Transcription
So I want to explain a gin particle, okay? Awesome. I've been waiting for us to actually drink on this show for the longest time. Uh, this is different. This relates to time travel, really. Oh.
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Yeah, I got to tell you the truth, I am completely unfamiliar with the term "genin particle" for time travel. It doesn't have to be a, a thing, okay? A particle, it can be an idea. It is something that is trapped in time. Interesting. Okay, I'll give an example. All right, let's start from pop culture. Remember back to the future? Of course. There's the scene where Marty plays, Marty. So Marty is at the dance, right? Okay. He decides to play because Marvin Barry got his hand injured trying to open the trunk. So Marty plays the guitar for him. And then Marty starts playing Chuck Berry. Yes. Okay. So this is 1955. The Chuck Berry's didn't, didn't really late '50s, early '60s, right? So it predates the actual appearance of, which was, it was it Johnny Be Good? So he's playing it and Marvin Berry, mhm, hears it, right? Calls his brother, "Hey Chuck, it's me, Marvin." "No, your cousin Marvin Barry." "Yes, Marvin Barry." For the purposes of this bit, I must say my whole name, right? And so he holds up the phone and Chuck Berry, who we presume is on the other side of the line, is hearing, hearing "Johnny Be Good." "Johnny Be Good" played by Michael J. Fox, who is Marty. Marty McFly. So when I first saw that, I said, "Did they go again, credited white people for?" So now white people founded rock and roll? That, that was my first thought. Remember it was 1985, right? And I, you know, yeah. All right. I was, my first thought. But then I realized the implications of it, right? Okay. The implications are, Chuck Berry hears this and then he creates that song. Mhm. And that's the song that Marty plays. So we can ask the question, was that song ever written? Right? Because the only way that Chuck Berry heard it was because Marty McFly played it. But the only way that Marty McFly played it is because Chuck Berry played it first in his frame of reference. Correct. So, but when he goes back in time, he actually creates it. But he couldn't have created it because it was already created before he went back to. So it's just one big freaking paradox that never is. No, no. So the song that's so wild, the song was never created, right? It only ever existed in this time loop, right? Right. The song only in the time loop. In the time loop, right? No one wrote that song, right? So it's a gen song in that sense, not a gen particle. It's a gen song. That's pretty wild. It was never created or destroyed because it lives in that loop. It lives in the time loop. One person hands it to the next person, hands it to the next person, right? Okay. So that's a, that's a gen situation. That's wild.
Okay, so there's another example in a less popular film. It's *Somewhere in Time*. One of the first movies made by, uh, Christopher Reeve after *Superman*. He is the love interest of a woman, mhm, who's like 90 years old. Okay. He, he's, he's a college professor. An old woman comes up to him and says to him, "Come back to me." Okay. And she hands him a locket or some bit of jewelry. She's alive now, but she's 90 something. Then he figures out maybe if he goes back in time, he can meet her. So he goes, he's on a college campus. So he visits some physicists. It's always good to have friends who are physicists to help you out. Exactly. Especially when you want to go back in time. Especially because otherwise, what are you doing, right? So he goes to his physicist friend and they're say, "We've been working on this method and the tool. You have to, in your mind, and you have to get ready, you have to get dressed for it, whatever." Okay. So he manages to go back in time to this resort on the beach where he knows she was checking into the hotel. It's a resort. Checks into the. So he sees her come up. She doesn't know who he is, of course. She's back in time. She's back in time. They meet each other and they fall in love. And she says, "Wait, how did you find me?" He said, "I, I'm from the future and I came back in time for you." "What?" And as a token of his love, he gifts her the jewelry. Ah. Oh, another gen. It's a gen particle object because object. She gave it to him. Yes. So how does she give it to him? Got it. Unless he came back to her to give it to her. To give it to her. Yes. Oh, yes. So this, this locket, it was never created nor destroyed. Destroyed. It lives in that, in that time, in that time loop. That's, you know, that's pretty wild, man. It's wild. It's wild. Wild. If you're going to say there's time travel, you have to admit that this kind of thing can happen, right? And you might ask, is there some metaverse that creates it that sneaks into the timeline to make it happen? I don't know. That's another frontier of thought beyond because this is already at the limits of how we're thinking about how the world works, right? Right. Yeah. So that's wild. That's an example of a, of a gen particle. I love it. I love it. Uh, you know, also I love the fact that he went back in time to stalk this lady because stalkers, that's honestly, you know, first she, no, he's a handsome man. Super. She stalked him first. That's the deal. You know what I, that's what I'm saying. These are just two stalkers who found each other. That's really what's happening here. And back then, it was like before the internet. So that was the closest thing to online it could be. You show up at somebody's lecture and say you stalk them at the talk. Yeah. Because let me tell you something, if an old lady comes up to me with some jewelry and just like, "Come back to me," I'm gonna be like, "Look, first of all, I do not know you. That is the first thing. Secondly, thanks for the jewelry. Third, I am going to go hawk this, okay? I'm just letting you know, okay?" And then you missed the opportunity to go back in time. So that's about all I got to say. I love the whole gen particle idea though. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. Those are the two, I think, most interesting examples of it, right? But you can now, if you know gen particles exist, you can construct anything you want. You can write stories all about gen particles, right? Right. And not have to worry about who made them. That's pretty cool, man. I really dig it. Yeah. Right.
Well, would be fun if you, if you made a time machine that was itself a gen particle. Oh, wow. That's a little too meta for me because I'm sorry, right now my head is hitting. I'm being, I'm being honest. It's because I'm trying to figure out, okay, the time machine itself is a, no, you gift me a time machine. Right. No, you come into the future, you give me a time machine. I take it back into the past and I hand it to you. To you, right? And that's how I invent the time machine. Yes. Yes. You're on record for the invention of the time machine because I handed it to you. If you gave it to me in the future. Exactly. And then the time machine itself is a gen particle. Is a gen particle. Right. That's very meta. Yeah. That is more than meta, by the way. Yeah. Rick and Morty. Rick came back to himself to make himself invent the, the, uh, portal gun. The portal gun gives gives them access to all. Okay. I've seen a lot of episodes. I haven't seen. Yeah, that's, yeah, that's like one of the, like throwback origin story, uh, episodes where they go back to show you how things happen. So *Rick and Morty* is the cartoon, um, representation of of Doc and and and Marty. Marty McFly. That's right. Because Rick is a little bit of a crazy scientist and and Morty is just kind of going along for the ride, yeah. And doesn't really understand anything, right? But there it is.
Oh, one last thing. There is such a thing as flux. Right? Flux in physics is the measure of a field through an area. Okay? So you can have magnetic flux, you can have electrical flux, you can have. So as long as you have an area and something moving through it, you can measure that. That's flux. Flow. Flow. Okay. Okay. It's flux. And there is also such a thing as a capacitor, right? A capacitor is a metal plate, mhm, and charges build up on that metal plate. M. And you have another metal plate that faces it and you, you can have a voltage across these two plates, okay? So, but there is no such thing as a flux capacitor. Ah. I know. Now you just ruined the movie for me, man. What? Oh, that's the only thing that ruined the movie for you? Were all in. I was all in for everything because it all came down to the flux capacitor. Now the movie is just crap to me. All right, Neil deGrasse Tyson here, as always, keep looking up. A [Music]