SGU Episode 884

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SGU Episode 884
June 18th 2022
(brief caption for the episode icon)
SGU 883                      SGU 885
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
B: Bob Novella
C: Cara Santa Maria
J: Jay Novella
E: Evan Bernstein
Quote of the Week
Science is a search for basic truths about the Universe, a search which develops statements that appear to describe how the Universe works, but which are subject to correction, revision, adjustment, or even outright rejection, upon the presentation of better or conflicting evidence.
James Randi, Canadian-American magician and skeptic
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Show Notes
Forum Discussion

Introduction, JWST Hit, Force Fields

Voice-over: You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, June 15^th 2022, and this is your host, Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella...

B: Hey, everybody!

S: Cara Santa Maria...

C: Howdy.

S: Jay Novella...

J: Hey guys.

S: ...and Evan Bernstein.

E: Good evening everyone!

S: So did you guys hear the news about the James Webb Space Telescope?

B: Oh boy.

S: The James Webb Space Telescope's main mirror was hit by a dust sized micro meteoroid. And it's caused noticeable damage. It actually is affecting the data that they're getting back from it.

B: Oh my god.

S: But they say that it should not affect the mission's overall performance. They'll be able to compensate for it. It's not going to in any way reduce its mission. But it took a hit.

E: Well they anticipated that it would and I think they in an interview or a video that Fraser Kane put out about it. He talked about how these telescopes and other things that are sent into space are built with certain tolerances and certain allowances basically for those kinds of strikes. And they understand it when engineering these devices. And so it's anticipated ahead of time.

S: Yeah but it is a little scary that it got hit this soon. I mean I guess it's just bad luck. But it makes it seem like yeah this is going to be a regular event. It's not like it took years.

B: Yeah is it a one-off or is this something because of Lagrange orbit. Is that something because of where it is because last time we had anything there that was in the news.

S: Well we'll see.

J: That sucks.

E: Affects the resale value of this thing.

S: Yeah.

E: Get a ding like that.

S: Well it's supposed to have a good lifespan 15 to 20 years. So I guess they're just calculating that yeah it's going to slowly take damage over that time but it'll function. It won't be the limiting factor on its function but maybe they'll have to recalculate. Who knows.

E: Yeah and it's not the kind of thing you can repair. (laughs) Maybe that was one of the advantages of a Hubble like system that was so close to Earth it could be fixed as it took hits and other problems occurred with it. But here no chance for that. You're just gonna get what you get. You don't get upset.

S: But there was no choice this had to be far away from the Earth.

E: That's right. Of course. Yeah.

S: Because of the type of instrument. Yeah.

B: Yeah they got to turn on the damn force fields before it happens again. Oh wait that goes against laws of physics.

E: So maybe. I don't know. So you cover that in your upcoming book at all? About force field technology?

B: Yeah we do.

S: Yes we do.

C: Nice.

B: I think I researched that.

E: Is there any plausibility whatsoever to any of it? Or is it total myth?

S: So─

B: Depends how you define force field.

S: ─yeah. So as typically depicted in like Star Trek or whatever. No. Like that kind of force field--I mean there's just there's no known plausible wave within the laws of physics to do something like that. But can you use energy to protect a ship or a location? Sure. Like a really powerful magnetic wave─

B: Plasma, laser.

S: ─would repulse anything that has an ionic charge. Anything that's charged. You can use plasma and other things that would, that could deflect impact. But there's there are huge downsides to that as well because it's not it wouldn't be invisible.

E: Yeah. Wouldn't be invisible. Right. So you have to compromise whatever it is you're designing that in mind. And what's the energy? What sort of energy are you looking at to have to power something like that? Depends on what how effective you need it to be. What are you trying to deflect. But yeah it's an interesting thought experiment. That's one of the parts of the book. The last essentially third of the book is the thought experiment of we go through all of the sci-fi technologies and just talk about could this even happen. What's the closest you could get to this. Or is it just even theoretically impossible. Obviously it's always hard to account for ridiculously advanced technology like a million years from now. But still the laws of physics are the laws of physics so we as we know them so we could talk about plausibility. Which was fun. It's a fun part of the book.

B: Yeah another angle I've just remembered about force fields is that is point forces. I mean if you think about it a 360° force field this is a little bit wasteful. Now imagine, I think in the future we and we have these now to it to a decent extent actually where you can apply the amount of force you need at a specific point very quickly. And so that type you wouldn't call that really a force field though. It's not really a force filed though. Although it can be and is actually some form of a defensive shield. So it depends how you define forest field like we said.

S: Yeah you would imagine that any civilization with the technology to wield those forces that way would probably have advanced enough AI that they could very quickly put the energy where it's needed rather than like being having it in place from all directions at all times. That's would suck up a lot of energy.

E: In the case of the James Webb impact that has occurred is there existing technology that would have potentially prevented that?

B: No. Too small too fast is my knee-jerk reaction.

S: I mean if you had a companion sensor system with lasers that could shoot incoming dust particles.

E: Oh yeah. You put a satellite around the telescope. Something that orbits it.

S: It could theoretically work. But yeah I guess you could you wouldn't want to shoot a powerful laser near the telescope─

E: True.

S: ─because it could cause more damage than the meteor or what you're trying to deflect if you're not careful about it. Yeah it's an interesting problem.

The Skeptics' Guide to the Future (5:54)

S: So since, for those who are interested, since we're talking about it. Thanks for bringing it up Evan. Our next book The Skeptics’ Guide to the Future is coming out September 27^th. It discusses futurism itself. It discusses a lot of modern technology and where we think it's gonna go in the future. We talk about science fiction technologies. The near mid and long long term future. A lot of fun to research a lot of fun to write. Coming out September 27^th but you can pre-order it right now . And we strongly encourage you to do so. If you pre-order it, especially the hardcover, it really helps our overall sale. So if you're at all ever intending to get the book we do ask you to just pre-order it now before the launch date. You'll get it that's how you'll get it the soonest but it also helps the overall sales of the book so we'd appreciate it.

J: You can go to theskepticsguide.org/our-book. I can't make it any easier than that folks. And you'll see both of our books on there. The new one is The Skeptics’ Guide to the Future.

B: And it's worth it just for the cover there's lots of nice words inside but the cover itself is awesome.

S: Yeah. Cover is fun.

High School Reunions (7:07)

S: Before we go to the news items Bob and I were at our 40^th high school reunion this past weekend.

B: Oh boy.

C: Wow.

E: Wow that's eight years worth of reading.

B: I told you not to say that number. (Cara laughs)

S: It's really interesting seeing people. Some people, a couple of people I haven't seen in 40 years. Obviously since high school. Some people have seen that previous reunions. So I had seen them in the intervening time. But what's funny is trying to recognize people that you only knew when they were 18 years old. And it's amazing how different. So there are some people who are identical to the way they were when they were 18. Literally they look like they just had a mild aging program on them (laughter) but they looked exactly the same. Instantly recognizable. And then there are other people where I was struggling to see their 18 year old self in the current. They just for some reason they look so different.

C: They like transform.

S: Almost would not recognize who they were. And only I would not have recognized them if I weren't at a reunion, you know what I mean? Where I knew like this is somebody in my class. But if I saw them on the street I would not make the connection. They look so different for some reason. And it's not just the usual thing. It's not just like weight and age. It was just something that fundamentally morphed about their features.

C: What size was your graduating class?

S: Not big because it was─

B: A 100?

S: ─it was less than a hundred.

C: Oh so you knew literally everyone.

E: We took classes with most of them.

C: T hat's amazing. See when I think about going back to a reunion I'm like maybe I'll recognize a dozen or so people because I went to school with thousands of people.

E: Oh wow.

C: Yeah my graduating class was like I think between 1500 and 2000.

J: Oh my god.

B: Nuts.

J: I mean you legit don't know most of the people in your class.

C: Yeah. And my school only had two grades in it. It was a senior high for that reason because there were so many kids.

S: And we had our die hards. So these are people who were in all four years. It was only 16 of us.

C: What!?

B: Yes. I remember that picture the die hard picture.

C: Oh so other people kind of came and went? They transferred in.

S: They came in later or they came in. They came and went. Absolutely. And only 16 of us were there for all four years.

E: Four years.

S: So it's a very tight group.

C: Yeah.

S: Very tight group.

E: They're all good skeptics, right?

S: Nope. (laughter) Not even close.

B: Nope. Yeah.

S: We won't get into any details but that is not.

E: Just like real life. A sampling of any random group of 16 people.

S: We just I think all just silently agreed not to talk about politics or certain things.

E: Good. Healthy.

s: Would not have been a good idea. We just stuck to like reminiscing about high school days but talking about other things. But we didn't, we knew we shouldn't go there.

E: Compact discs and Die Hard.

S: Yeah. But Bob and I while we were there we met with the librarian and we donated a hard copy of our first book to the library. They have─

C: Oh fun.

S: ─yeah it was fun. They have a shelf for books written by alum. Including JFK. John F Kennedy who went to that school. He went to the same school.

C: You went to the same school as JFK?

E: What's the name of his book.

B: For a little while.

S: The Profiles in Courage I think was there.

C: Were there any like─

E: You think he really wrote that?

C: ─(laughs) probably not. Next to the Skeptic's Guide book was there like a cryptozoology book? Are there any books written by alum that were like.

S: Yes but they weren't there.

C: Oh. (laughs)

J: So Steve you know the obvious question is are our books there?

S: Or what?

B: Our. O-U-R. Yes. Our book is there now.

C: Or, our.

S: Yeah I couldn't parse that sentence.

E: A-R-E?

C: R-R?

J: So you donated one is what you're saying.

S: We donated one for the library.

C: That is it literally what he said. (laughs)

S: That's what I just--it's on the alumni bookshelf.

B: So Steve brings the hardcover and there's not too many of those bad boys around anymore. He brings a hardcover over to my house because we were going together. He opens the book so we could sign it and there's Cara's name in the book. Like oh okay.

S: Well you pre-signed some books.

C: Oh yeah I signed a bunch of them.

S: Yeah.

E: Ah, perfect.

C: Whoops. Sorry guys.

S: No worries. Doesn't matter.

C: Well now Evan and Jay have to sneak into the school to sign it as well.

S: That's true.

E: Yeah we'll come up with some zany plan like a bad 80s movie.

S: Right.

B: Oh my god.

C: Yeah that could have only gone over the 80s.

B: Time machine.

E: We'll call it meatball house or something. Like animal house.

S: All right well let's move on to our news items.

News Items

S:

B:

C:

J:

E:

(laughs) (laughter) (applause) [inaudible]

Is LaMDA AI Sentient? (11:43)

• Is LaMDA Sentient?

S: That's actually a really good segue to Jay's item, which is also about--

E: --Sex dolls.

S: --the human acceptance of digital, non-human entities.

AI Influencers (29:43)

S: Jay, tell us about AI influencers.

• The rise of computer-generated, artificially intelligent influencers

Kids Don't Get Cancer Because They're Unhappy (52:25)

• Princess Märtha Louise's new fiancé Shaman Durek had his book dropped by publishers in her home country of Norway after claiming 'children get cancer because they're unhappy'

Free Floating Black Hole (1:00:40)

• Astronomers may have detected a 'dark' free-floating black hole

Who's That Noisy? (1:11:27)

Answer to previous Noisy:

Seal chirps and bellows

New Noisy (1:13:32)

[hissing with rising horn sounds]

this week's Noisy

Questions/Emails/Corrections/Follow-ups (1:15:52)

_consider_using_block_quotes_for_emails_read_aloud_in_this_segment_
with_reduced_spacing_for_long_chunks –

Science or Fiction (1:32:23)

Theme: Science Misconceptions Item #1: CO2 is not the greatest cause of recent global warming, but rather shorter-lived molecules such as methane. Item #2: Most of the energy generated by the sun is not caused by the fusion of hydrogen into helium. Item #3: The heating up of a spacecraft as it reenters and descends through the atmosphere is not mostly caused by friction, which is only responsible for a small amount of heat, <5%.

Answer	Item
Fiction	Co2 and global warming
Science	Spacecraft reentry and friction
Science	Sun's energy and h→he fusion

Host	Result
Steve	clever

Rogue	Guess
Jay	Spacecraft reentry and friction
Cara	Co2 and global warming
Bob	Sun's energy and h→he fusion
Evan	Co2 and global warming

Voice-over: It's time for Science or Fiction.

Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:49:55)

Science is a search for basic truths about the Universe, a search which develops statements that appear to describe how the Universe works, but which are subject to correction, revision, adjustment, or even outright rejection, upon the presentation of better or conflicting evidence.
– James Randi (1928-2020), Canadian-American magician and skeptic

Signoff, SoF Bitterness (1:50:39)

S: —and until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

S: Skeptics' Guide to the Universe is produced by SGU Productions, dedicated to promoting science and critical thinking. For more information, visit us at theskepticsguide.org. Send your questions to info@theskepticsguide.org. And, if you would like to support the show and all the work that we do, go to patreon.com/SkepticsGuide and consider becoming a patron and becoming part of the SGU community. Our listeners and supporters are what make SGU possible.

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