Learn about what would happen if you could actually stop time, scientifically speaking; the incredible health and wellness benefits of leaving your phone out of your bedroom; and “The Goblin,” a new world beyond Pluto. In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes: What Would Happen If You Stopped Time? — https://curiosity.im/2wpWS7s Why You Should Leave Your Phone Out of the Bedroom — https://curiosity.im/2UuAOTR There's a World Beyond Pluto That Astronomers Just Discovered — https://curiosity.im/2Iz2IIQ If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get exclusive episodes and access to our archives as soon as you become a Patron! https://www.patreon.com/curiositydotcom Learn about these topics and more on Curiosity.com, and download our 5-star app for Android and iOS. Then, join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Plus: Amazon smart speaker users, enable our Alexa Flash Briefing to learn something new in just a few minutes every day!
Learn about what would happen if you could actually stop time, scientifically speaking; the incredible health and wellness benefits of leaving your phone out of your bedroom; and “The Goblin,” a new world beyond Pluto.
In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes:
If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get exclusive episodes and access to our archives as soon as you become a Patron! https://www.patreon.com/curiositydotcom
Learn about these topics and more on Curiosity.com, and download our 5-star app for Android and iOS. Then, join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Plus: Amazon smart speaker users, enable our Alexa Flash Briefing to learn something new in just a few minutes every day!
Full episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/incredible-benefits-of-leaving-your-phone-out-of-your-bedroom-stopping-time-and-the-goblin-dwarf-planet
CODY GOUGH: Hi. We've got three of your favorite stories from the past year of Curiosity Daily to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Today, you'll learn about what would happen if you could actually stop time, scientifically speaking, the incredible benefits of leaving your phone out of your bedroom, and one of our favorite scientific discoveries of the year, a new world beyond Pluto.
CODY GOUGH: Let's discover some curiosity.
ASHLEY HAMER: You know how some superheroes and super villains can stop time. Well, it turns out the real world effects of stopping time wouldn't be very practical. But there are pretty fun way to learn about physics.
CODY GOUGH: Can I just say I loved this article?
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. Me too. I loved writing it.
CODY GOUGH: I'm really big into time stopping, because I played a lot of Mega Man 2 when I was little.
ASHLEY HAMER: Aha.
CODY GOUGH: And Flash Man is iconic, really good music too.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. Actually, you helped me with this article, because I was like, what's an example of a time where you stop time? And you're like Mega Man.
CODY GOUGH: I remember. And then time stopped and I thought to myself now is my chance.
ASHLEY HAMER: Anyway.
CODY GOUGH: It was good.
ASHLEY HAMER: Before we get into this, let's define what we mean by stopping time. We're talking about when you stop time for everything, but you, obviously, like in TV shows or movies where everything is frozen and a character walks around moving stuff. Adam Sandler in Click. Keanu Reeves in The Matrix. Stuff like that. Well, for this to even work, you need to account for every molecule of fluid and air inside and outside of your body.
If you're able to move around, then we have to assume the molecules inside you can move around too. And if the air in the rest of the room stopped experiencing time, then every molecule would stay suspended precisely in the same location. So you wouldn't be able to move because you'd be trapped in a prison of air molecules. So let's say that time keeps flowing normally for the molecules near your body, and beyond that, time standstill.
All right. Well, there's still a problem. As you listen to this, particles of light called photons are traveling at the speed of, well, light, obviously, into your eyes. You're also hearing this podcast at the speed of sound through the air as pressure waves that eventually get to your ears to vibrate your eardrums. If you stop time, then all light and sound would stop too, which might leave you instantly deaf and blind. Not super helpful, right?
OK. Let's say that any photons that had already been emitted from a source like a light bulb, your cell phone, or the sun, let's say that those photons got to keep traveling. OK. Well, then you've got anywhere from a fraction of a second to a full 8 minutes where you could still see. But we want unlimited time, so let's not stop it completely. Instead of stopping it, what if you slowed it to a crawl? Well, that wouldn't work either.
When you slow down electromagnetic waves for light and pressure waves for sound, you get waves of a lower frequency. But at a low frequency you'd hear sounds that drop below the range of human hearing, and light at a lower frequency moves into the infrared, microwave, and radio wave realm. So you wouldn't be able to see that either. In the end, maybe the ability to stop time is one of those super powers in the be careful what you wish for category like reading thoughts and turning everything you touch into gold.
Still, who said science fiction can't help us learn about science?
CODY GOUGH: Today, Curiosity wrote about a new study and we've got some really bad news if you're addicted to your phone.
ASHLEY HAMER: Oh, no.
CODY GOUGH: Participants in this study who kept their smartphones out of the bedroom for one week showed a marked improvement in their happiness and overall quality of life.
ASHLEY HAMER: Wow.
CODY GOUGH: I'm not done. They also showed fewer signs of smartphone addiction, plus, many of the participants reported that they slept better, experienced less anxiety, and improved their relationships. More than 90% of the participants who did this said they might keep it up.
ASHLEY HAMER: I can't imagine being a person that would say they would keep it up because I can't imagine being a person that would even do that.
CODY GOUGH: OK. So I do have a suggestion for breaking the habit.
ASHLEY HAMER: OK.
CODY GOUGH: And I learned in college that when you change a habit, you have to replace it with something, right? So you can't just stop doing a thing without replacing it with something.
ASHLEY HAMER: Sure.
CODY GOUGH: Obviously, you can swap out your phone for a book. It turns out that when you sleep after you learn something new, you're able to remember it better later anyway. So if you're reading a nonfiction book or a philosophy book, then your brain's going to process that more, which is really cool. Here's another life hack on a more personal level. My wife realizes that I'm really into gadgets. So I like my Nintendo Switch, and I like my gaming PCs, and I just like techie stuff. So she got me an e-reader. She got me a Kindle.
Now, I've got a gadget I can bring to bed.
ASHLEY HAMER: Ooh.
CODY GOUGH: Right. But at the same time, I'm also reading a book. So it's kind of like cheating. So if you at home are sleeping with someone who is tech obsessed like me, then get them an e-reader and it'll even let you read in the dark depending on the model like if it's got a backlight.
ASHLEY HAMER: Just don't use a tablet. Anything that emits blue light will actually disturb your sleep.
CODY GOUGH: Right. Well, there's a couple of suggestions. Do you have an e-reader?
ASHLEY HAMER: I don't. I've been wanting to read more books, and I use my phone too much. It seems like a simple fix. I'll do it. I'm saying it right now on the podcast. I'm going to leave my phone out of my room when I sleep for the next week.
CODY GOUGH: I will check back in a week or two.
ASHLEY HAMER: All right.
CODY GOUGH: Today's episode is sponsored by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
ASHLEY HAMER: Everyone knows about the risks of driving drunk. You could get in a crash. People could get hurt or killed. But let's take a moment to look at some surprising statistics.
CODY GOUGH: Almost 29 people in the United States die every day in alcohol impaired vehicle crashes. That's one person every 50 minutes.
ASHLEY HAMER: Even though drunk driving fatalities have fallen by a third in the last three decades, drunk driving crashes still claim more than 10,000 lives each year.
CODY GOUGH: Drunk driving can have a big impact on your wallet too. You could get arrested and incur huge legal expenses, for example. You could possibly even lose your job.
ASHLEY HAMER: So what can you do to prevent drunk driving? Plan a safe ride home before you start drinking, designate a sober driver or call a taxi. If someone you know has been drinking, take their keys and arrange for them to get a sober ride home.
CODY GOUGH: We all know the consequences of driving drunk. But one thing is for sure, you're wrong if you think it's no big deal.
ASHLEY HAMER: Drive sober or get pulled over. Astronomers have just discovered a new planet beyond Pluto.
CODY GOUGH: We're really not burying the lead here, are we?
ASHLEY HAMER: Nope. This discovery hasn't been published in a peer reviewed journal yet. But The Astronomical Journal is considering the paper submission that talks about this discovery. And we found this planet by accident when we were looking for a different planet. So let's back up. In 2016, astronomers got the idea that there might be a planet about as big as Neptune somewhere far away in our solar system. They call this world Planet 9. And astronomers all over have been looking for it.
Nobody's found it yet. But it's probably worth remembering that space is kind of big. So it might take years and years of searching before we confirm that Planet 9 exists. And in the meantime, we found another tiny world out there. It's officially called 2015 TG387. But astronomers took the TG part and ran with it. So they gave it the nickname the Goblin. The Goblin is a dwarf planet that orbits the sun 80 times further away than Earth.
One trip around the sun on the Goblin would take about 40,000 years. That's one long year. I mean, the last time the Goblin was where it is now in its path around the sun we hadn't even invented civilization, let alone, telescopes or spacecraft. But check this out. Even though we didn't find Planet 9, the Goblin might tell us a lot about our solar system. Astronomers ransom simulations of the Goblin, while assuming a planet the size of Neptune or a super Earth was also out there.
Long story short, it looks like if Planet 9 did exist, then it actually shepherded the Goblin along its orbit. In fact, Planet 9's gravitational influence might keep a bunch of distant worlds far away from it, which would avoid the chance of a nasty collision. And here's another cool thing. There are other dwarf planets in the zone where we found the Goblin. These little worlds all travel in their own zone far away from the main mass of our solar system where you find the eight planets closest to the sun that you know and love.
Taken together, the orbits of these dwarf worlds could be a powerful argument that Planet 9 is a real thing. Now, again, the planets discovery is still waiting for peer review. But it could have big implications. And it's a good reminder that space is pretty big. So don't ever feel like looking up at the sky is a waste of time. Unless you're staring at the sun, don't do that.
CODY GOUGH: Read about today's stories and more on curiosity.com.
ASHLEY HAMER: Join us again Sunday as we recap a few more of your favorite stories as part of our countdown to the new year on the award-winning Curiosity Daily. I'm Ashley Hamer.
CODY GOUGH: And I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: Stay curious.
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