SGU Episode 308

Introduction

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 8th, 2011 and this is your host, Steven Novella. Joining me this week are Bob Novella, B: Hey everybody S: Rebecca Watson R: Hello everyone S: Jay Novella J: Hey guys S: And Evan Bernstein E: Yuan Shang Hao. Good evening to all of our listeners in China of which there are... J: I like your intonation S: Inflection B: I'm not sure if it was accurate though but it sounded good E: Does anyone listen to us in China? R: Of course, yeah, we have some Chinese listeners S: But if it's the wrong inflection you say, 'I wanna massage your grandma' you see, so you've gotta be careful E: You know the thing about saying 'good evening' in Chinese is that I want to say it again in an hour. I don't know what it is B: O.M.G. R: Wow J: That was so bad B: He was working on that all night E: Where's my (room) shot? Oh god. (cymbols) R: You get a sad trombone (sad trombone) S: Rebecca you're joining us from London this week J: I say R: I am, yes, I'm back in Old Blighty, as no-one calls it E: Rebecca Poppins R: Yeah, so once again the listeners are being treated to Rebecca at one thirty in the morning. Awesome. J: But you're still kind of on US time R: No, not really J: But you're not in a bad mood R: No, not really J: Well at least you're happy recording the show R: No S: Alright. Evan tell us what is absolutely fascinating about this day in skepticism E: Well on this day that you're listening to the show it was 1854 in which the famous mathematician Bernhard Riemann proposed that space is curved and he announced this in a lecture titled On the Hypothesis on which Geometry is Based, which is apparently a very famous lecture that he gave. And what he did is he described the old-fashioned, Euclidean two-dimensional plane geometry along with some other examples of old geometry and... well let me put it to you this way. There's an example in which on a piece of paper there lived a bookworm, right, and this bookworm was drawn on the piece of paper so it was drawn in two-dimensional. You take the paper and you fold it up and you crumple it up. Now the worm drawn on the paper has no sense of the cumbling and the distortion of space that's going on around him because he also exists in two dimensions. Right, follow me so far? S: Right R: Yeah B: Gotcha S: Oh yeah E: Whereas actually that crumpled paper is in three dimensions