Learn about why some physicists think time may be slowing down, and how it might eventually stop; new research that says you make a better first impression than you might think; and the true origin story of the Ouija board. 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: Some Physicists Think Time May Be Slowing Down — and Will Eventually Stop Don't Worry, You Made a Better First Impression Than You Think The True Origin Story of the Ouija Board Please tell us about yourself and help us improve the show by taking our listener survey! https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/curiosity-listener-survey 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! 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 why some physicists think time may be slowing down, and how it might eventually stop; new research that says you make a better first impression than you might think; and the true origin story of the Ouija board.
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:
Please tell us about yourself and help us improve the show by taking our listener survey! https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/curiosity-listener-survey
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!
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/time-may-be-slowing-down-you-leave-good-first-impressions-and-ouija-board-origins
[MUSIC PLAYING] CODY GOUGH: Hi. We've got three stories from curiosity.com 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 why some physicists think time may be slowing down and how it might eventually stop, new research that says you make a better first impression than you might think, and the true origin story of the Ouija board.
CODY GOUGH: Let's satisfy some spooky curiosity on the award-winning Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY HAMER: Most scientists would tell you the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. But according to a team of Spanish physicists, the expansion of the universe might not be the thing that's changing its rate. They say time itself might be slowing down, and that means it could eventually stop altogether.
CODY GOUGH: If these researchers are right, then they definitely deserve a slow clap.
ASHLEY HAMER: A slowing clap, just slower.
[SLOW CLAP]
Yes. I see what you did there, Cody. Here's one way to think about this idea. After an ambulance or a police car with a siren drives past you, the pitch starts to drop. That's because of what's called the Doppler effect, and it happens because the sound waves start to stretch out as the siren gets further away from you, meaning they reach you at a slower rate.
But what if the laws of physics changed after it drove past you? So instead of its speed causing that drop in frequency, it was the passage of time. If time were slowing down, that would also make the sound waves reach you at a lower frequency. That's the gist of this idea.
We know the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate because galaxies further away from us have a greater redshift than galaxies closer to us. Redshift is basically light's version of that siren Doppler effect. And the fact that galaxies further away have a greater redshift means they're moving faster, but if time were slowing down, the light would just reach us at a lower frequency.
We'd see the redshift, but it would be for a different reason. This theory might seem pretty out there, but it fixes some nagging problems. In order for the universe's expansion to be accelerating, you need to come up with something to cause it.
That's where so-called dark energy comes in. It's a mysterious force that's supposed to make up 68% of the universe, but we've never actually observed it. If time is slowing down instead, then you don't need dark energy at all. That fixes the mystery of dark energy since it would have never existed in the first place.
But this theory gets even weirder. You can read all the science behind this idea in our full write-up on curiosity.com and on the Curiosity app for Android and iOS. But long story short, the researchers think our time dimension could turn into a space dimension.
Right now, we live in three spatial dimensions and one-time dimension. But if this idea plays out, then our universe would be frozen in time and exist in four-dimensional space. Fortunately, if these researchers are right, we've got billions of years before that happens.
CODY GOUGH: And if this is happening in a slowing rate, we have even more billions of years.
ASHLEY HAMER: True. Longer, longer billions of years.
CODY GOUGH: Sweet. New research suggests you make a better first impression than you think. Maybe now you can stop being terrified about meeting your boyfriend or girlfriend's parents.
ASHLEY HAMER: Cody, I remember when I first met you.
CODY GOUGH: Do you really?
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. Well, first, I was like, who is this guy?
CODY GOUGH: Yeah.
ASHLEY HAMER: He's got weird hair. But I remember that you were super enthusiastic about everyone around you like they'd tell you something, and you would think it was the coolest thing in the world, and that made you like a really cool person.
CODY GOUGH: Wow.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, you made a good impression on me, I think.
CODY GOUGH: Sweet. I don't have any idea what kind of impression I left on anybody, which kind of bears out with this research. This study was just published in psychological science, and in it, researchers try to figure out how well people could judge their own first impressions.
Basically, they compared how good of a first impression person A thought they made with the actual first impression person B had after the interaction. The researchers found that when two strangers met, they both thought that they liked the other person more than the other person liked them, which of course, isn't possible.
They also consistently underestimated how much the other person liked them, and this was the case in lots of different settings, from people in a controlled lab setting to participants in a personal development workshop to first-year college students who were getting another dormmates.
One of the study's authors calls this difference the Liking Gap, and it was equally true in men and women. We have a few psychological quirks that make us see ourselves differently than others. We even talked about asymmetric insight on an episode of this show earlier this week, but usually, those quirks make us think we're better or more insightful than other people.
Meeting new people is a rare case where you typically see yourself as worse. One of the study's co-authors explains this with a theory that we are self-protectively pessimistic about social interaction.
We avoid disappointment when we assume a new relationship is going badly, even when it means ignoring signs that the relationship is actually going pretty well. This protects us in some ways, but it can also keep us from forming new relationships.
The best thing you can do with this newfound knowledge is to try to relax and be a bit more comfortable taking risks. You're more charming than you think. And, hey, you've got great taste in podcasts too.
ASHLEY HAMER: Before we get to our last story, I want to give a special shout-out to some of our patrons for supporting our show. Thank you, Brianna Webster, Julian Gomez, and David [INAUDIBLE] for contributing to our Patreon page. You're what's helping us keep the show going.
If you're listening and you want to support Curiosity Daily, then visit patreon.com/curiosity.com. All spelled out.
CODY GOUGH: Even a couple of bucks a month would be a huge help. That's less than a soft drink when you're eating out. Have a glass of water instead, and you'll be healthier and make us happier.
Plus, our Patreons get lots of cool bonus content like exclusive episodes. One more time, that's patreon.com/curiosity.com. All spelled out.
ASHLEY HAMER: It's Halloween season, and that means you might be dusting off your Ouija board for some spooky fun. And that means that here at Curiosity, we're going to dust off our history books and get into the interesting origin story of your favorite spooky party game.
CODY GOUGH: Do you have Ouija board?
ASHLEY HAMER: I don't have Ouija board. I feel like that's not on-brand for me, but I have used one.
CODY GOUGH: That is not on-brand for you. I remember my sister had one, and I took a permanent marker-- I actually feel bad about this-- and I wrote the letter L in front of the name, so it said Luigi, and I thought that was funny. My parents did not think that was funny, and I got in trouble. Kids, don't do that at home.
ASHLEY HAMER: I think that's funny. Well, you can trace the Luigi-- oh, I'm sorry, Ouija board back to the spiritualist movement in the United States. Spiritualism was started around 1848 when two sisters named Margaret and Kate Fox claimed they contacted the spirit of a deceased merchant.
And this happened during a time when people were desperate for a way to connect with their late relatives, not to mention their own divine powers. The movement got a lot of traction from the 1860s on, including lectures on spiritualism, you could find advertised in-- where else-- The Spiritual Telegraph newspaper.
At some point, mediums started talking to spirits using a method called table-tipping or table-turning. They'd sit at a table that would move and tip as they spoke to ghosts and spirits. The movement would bump tiles with letters off the table, apparently letting a message get through.
Just don't look under the table and see what they're doing. No, there's nothing interesting down there.
Later, mediums evolved that technique to proper talking boards, which might have a pencil or alphabet-based planchette. The planchette is that heart-shaped piece of wood with a pointer that you-- oh, I mean the ghosts drag around the board.
The pencil-based version of the planchette sat on two wheels and a pencil, so it could roll around on the two wheels while the spirit would write with the pencil.
CODY GOUGH: There's a lot of air quotes flying around in here.
ASHLEY HAMER: Oh, what, me? And then, of course, the medium would interpret the message from the scribbling, which sometimes would be on a specially-prepared sheet of paper with messages or omens already written on it.
The planchette on an alphabet-based board was more like the modern Ouija board, where the planchette points at various letters on the board until it eventually spells out a message.
And the only difference between those older boards and what we think of as today's Ouija board is a patent. A couple of names are tied to the Ouija board patent, which was issued and first advertised in 1891.
As for the name of the board, the word Ouija doesn't actually mean anything, and it might come from a mistake when copying the name of an English novelist with a similar spelling.
Just remember, the Ouija board does not have ancient origins. And as far as science can tell, it doesn't actually let you talk to spirits.
CODY GOUGH: Although there's no proof it doesn't.
ASHLEY HAMER: That's true.
CODY GOUGH: And one more thing. As for the name, it may officially be pronounced Ouija, but I've always heard "wee-gee."
ASHLEY HAMER: Same.
CODY GOUGH: Read about today's stories and more on curiosity.com.
ASHLEY HAMER: Join us again tomorrow for the award-winning Curiosity Daily and learn something new in just a few minutes. I'm Ashley Hamer.
CODY GOUGH: And I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: Stay curious.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
SPEAKER: On the Westwood One Podcast Network.