Learn about Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle; the weird history of Loveland Castle, a Medieval structure in Ohio; and why you’re not born with emotions — you learn (and can unlearn) them. Please support our sponsors: buy the super-fun party game ANOMIA on Amazon —https://amazon.com 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: Who Is Heisenberg, and What's His Uncertainty Principle All About? — https://curiosity.im/2StA3IR Loveland Castle Is a Medieval Structure Outside Cincinnati With a Very Weird History — https://curiosity.im/2SijH5B You Aren't Born with Emotions — You Learn Them — https://curiosity.im/2Sl9W70 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 Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle; the weird history of Loveland Castle, a Medieval structure in Ohio; and why you’re not born with emotions — you learn (and can unlearn) them.
Please support our sponsors: buy the super-fun party game ANOMIA on Amazon — https://amazon.com
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/you-can-learn-and-unlearn-emotions-heisenbergs-uncertainty-principle-and-loveland-castles-weird-history
[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 Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, the weird history of a castle in Ohio, and why you're not born with emotions. You learn them.
CODY GOUGH: Let's satisfy some curiosity on the award-winning Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY HAMER: Remember in the TV show Breaking Bad when one of the main characters starts going by the nickname Heisenberg? Did you ever wonder who the heck Heisenberg is? Well, this week, the original Heisenberg would be 117 years old. So we thought we'd do a little tribute by explaining his uncertainty principle.
CODY GOUGH: Breaking Bad was such a good show. Let's do this quantum physics thing.
ASHLEY HAMER: All right. Werner Karl Heisenberg was born on December 5, 1901. And he was a pretty smart scientist. He trained in three of the world's leading centers for theoretical physics with three of the world's leading theorists-- Arnold Sommerfeld, Max Born, and Niels Bohr.
Around the time Heisenberg was starting his career, quantum theory was just starting to pick up steam. But researchers were looking for a way to reconcile the differences between small-scale quantum physics and large-scale classical physics. Heisenberg was one of the first to realize that was impossible.
You can take a classical object, like a baseball, and always know its position and momentum. But when you try to do the same thing with a quantum object, uncertainties show up. So Heisenberg's uncertainty principle says that the more you know about a particle's position, the less you know about its momentum-- and vice versa. These uncertainties are just inherent to quantum mechanics.
The uncertainty principle comes down to wave-particle duality and the way that the act of observation affects it. Stay with me here. The way light behaves depends on how you observe it. It might behave as a continuous wave when you leave it alone. But if you use a detector to measure where it goes, it behaves as a particle.
In the same way, if you measure light's velocity, you're measuring it as a wave. So you can't know anything about its position. If you measure its position, then you're measuring it as a particle. So you can't know anything about its velocity. That's partly because this measurement, say, of a quantum object's velocity, knocks it around a little bit and makes any measurement of its position uncertain.
This principle explains some the weird phenomena central to quantum mechanics, including quantum tunneling and the concept of the quantum vacuum. Because Heisenberg's uncertainty principle can also be expressed in terms of energy and time, it's possible that very, very brief moments, as in periods of time that are well-known, can allow for so much uncertainty in the energy of a quantum system that particles can actually just show up and disappear again.
I know this is a lot of information, so feel free to read all the details in our full write-up on curiosity.com and on our free Curiosity app for Android and iOS. But long story short, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle says the position and the velocity of an object cannot both be measured exactly at the same time even in theory. And quantum physics just wouldn't be the same without it.
CODY GOUGH: With any physics?
ASHLEY HAMER: No. I mean, no.
CODY GOUGH: Cool. Let's go from quantum physics to castles. There's a castle called Chateau Laroche with a very weird history. Construction started in 1929, and it's located just outside of-- wait for it-- Cincinnati, Ohio.
ASHLEY HAMER: This is such a weird story. There are so many oddball people in history, and I love it.
CODY GOUGH: This is definitely one of them. You can thank Harry D. Andrews for this castle. He was born in 1890 and was drafted to serve in the military during World War I as a medic because of his moral objections. But it wasn't violence he objected to. It was the fact that violence wasn't being carried out with great swords and battle axes. I like this guy already.
After the war, it became clear that he had a lot of problems with the modern world altogether. And according to multiple accounts, he also avoided women after the war. He's a little less relatable now.
Anyway, Andrews was fascinated with the masculinity of medieval knighthood. And after he volunteered to lead a local Boy Scout troop in his hometown of Loveland, Ohio, he actually renamed that troop the Knights of the Golden Trail. Two of the parents of those Boy Scouts won a contest and donated part of their winnings to the troop in the form of land for a campsite. But Andrews didn't want to just pitch a few tents and a campfire. Instead, he vowed that he would build a castle on that land.
Like I said before, Andrews started the project in 1929. And he was still working on it some 52 years later. And that's because he had no help. Completely on his own, Andrews carried 2,600 sacks of cement, 32,000 quart-sized milk cartons for concrete bricks, 54,005 gallon buckets of dirt, and 56,000 pail fulls of stone. He was still working on it into his 90s. He passed away in 1981. And today you can visit the castle where the Knights of the Golden trail still stand guard over it.
ASHLEY HAMER: Today's episode is sponsored by Anomia, spelled A-N-O-M-I-A. You know when you can't remember a word but it's on the tip of your tongue? That's what anomia means.
CODY GOUGH: I play a lot of games, and I legit give this one my seal of approval. It's perfect for parties or a family game night, especially around the holidays.
ASHLEY HAMER: I don't play a lot of games. But I promise, I actually really like this one. Anomia is a quick and easy card game where you have to come up with words that fit into different categories-- like quick, name a royal title, a nocturnal animal, a 19th-century author.
CODY GOUGH: I love that it could be your turn any time, so it keeps you on your toes. You're not just sitting around waiting for it to be your turn. And if you like Curiosity, then you will love this game because it'll tap into all the random things you learn about every day.
ASHLEY HAMER: Don't be fooled though. It's harder to come up with stuff when you're put on the spot. So it's a fun mix for everyone.
CODY GOUGH: Quick, name a yoga pose, a painting, a Central American country.
ASHLEY HAMER: The more people playing, the more fast paced and hilarious it gets.
CODY GOUGH: And new for 2018 is a kids version called Anomia Kids for ages 5 and up, meaning even more fun for all ages.
ASHLEY HAMER: Look for Anomia and Anomia Kids, spelled A-N-O-M-I-A, at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and your local toy and game shop.
CODY GOUGH: We'll also put a link to buy Anomia in today's show notes.
ASHLEY HAMER: Recent research suggests you're not born with emotions. You learn them. And that's a huge deal because what you've learned, you can unlearn.
CODY GOUGH: This has some really huge implications, so I'm really glad we wrote about it.
ASHLEY HAMER: Seriously. So the idea that emotions are not hardwired was recently addressed by Lisa Feldman Barrett, a neuroscientist, psychologist, and author. In a recent interview with Five Books, she said, quote, "There are decades and decades of research showing that we aren't born with emotions that are built into our brains. Instead, our brains build emotions as we need them in a way that's very specific to the situation," unquote.
In one culture, a thumping heart might imply that you're terrified. But in another culture, it might imply that you're excited. And in another, it might mean some word that you can't even translate into English very easily.
Human bodies work roughly the same everywhere. But even if the way we react physically to our surroundings is preprogrammed, how we interpret those reactions can be really different from culture to culture. And the way we interpret those reactions is essentially what emotions are. Again, this is huge because if we realize that our emotions are basically built on how we interpret and label what's happening in our bodies, then we can control them better.
Take stress, for example. If you've got a racing pulse and sweaty palms and you can reinterpret those signs of stress as excitement, then Stanford Research shows that you can help buffer against the negative health consequences of stress. So remember, emotions aren't purely physical. They are interpretations of the physical. And learning new concepts and words for how you feel can, in a very real way, help you feel and respond differently. If you can use that power thoughtfully, then you can lead a happier, more successful life.
CODY GOUGH: Join us again tomorrow with the award-winning Curiosity Daily and learn something new in just a few minutes. I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Stay curious.
NARRATOR: On the Westwood One Podcast Network.
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