Discussing gravitational waves with LIGO team member Joshua Smith (Tomorrow Daily)
Discussing gravitational waves with LIGO team member Joshua Smith (Tomorrow Daily)
42:38

Discussing gravitational waves with LIGO team member Joshua Smith (Tomorrow Daily)

Culture
On today's show, we deep dive into the toys Mattel announced at the New York toy fair, and talk about charging electronics, as you walk, with your shoe soles. We have have a great guest helping us step through the gigantic science news that happened this week about gravitational waves. Lastly, we answer your questions about where or not Title will sink or swim. [LAUGH] That was a hilarious pun. Do they back it or hack and also we tell you what we're into. It's Tomorrow Daily. [MUSIC] Greetings citizens of the internet! Welcome to Tomorrow Daily, the best geek talk show in the known universe. I'm Ashley Esqueda. And I'm Jeff Cannata, and today is Thursday, so we're deep diving into some of the headlines we talked about this week. What do we got first? Get out your swim caps! Let's talk about Mattel's Toy Fair, because I thought this was a really big deal. This is a really big deal actually. Well, toys are very big deals. But this is like, these are new high-tech toys. Twenty-first century tech toys. Firstly, we'll discuss Barbie's dream house. Because Barbie's dream house, I always really thought I had it a little better than Barbie because I was like, I have a working smartphone, it's not just a piece of plastic. I have a, I have Got moving legs, I've got working knees, all those great things. I'm imagining this happening about two weeks ago, like when you're playing with your Barbie. No, this is when I was 30 years old. This is very recent. Now Mattel showed off a Smart dream house this is the new I think it's like hello Barbie dream house. Yeah Barbie's got a smart home as any up and coming young urban professional would. Yeah she's connected to the internet of things now the smart home is now connected to sky net and the world will never be the same. Does this mean that smart home has arrived if kids are playing in a smart home they expect Their appliances to be smart, right? I think so. I think this is a really interesting kind of fair weather flag towards mass adoption- Yeah. Of smart home technology and the Internet of things. [INAUDIBLE] tiny Barbie nest She have a tiny Alexa. There you go. Alexa's an actual person, though. And it has an Amazon ECHO built into the doll named Alexa. That'd by cool. Would that be amazing? Okay, so here's the controversy, [INAUDIBLE]. There's actually a controversy. I was doing some research, and apparently, Before there was a Hello Barbie that you could do talk to, you could talk to it. This was in the same line as the Hello Barbie Dreamhouse. A lot of parents are really concerned that Privacy issues. Your kids are going to be getting demands. You're being listened to. Your being indoctrinated into a culture of zero privacy. Is that what's happening? We're being listened to. They are listening to your kids. The house is listening. The house is listening for commands, so is that a privacy issues? Is that a thing that Parents should be concerned about. I don't know because I don't have kids like we are the worst judges about this. It's true, I think maybe the fact that the dream house says, tell us your parents Social Security number, Yeah yeah exactly, If the Barbie Dreamhouse starts asking for your parents' personal information or- Find Mommy's PIN. What's the name of Mommy's maiden name? Just like terrible, ridiculous things. But I think that this is a really interesting concept because Yes, that is a thing that I think people, especially with the Apple news this week, of them saying. Right. No to the FBI and protecting their user's privacy, that's what they say they're doing, this is the fight of the 21st century to me, is digital privacy, this is a big deal. Yeah, and it's made it's way all the way into toys. I mean, it's not insignificant. No. I I'm not particularly alarmed about the toys, but I think you're right that it is representative of a larger discussion. Yeah. That is how much stuff in our house do you want listening to you and who's listening and do we have any kind of control over what's being recorded. I have an Alexa, I have an Xbox one. I'm not particularly worried about that stuff but I can understand, The concern. The idea behind it. Yeah. Yeah, the idea and the concern behind it can make sense there is reasonable argument to be made In that whole thing. Okay, let's briefly touch on the thing maker, which used to be I really love researching this. Because this used to actually be a toy in the 60s that I was not, in fact, aware of. Because I was not a child in the 60s. Right. I was non-existent. This was almost like, do you remember the Creepy Crawly ovens? Where you can DIY your own Creepy Crawlies, that was in the 90's. No. I didn't have any ovens when I was a child. Pour some goop in there and then you would put then in a little Easy Bake Oven thing, and then you would pull them out and they were gel bugs. Poison. They were little bugs. They were poison. [LAUGHTER] They were like gummy worms but you don't want to eat them, that would be bad. But Thing Maker now is a 3D printer for kids. This is, I think this is representative of the idea that 3D printers are gonna be so inexpensive that we are all going to have them, and that's awesome.>>Yep. That is awesome. It is really cool. This is what gonna be $300 bucks? $300 Bucks. Yeah, so $300 and you'll be able to 3D print things, I think you can be able to 3D print food This is not food though, right? This is not food. No Yeah. This is just plastic toys and they actually work with Autodesk, which ->> Yeah ->> Is a very complicated software to create a simplified version for kids. That's awesome. So, we'll have an App on iOS and Android, where they will drag and drop and say well this is what I want my toy to look like and then boom, Think Maker prints it out I mean there's an argument to be made that they are literally creating things that will put themselves out of business. If you can just create your own toys, why do you need Mattel to create them? Well at some point I think you would in the future, I mean think about the possibilities. In the future, you go on to your Mattel app Yeah? You find a Barbie that you really like. You customize it exactly the way you want, skin tone, eyes, hair, whatever. And you press a button and your 2050 thing maker in 30, 40 years from Much sooner than that. Freaked out a full Barbie that is custom to what you want. Or a toy that is exactly what you want. And you play Natell for those designs, for that design. I am 100% in agreement that this is what the future's Headed, I'm convinced that in the future the economy will be an economy of ideas. That all you're paying for is the design. There will people that can design chairs, there will people that can design toys, there will be people that can design clothes And I will be able to have all the manufacturing done in my own home because [INAUDIBLE] [CROSSTALK] Multiple [INAUDIBLE] and different types of metal and plastics and you have a thing that it puts the Yeah. hair in for you, like whatever But, you buy the idea of the thing which is the blue print. Right, you buy the design and the idea. A blueprint of the idea, and then you print it out right there in your house. I'm convinced that's the way the economy is going to be sooner than you think. Sooner than you think? I think it will take a long time for people to jump on that bandwagon. But I do think there will be people, sort of like the ones who are like, My car runs on ethanol, Right. or corn oil, or trash, or whatever. It's like that There will be people like that in a few years. Well, we just have to get to the point where 3D printers get to the point where they're indistinguishable from something you'd buy in the store. Very important. We're not there yet. We're not quite there yet. But it's gonna happen. The quality is not there yet. Okay, so next story let's talk about is, I really love this, the shoe sole That can generate, store, like harvest and store energy Yea, Kinetic energy right? kind of its, it actually uses what's called a bubbler method And there's a lot of science behind this method, but it's nonmechanical parts. So, it's actually taking the energy that you, the [CROSSTALK] that you're creating like, as you walk and harvesting it and then storing it into, it has a little tiny generator. Yeah, there you go, energy generator inside a shoe sole. And then it's got a little battery it puts all the energy into. Here's how this is cool. First of all, everybody hates charging their phone, charging their devices of all kinds. We do. Everybody thinks it's a pain, try to find an outlet, try to my phone is low battery, at the worst time. B it advocates for getting up and doing, and going, and walking and being active and not sitting around all day. So you get benefits from actually moving through your life. So combine that with sort of a A fitness tracker that. You said you need 2,000 steps today. But also because you need to charge your phone. [CROSSTALK] 20% battery is [CROSSTALK] like tell me on my fitbit how many steps I need to charge my battery to 50% or whatever. I need to charge my phone and make a call. I'm going to run down the block real quick. Take away jobs. I really like, they talk about a little bit more, University of Wisconsin Madison talks a little bit, the team that worked on this are I believe they are electrical engineers. They're engineers who worked on this and they said the applications for military would be really amazing because you could have a soldier charging a lot of different devices that they need while they're out on the field, not having to find a place to actually plug them in. Drop down and give me 20% battery life. Yeah because I need some batteries for my phone. And then the other part that I thought was the most interesting, the potential of installing Selling a wifi hotspot in your shoe, and so what would happen is, the energy you create would power this hot spot which means your phone would never be disconnecting and reconnecting to the wifi and cell phone towers. There hypothetically extending the life of your battery, because that's one of the things that kills your battery the most is constant connection to those towers Up to, I think they said up to ten times your smart phone's current battery life. You'd be able to just extend it out because you'd have Wi-Fi on you all the time. You would always be connected to one network, you would never have to switch- I love it. Between towers, you never have to. It was a very interesting kind of hypothetical kind of scenario that I thought was really Weird and cool. We got a lot of feedback on this story, actually. Will wrote in and said charger shoes plus backpack battery slash dock for drone plus drone plus hololens equals Hud vision with map. I like that, he's got a whole setup. Yeah, he's got a whole set up ready to go. The 12 step program that ends in you being completely digitally independent. Cuz I'm holy digitally independent. Ricky wrote in and said, kinetic charging please, smiley face. And there is actually a kinetic charging device that came out with a kick [INAUDIBLE] a while ago called Ampy Move. I don't know if you guys have seen this, this is it right here. It's a little device though, that you actually wear on your body. And then as you run and stuff, it's an external battery pack that charges based on motion. Well there have been watches for decades that do this, because watches need so little You know, just regular analog watches need so little power. And motion, it just stores that and then uses it. So the watch that never needs a battery. It was like Citizen Eco Drive. Of course, of course. And then Dustin wrote in and said, forget the fancy Back to the Future II shoes with power laces this is 2016 we need shoes to power our phones! That's right. And our laces. And our power laces, cuz we need power laces. Okay. So that is it for our headlines. Yeah. We do have a very interesting ask TD. We will keep it short, keep it real. What's up. But I thought this was a really good question and actually, I'd like to Fanned at hey TD, to include any questions you guys might have, we might make it a little segment like this, a mini segment. Answer your questions on the show, so use that hashtag hey TD, and then ask us something like the following Ronnie wrote in to us and said, Do you think Tidal will be a success? Even Kanye can't convince me to convert from Spotify It's a tough space right now. A question. The streaming music space. It feels very crowded. Yeah. And it's only getting more crowded. So it's hard to get people. People are creatures of habit. But I think ultimately, doesn't everything come down to price, features, and ease of use? I think so, but also I think that there is There is an intangible that is very difficult for companies like Title to grasp. These are all artists that have kind of come together and created this streaming service. Right. And that's all well and good. And I appreciate their kind of efforts there. But if people aren't using your service in the first place, you're not making it compelling enough to use in the first place, what's the value add? What's the thing you're doing that no one else can get? The exclusivity. So right now, its the exclusivity. So Tonya's like, Life of Pablo, its only going to be on Tidal, I'm never, never, never putting it on Apple, blah blah blah. So he went crazy this weekend, just decided to say, One of the reasons they say that his album is one of the most bootlegged in history, Over half a million pirated the life of Pablo in less than a week. So, That's not necessarily a good thing, guys, like, exclusivity is not necessarily great. Maybe a week of exclusivity, two weeks? You say for the first month, and then it'll come out on another streaming platform. Yeah it's a tough- But I don't see it- It's a tough sell to try and force people into it, by saying the only place you can get is here. Yes. I think the way that people want to accept those things is you go, well you can get it anywhere, but here its lower price, or Value app. Value app. What's the thing we're offering that no one else is doing. Here's my advice to you Tidal if you're watching which, JayZee, huge fan of the show, I know you are. Here's my suggestion to you, apple music is a mess. I left RDO and I had to go to apple music. I am trying out Spotify right now and I'm not really sure how I feel about it. Yeah. I'm trying out apple music because it's native to the iPhone experience and it's terrible. It's so counter intuitive, it's so Unlike a lot of software, Apple, like Apple, it's so frustrating cuz Apple sometimes ships this like really half baked software. Like iTunes you mean? Like iTunes, like iTunes is a piece of garbage. Apple maps, like Siri. When the launch these products that they have not traditionally done a great job of Good software at launch. And the thing is Apple music is so counter-intuitive and so unlike Apple's design ethos which is, it just works. Yeah. It doesn't just work you have to really look for certain things, they're, it's not easy to use, it's very confusing. You have to go into the iTunes store to buy stuff, you have to leave Apple music, it's very weird And so my suggestion is, Title, if you wanna survive, you have to make a product that's better than everybody else. You can't make it just as good. It has to be heads and shoulders better than everyone else. And you can't just have two or three artists really singing exclusive albums. You've gotta get so many artists on board to say, I'm only gonna release it on title because This is the place where my artistry is appreciated and the artist will be paid. That's what The short answer to your question is no. I don't think so. No, I don't think its gonna survive. On that note, we're going to take a quick break. We want you to watch this amazing video. I guess it took more than a year to design and get done. Its called Star Kart, I don't know if you've seen it. Yeah. Combo of Star Wars and Mario Kart. So rad. It's amazing stuff. And then when we come back, we will have Josh Smith, the director of Gravitational Wave Physics and Astronomy Center at Cal State University, Fullerton to talk about gravitational waves and the discovery that science has made last week. So, stick around, it's Tomorrow Daily. [MUSIC] [LAUGH] [SOUND] [MUSIC] Some huge science news this week. Some of Einstein's oldest, unproven theories have been proven true but it's pretty dense stuff so we've got an awesome guest to come help us unpack this news today. We do. From Cal State University, Fullerton we have the director of gravitational wave Physics and astronomy center Joshua [UNKNOWN] Hello. Thank you very much for letting me on. Can we call you Josh? Do you prefer Josh? Please call me Josh. Awesome. Josh. This is, as Jeff said very dense stuff. But again, proving some theories Einstein had about ripples in space time that are over 100 years old. Now this is theory of relativity right? The theory we know of general relativity and- That's right, so 100 years ago Einstein told us that gravity works differently than Newton said. So Newton said that you would have a force between two objects, based on their masses. And Einstein said gravity works by curving space and time. Right. But with a curved space-time he said that if you had masses that accelerated, kind of moved around like this they should also make ripples in space and time that should carry the information out. They should travel, yeah. But we've never seen them before. That's right. He said theoretically it should happen we've never seen them before and the reason we've never seen them before is because they're so small, right? Absolutely, so in Einstein's original paper, He said, if you put in the equation and you calculate what the amplitude in, its practically vanishing for any numbers that you put in. But at the time, a hundred years ago. Einstein didn't think about two black holes going around each other in space. A hundred years ago that wasn't a known system. So basically the idea is that there's stuff that has mass in the universe That mass causes ripples in gravity. Yeah. And because black holes have so much mass, we're actually able to measure their waves, their gravitational waves. It is a very tiny, tiny movement. Yeah. So actually the black holes have so mass and they're going around each other so fast. So they're going around each other so fast it's a fraction of the speed of light. The black holes that we saw were a billion light years away. So if you were there the waves would be really really strong. You could surf them. Yeah, they would- Get on a surfboard, which answers one of our viewer questions. They said, can you in fact Surf on gravitational waves. [LAUGH] If you were there a billion years ago. I think being a billion years ago being close enough to surf on the gravitational waves from the black holes would be very bad for your health. Okay. Yeah you could do it though. Well duly noted. But you could do it and then die. [LAUGH] Kind of like actual surfing here with the sharks. Yeah true. So a gravitational waves is actually space time changing. So things are actually moving closer to you or farther away from you. Yes. That's amazing. The space and time between objects changes as the gravitational wave passes, and that's how we measure it. So we built a giant, called interferometer, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory That looks at the difference between distances and mirrors with laser beams. So it makes a very accurate measurement of that distance and the distance changes as a wave passes by. But the change is so tiny on earth that it took a hundred years to develop the technology to be able to make that measurement. To detect that. We're talking like the size of what, like a. It's like the diameter of a hydrogen atom, right. A thousandth of the diameter of a proton, more like it. Wow. Wow. So we're talking about 10 to the -19 meters, which seems like an impossible number. It does. But we've worked on lots of areas of technology to make that possible, and it is possible and that's where- How do we measure that small of a distance, a billion light-years away? So using the lasers and the mirrors, we make that accurate measurement. And there are a lot of things you have to overcome. One of them is just the mirrors themselves have atoms in them that jiggle around. Atoms and molecules. It turns out, if you try to make a measurement with a very small amount of laser light and a very small are, the atoms will jiggle too much. So you have to make a measurement with a big laser spot to average over the statistical jiggling of them so they average to zero. So you can measure the true I see. I have atoms that jiggle too so I can relate. I know, we all do. So one of the things that I thought was really interesting was one of the videos on line, they sort of talked about how they actually attempted to measure for this back in the 60s and 70s and did not have the technology, and also built small. And like you were saying, it didn't quite work. That's right. So Ligo now is two different locations. And the actual length of each, cuz it's a perpendicular series of tunnels. Right? Exactly. And so, this perpendicular series of tunnels are five kilometers long? Four kilometers. Four kilometers, okay. Two and a half miles. Okay, two and a half miles long. So we're looking at a two and a half mile long tube for each of these lasers, two lasers per Lego. Per observatory. And that's sort of a redundancy, right? To confirm. Yeah. Well so the two observatories is for redundancy to check each other because you wouldn't wanna local disturbance to be measured at one and then not have a way to tell it was local. Right. So by having two widely separate detectors and by the way we wanna build more, we want to build one in India. There's one coming online in Italy and there's one in Germany. Wow. With multiple dejections on widely separated fronts you can tell that it wasn't a local disturbance. Right, that it wasn't an anomaly or something you can confirm that this is a definable measurement that happened in two different places. And another thing we can do is we can match what we measure To the predictions using Einstein's equations. So you can use Einstein's equations to solve what you think the system should look like, in his case, two black holes that are 30 times the mass of the Sun going around each other. And that gives a wave form prediction for what you should expect. And you should match that against what you really see to gain confidence- I see. that what you saw came from in fact, that type of system. I see, okay. So What does this mean? This means that Einstein was right and this is sort of the last bit of his theory that hadn't been observationally proven, right? So, it is challenging to test different aspects Effects of Einstein's theory and I'm not sure that you can say that this is the last bit that's been proven, because what we'll do is we'll continue to test the theory with more and more accuracy and look for any small deviations that we see between his theory of gravity and what we actually observed. For scientists, it's exciting if you see deviations, because that means something is wrong, and maybe we can get a deeper understanding by figuring that out. Okay. Everybody wants Science Man to be wrong. [LAUGH] I know, but you know what? That guy is always right. 100 years, he was right. I mean, that's crazy. Yeah. It's so unbelievable. It's an amazing thing. Does this have practical application going horror for scientists. So one thing I think is pretty interesting is this opens up a new way to observe the universe. Everything that we've seen about the universe so far, the majority of it has been through light and light has different, has different forms. So you can have radio, and x-rays, and visible light, and gamma rays. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is an entirely different spectrum than that. This is measuring gravity from gravity, not from electrons jiggling around but from masses moving. So this opens up a totally new way to look at the universe and we expect to see not only Black holes, but things like neutron stars or exploding stars are possibly some remnants of the Big Bang. So that's one thing that it gives us, but another is technology. So in order to solve a lot of the problems, like quantum mechanics and things like that, That we needed to overcome. We had to build technology that's gonna push forward in areas of technology that aren't related to gravitational waves. And that's a give-and-take because we also use the technology that's developed in other areas to refine our instruments. Right, okay, so, To compensate for my jiggling atoms. Yes. Well, that's really the goal here. [LAUGH] Compensate for Jeff's jiggling atoms. I have a few. So we have a couple of questions from viewers, and also I just really quickly wanna thank John Strickland from Forward Thinking. He sent us a really nice primer on gravitational waves. He's working on a two-part episode about gravitational waves. I highly recommend you check that out when it's released. And thank you again John for helping us learn a little bit more before we got to talk to Josh. Okay, so Stefan asked, what unit of measurement or medium do we measure gravitational waves. So, gravitational waves have an amplitude, like the amplitude of the wave. Okay. is something that's called strain and strain is the amount of stretch that you get for a given length. So the reason that the arms of LIGO are so long is because that means the longer you make the arm the longer the motion happens because of the string. I see. It's a fractional change. So if you make the arms really long you get a bigger change. So the amplitude of the gravitational waves is in strain. And I guess you can say we measure it in te dimensions of meters in our instruments. Okay. Another- 10 to the negative 11 or whatever. 10 to the minus 19. Yeah. 10 to the minus 19. You could also say we measure it as light because the instrument is set up so that it's kind of a trap for gravitational waves. They come in and if they move the arms back and forth, it causes a little bit of light to come out of what we call the dark port, that's normally dark. And that little bit of light encodes to gravitational with signal as photons. And that's what we measure. Yeah. Yeah. Admiral Asbar of gravitational wave to Yell. It's a trap to gravitational wave. That's they come in. I like it. Here Arnold also access one of our viewers. Is it possible to harness the waves for energy? FTL propulsion or time travel-esque applications? So let's talk a little bit with that being asked. Let's talk a little bit about the fact that as I understand it and correct me if I'm wrong, this is sorta like getting a new sense. So let's say we have these five senses and all of the sudden we get a new sense and We say okay I don't really necessarily know exactly what this is going to be used for, but I know that I'll never be the same again. Is that sort of kind of the- You put that so beautifully I don't know how to improve on it. [LAUGH] Okay Well, okay good. I'm glad. So, time travel. Can we do it? That's the question. So that means that there was not specific application that you were looking for, just specifically to confirm gravitation waves and from here go forward to find potential uses for the knowledge of gravitation waves. [INAUDIBLE] Jeff just really wants a time machine I mean, can you blame me? No, I can't I think the initial application is just that we can see the universe in this new way and we can do astronomy. There is the technological benefits for building something like this, but I think having opened up a new sense for humanity is a nice application on its own. So I don't know about time travel, Jeff. No not so much. Not sure if we're going to Not sure if we're gonna get you there from this but I do think as Kip Thorne said, this allows us to understand Einstein's theory a little bit better. And Einstein's theory is probably a good place to start in your garage as you build your time machine. Well, the reason that I know that this isn't gonna be the thing that gets us there is that future-me didn't just show up to give me a high-five. Or did he? Maybe you are future you and you're just putting up a front. I don't know. I got to say, if so, I've aged well. You have aged quite well. Okay. Let me see if I have any other, we had a lot of questions come in. It's a very dense topic. I understand. It is. It is. I was all excited as a fan of science, you read All the articles that come out and you see the big headline, we did it, we discovered them, and you go, okay, well but, what does that mean and how does that, you know, how is that accomplished? So John asked specifically, how is it different from the data we first thought the BICEP2 telescope uncovered back- Mm. In 2014, and could gravitational astronomy tell us more about the origins of the universe? Which you did mention. You said- Wow. Potentially, maybe. Like I said, he's a smart guy. He helped me out. That's a great question. So the original bicep two results were looking at, we're looking at twisting that was imparted in space time from the birth of the universe And the Big Bang. And so the idea was that there were gravitational waves of the Big Bang and they imparted some twisting on space time. And as that space time grew it stretched out, and we can look for that with our telescopes at the south pole. I'm not involved in that project but that's my understanding. Okay. Our project measure directly gravitational waves coming from a source of two black holes. And we expect that we're going to measure other things like exploding stars or neutron stars So I think the difference is that we're kind of, for one thing, we're in a different frequency range, so we're in a frequency range where things are moving around quite fast, and what we hope that we've done is opened up a field of gravitation wave astronomy where other projects will join. Including ones like something called pulsar timing where they look at spinning pulsars, which are a type of stars, and they look at those and they use those as the timing to measure the gravitation waves, and that's a much lower frequencies. And so all of those frequencies together, by sub two And related projects and pulsar timing and interferometers in space, for example, called Lisa and Ligo will span the whole spectrum. Like we do with light. So we can see a lot of different We can really see a lot of different things. Yeah. How do you know where to look? How did you guys know where to find the two black holes? Yeah? So our instruments act a little bit more like a microphone than they do a telescope. Okay. They're arranged on the Earth and the waves kind of bate them. The Earth doesn't block waves, so they come through both instruments. And from the timing and a little bit more information we can tell roughly where they came from. Where about, okay. So this came from the southern sky but we didn't have to point at it. We could tell by reconstructing the waves as they hit them. Wow. So it's a little bit like a microphone. That's what's so different about gravitational waves, is that they don't impact things. They just move through things, right? Well, there's a duality. There's this wave particle duality as well. So We measure them clearly as a wave but there is an associated particle we think, called the graviton, So, we don't know. So similar to light. All for the name of my super awesome band, that I'm starting today. Graviton rocks by the way. Today, Graviton, that's the name of my new band. Let's lastly talk a little bit about Cal State fortune's role in this. You guys did some very interesting things to be able to help everybody visualize exactly what this discovery is. Yeah, so I'm really proud of Cal State Fullerton's role. We have undergraduate students who are learning relativity at the same time that they're doing some of this work. And we have graduate students and three professors. And we, yeah, so our students created visualizations, simulations of the two black holes. We were among the first, actually the first to look at the exact parameters of the black holes that we detected on super computers at Cal State Fullerton, ran simulations. To see the black holes merge and then created visualizations along with collaborators in the simulating extreme space times collaboration. That sounds cool. That sounds awesome. Yeah, yeah anything that I can be a part of that sounds as cool as that, I would be into. And we had the privilege also to be very closely involved with writing the paper that announced the discovery- You were one of the lead editors on it, one of the six editors on the paper, right? Right, and so that was a great privilege because a thousand people were authors on the paper, and there was a lot of input. And a lot of the words and the thoughts and the measurements came from people across the collaboration and we tried to work to make a legible, cohesive story. [CROSSTALK] Hell of an email chain. I know, right. Exactly. You're absolutely right there This is awesome thank you so much. I think it shed some light, in any form the light wants to take on this Yea, it shed light and waves on this very dense topic it It's so big and so Important. Important that it's hard for us sometimes I think as people just kind of reading the news to wrap our brains around it's sort of that thing where you really start thinking about the universe and then your head hurts after awhile. I really love that you came down here and talked to us a little bit about it. Thank you so much. If anybody wanted to learn more about the project, what would they search for on Google? Well gravitational waves will get you a lot of the way. Mm-hm. You can go to ligo.org- ligo.org For a lot of our scientific- L I G O. L I G O .org. And ligo was it's name. Yeah. And a lot of our scientific results are posted there. And we work hard to make science summaries of our scientific papers so that people can access them at the public can access them. And if people still have questions after that, we work really hard to answer any emails that we get about them. Very cool. And we have kind of a whole troop of people that are answering emails right now. Man that's awesome. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Justin Smith thank you so much for being here. We got tomorrow daily coming at ya. We do. We have a delightful video as we go to break of boiling an iPhone in crayon wax. So check this out, and we'll be right back. Equally important to what we've just been talking about. And I love the smell of fresh, brand-new crayons. Let's go ahead and do this. Is the brightness all the way up? Yep. Okay. Let's get, whoa, whoa. [MUSIC] Welcome back to the show. That was amazing, informative. So rad. All the best things. I can't even have enough adjectives to describe how great that was. Are you ready to talk about some crowd funding? Let's do it. Back or Hack it. [MUSIC] Here's a question. Here's an answer for you. Have you ever sat on your couch while playing, say, I dunno, Rise of the Tomb Raider, and you thought to yourself I wish the couch was moving along with the game. Heck yeah. [LAUGH] Okay, so Immersit- And by that I mean not really. [LAUGH] No. Well, maybe. Okay, so let's talk about Immersit. So I saw this [LAUGH] it's got 26 days to go on Kickstarter. They wanted $95 thousand, they've passed that. They got emersit. Emersit. It's like Emerson, but Emersit, like you're sitting on a couch. So this is the idea it is a- Woo look at him go. It is a plug and play A device that you put underneath your couch. Boy. It will move and vibrate. It can have very sudden moves. It can have subtle moves. It can [UNKNOWN]. Boy. It's apparently intelligent vibrations, adjustable intensity. And they're saying this is Boy. The ultimate movie and gaming experience. And it's actually gotten some really good It's D-BOX, it's at home D-BOX. It is. It's just like going to a 4D theater. Yeah. That's amazing. So I kind of love this and I Do you? Well, I love the idea behind it. I don't So few people are gonna be happy they gave money to this. That's my prediction. Really, you think so? I'm usually not the cynical one, but My goodness does this loo like it's gonna be a disappoint to everyone. People are gonna get it and be lie this is super lame. Yeah, it's gonna vibrate a little bit probably. it's gonna be like sit on your phone and I'll call you when an exciting parts happening. Supposedly they're saying like this is what they're saying on the actual website Website they're like software translates, movie motions and the perfect movement vibrations? Get you immersed in the most appropriate manner. Yeah. No. It's for your body what VR is for your brain? That's also a quote from their kick starter. I'd love that to be true, I'm so skeptical about that. Just super skeptical. I'd love to try it If you are listening and you want us to try it, I'll give it a shot. We did try it at CES. Not us specifically, CNet tried it out. Really, did they like it? Yes, if you look up immersit, I-M-M-E-R-S-I-T on cnet.com you can check out our video. We did a little First we'll find. Right. Now I have to find out if we as a company liked it because I'm very skeptical about this. There are many. Yes, Sara tested this, see there she is. How much is it? Okay. Let's talk about price. If you want just vibration, you don't want you're couch- And you already have it on your phone. To shake around and you don't want to put your iPad or your surface underneath your couch cushions and sit on it. You can get immersed in vibration for about 200 bucks. Wow. Just the vibration. Wow. Okay. Does it require support from the thing you're watching? How does it know when to vibrate you based on what you're watching? I think it's saying basically it's compatible with, the game consoles they said it was compatible with are Like all of them, right now. Like all of the Xbox 360, Xbox One, like they're. It's compatible. If you want an actual motion, and immersive motion, which is the whole kitten caboodle package. Knocking you around on your couch. The cheapest early bird available currently is 728. No! 700 and no! 700 and no dollars? 700 and zero dollars. I'm sorry, I'm hacking it. I love hacking it. Okay. Yeah for 700 bucks I don't think I can. No way. I think for 300 I'd be all in. It better come with the dang couch. Well that's see that's the thing. I have a sectional couch. I can't even use it because my couch is too big. yeah. it's like a giant [INAUDIBLE]. it's sectional. So there's no way I could ever actually use this. I'd have to buy a separate couch specifically made for this particular application. It's a bad idea [INAUDIBLE]. You think so, emersit emersit. I'm sorry. Thumbs down from the old Jeff Misster. Aw, thumbs down, a bummer. All right, I say I say don't, I say don't. Go to an X 40 movie theater. Yeah, or just- Get your kicks in. Watch the movie, it's fine. Do it for scare tactics. I don't know, you could scare somebody with it. That would be, I don't know if that's worth $700 to you. It's a 21st century whoopee cushion, is what it is. That's kind of true, yeah it is. Okay, so now that we've talked about that that could happen, are you ready to talk about what we're into? Let's do it. All right, then do it. [MUSIC] I'm into Helldivers. I just want to drop right in. It was free this month on PSN, right? Free. Playstation Plus had it for free. Cross play, I believe, is Playstation 3, Playstation 4, and Vita. I didn't get to play this on PC. I've heard good things about this. It is so much fun. It is a combination of Starship Troopers- Uh-huh. Diablo- Ooh. It's a kind of vet combo. so it's a top down game and you can all play together and there's friendly fire, so you can accidentally kill your friends. Twin six shooter, right? Happens a lot. Yeah, twin six shooter. You choose your load out right before you go into each mission. you can play against, you can fight cyborgs, bugs, illuminate and it is so fun. You go into these missions and it will say okay, here's your objective. You've got to go, yeah that's the other thing. The ship that comes to get you, the drop ship that comes to take you out of the mission, if you are under it when it lands it will kill you. That'll make your couch shake. [LAUGH] [INAUDIBLE] boy if you play this game might be [INAUDIBLE] you would be having a great time. This So much fun and it's a blast to meet other people. Cuz you can play multiplayer either locally or online. Mm-hm. So me and my husband have been playing with other like, my friend mike, and then my brother from a different Playstation. It's so fun. I gotta get in on this. I would recommend it. I just downloaded it. So I got to get on, I'm gonna play some Street Fighter It's great. Okay, what are you into? My into it is a movie and it might at first seem like a real political movie but I urge anybody watching this, regardless of what your political stance is to give it a shot. Give it a try, okay. It's the new film from Michael Moore Okay. So, he's a polarizing figure, but this one is called where to invade next. I think it's actually not a very good title. It's a clever idea, he's quote unquote invading countries by himself, but I think it conjures sort of a dialogue about the military industrial complex, which is not what the movie's about at all. He's just going to different countries, some European countries, some North African countries. And just seeing how they approach some of the problems that we have here in America. And it's fascinating. Some of the solutions that other countries have come up with, some of the ideas they've taken from us and expanding upon. The things that he just sort of shows in practice all around the world. Are really inspiring and really interesting. It's not a polemic, it's not preachy, it doesn't feel like a A Micheal Moore movie. A Michael Moore Movie. I feel like a lot of people are turned off by that Yeah. I really urge anybody watching this if you have this movie playing near you, go see it. It will open your mind. It reminds me I won, I was 17, it was the first time I ever went overseas I've never travelled that far away from home And it just opened your mind It opens your mind, you realize the your whole world Isn't like your little part of it Your little space. Right, yeah. And this would be is the filmmaker equivalent of that and I really, if you have ever heard anything I've said on the show and taking my advice and been happy Do this, I guarantee you'll laugh, you'll enjoy it. Even if you think you hate Michael Moore. Is it on Netflix, or is this on demand? It is not yet, but it's in theaters right now, so you can go see it in theaters. I'm sure it'll be on Netflix at some point. Where to Invade Next, from Michael Moore. It It's an amazing movie, and it's so funny and fun and it will get you talking. My wife and I have been talking about it ever since because it just has such interesting ideas in it. I will watch it on your recommendation. Please do. I trust you. Yeah. I trust you. Okay, we've done everything except Our favorite part of the show, which is- Phonetographer! All about you. [MUSIC] Yasmin, you took this photo with your iPhone 6 Plus, and honestly, it's a little rainy today and I'm kinda missing the weather. Yeah, I want to go to there. I would like to go to there. What's with the lovely photo? [CROSSTALK] Look at how joyous they are. Like, Logan will move into the full screen proof. Logan will give us the full screen. But it is so crisp and clear. I love it. [INAUDIBLE] I took this picture back in August when I was in California. Photo was taken with my iPhone 6 Plus. And the photo, it's Monica on the right and Destiny to the left. You have my full permission to use it. This is a photo, if you take it with your iPhone, It's a little dangerous, cuz that wave hits a little hard, your phone goes tumbling into the ocean, all of a sudden no phone. No, it's brave. Maybe she had a. Yasmin is bold the phonetagrapher. Bold [INAUDIBLE] [INAUDIBLE] Maybe okay, yeah. But really lovely photo, if you want to be our phonetagrapher of the day and have your photo featured on our show, it's easy all you gotta do is send it in. To tomorrow@CNET.com, make sure you tell us what device you took it on, give us a little story about why you took it, and give us permission to use it on the show. Yes, permission is always great. If you like the show, you want to see us continue to do this, please share it with somebody that you like or don't like, I don't know. You want to share it with a frenemy? I don't care. You are our entire marketing budget, so please. Be evangelical. Get crazy about it. I'm telling you, pass out flyers in your hometown. Yeah, we would support that. Send them to tomorrowdaily.com. It's the easiest way to find the show. It's the easiest way to get to it. We highly recommend that you do that. Yeah. And that is it for the show today. We will be back next week with a brand new docket of science, facts, memes, science fiction and all of the cool stuff in between that we like to talk about But until then. Be good humans. Bye, guys. [MUSIC]

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