.799 refused to let it close. From a crude cardboard 00:21:08.799 --> 00:21:11.059 telescope looking out a bedroom window in DC 00:21:11.059 --> 00:21:13.940 to a massive state -of -the -art observatory 00:21:13.940 --> 00:21:17.099 on a mountain in Chile bearing her name, what 00:21:17.099 --> 00:21:20.480 an absolute titan of science. Truly. Well, thank 00:21:20.480 --> 00:21:22.539 you for coming on this deep dive with us today 00:21:22.539 --> 00:21:25.480 to explore the life of Vera Rubin. We hope you 00:21:25.480 --> 00:21:28.279 enjoyed exploring the visible and invisible universe 00:21:28.279 --> 00:21:30.609 with us. Before we go, I want to leave you with 00:21:30.609 --> 00:21:32.670 one final detail from the sources that we haven't 00:21:32.670 --> 00:21:34.690 touched on yet because it really emphasizes just 00:21:34.690 --> 00:21:38.430 how far ahead of her time she was. Back in 1954 00:21:38.430 --> 00:21:40.849 when she was finishing her PhD dissertation under 00:21:40.849 --> 00:21:43.990 George Gamow, her final conclusion was that galaxies 00:21:43.990 --> 00:21:46.490 in the universe come together rather than being 00:21:46.490 --> 00:21:49.130 randomly distributed across space. Wait, like 00:21:49.130 --> 00:21:52.089 galaxy clusters? It's exactly like galaxy clusters. 00:21:52.589 --> 00:21:56.430 But in 1954, that idea was considered so controversial 00:21:56.430 --> 00:21:59.609 and so far outside the accepted smooth universe 00:21:59.609 --> 00:22:02.190 models that it was completely ignored by the 00:22:02.190 --> 00:22:04.829 scientific community. You're kidding. No, it 00:22:04.829 --> 00:22:07.750 sat in an archive for two full decades before 00:22:07.750 --> 00:22:09.869 the rest of the world finally caught up, gathered 00:22:09.869 --> 00:22:12.529 enough data, and accepted it as undeniable truth. 00:22:12.809 --> 00:22:14.910 Two decades. So the next time you look up at 00:22:14.910 --> 00:22:17.170 that dark night sky, I want you to ponder this. 00:22:17.849 --> 00:22:20.650 How many world -changing ideas are sitting ignored 00:22:20.650 --> 00:22:23.490 in an archive somewhere right now simply because 00:22:23.490 --> 00:22:25.890 the timing was slightly wrong? or because the 00:22:25.890 --> 00:22:28.410 person who discovered it didn't fit the establishment's 00:22:28.410 --> 00:22:31.009 mold. Wow. The invisible universe isn't just 00:22:31.009 --> 00:22:33.569 out there in the dark matter. Sometimes it is 00:22:33.569 --> 00:22:36.170 hidden right here on Earth, just waiting for 00:22:36.170 --> 00:22:37.269 us to finally open our eyes.