Listener Mail: Intergalactic Planetary

we talked about. But whatever it is, send it on it. Okay, I'm going to kick things off with a response to our couple of episodes about pouring oil over the water. This was a series on the idea that oil poured over the top of the sea would calm the waves and how that sounds rather unbelievable but there actually is some truth to it to a limited extent. But yeah, interesting phenomenon. And this is also the one where we got into the stories of Benjamin Franklin walking around with

a hollow cane and pouring oil in people's ponds. Matt says, Hey, guys, I was just listening to your first Oil and Troubled Waters episode, and I thought I would share some of the things that came to mind while listening. During the episode, it seemed to be implied that given time, oil would simply spread to cover the entire surface of water that

it was poured into. But this isn't the case. As may come as no surprise, oil and water don't like to interact with each other so much so that they will actively position themselves in such a way to minimize the area where the oil contacts the water, so far as gravity, buoyancy, surface tension, etc. Will allow. As an example, if you put a small drop of oil into water, the oil will turn into a small bead as close

to a sphere the aforementioned factors will allow. This is specifically because a sphere provides the smallest possible surface area for a given volume, thus minimizing the interface between the oil and the water. Now, something I think is pretty cool that happens at the point of interface is the water actually forms what amounts to a one atom thick

layer of ice. This is because the water molecules really want to form hydrogen bonds, but this isn't possible with the oils, and in overly simplified terms, it has to double down on the bonds with the other water molecules around it, forming into a structure like you would normally find in ice. Ah, that's interesting that I had no idea,

Matt says. I studied molecular biology, and these thoughts also reminded me of how the same kind of effect of oil plumping together to minimize contact with water also affects how proteins fold and become relatively stable in their intended structure.

You see, proteins are made up of segments that are either hydrophilic meaning they like water, or hydrophobic, meaning they don't like water, and the same physics that causes the oil to clump also causes the hydrophobic segments to bury themselves in the protein structure, away from the water surrounding

it and leaving the hydrophilic segments on the outside. It sometimes takes some trial and error to help to get there, but proteins use this to form and maintain their most stable structure and the one that allows them to function. Thanks for providing such breadth and depth in so many topics to keep us entertained and educated. Matt, Well, thank you for the insight, Matt. And that was really interesting about the one molecule thick layer of ice at the interfew.

I'd never read or heard anything about that, but yeah, I guess it would be good to clarify what is happening with the oil in the water. And it is interesting that we get these seemingly opposite reactions because you can observe it like if you dump a drop of oil into water and it sinks. If it sinks, it will form this spherical ball that will float within the water, eventually rising to the surface, and the oil will be trying to cling to itself and repel contact with the water,

which is why it forms a sphere like that. It doesn't, you know, it doesn't want to mix with the water. But conversely, like we talked about in these two episodes, some oils, when they float on top of the water end up spreading out to form a film that is one molecule thick. Why exactly does that happen? What's going on at the molecular level. Well, I was just digging through some chemistry textbooks to try to find the answer to this, make sure I understood before commenting, and I

think I've got it figured out. So, first of all, not all oils will spread out over the water's surface like this. For example, paraffin oils like kerosene will not spread out evenly on top of the water, while most vegetable oils, the commonly used example in the experiments we've talked about was pure olive oil, they do spread out to form the monolayer. So what makes the difference? Well, I found part of an answer in a book called

Physical Chemistry, Experimental and Theoretical by Gordon Van Prague. This is Cambridge University Press, nineteen fifty and Van Prague clarifies that quote substances whose molecules contain water soluble groups such as cooh ANDCH two oh, et cetera. And then a parenthetical long chain acids and alcohols will spread into surface films on water. So according to this source, it is large oil molecules that have some kind of water attracted

arm somewhere on them, somewhere on the molecule. So if you picture a molecule sort of like a tree, one branch of that molecule tree is water soluble, and this type of arm on the molecule structure that has its own reactive tendencies is called a group or functional group in chemistry. So in oils with this particular structure, what

happens Well? I found more elaboration that helped clarify it in another book, this time a physics book by Eric M. Rogers called Physics for the Inquiring Mind The Methods, Nature and Philosophy of Physical Science. This is Princeton University Press,

twenty eleven. So Rogers is in the middle of talking about the experiments of Lord Rayleigh, which we brought up in those episodes, and speaking of Lord Rayleigh, he says he pictured a spreading drop of oil as a huddle of molecules tumbling and crawling over each other till each reached the water surface and could hitch one end to water. For these oils have long chain molecules with a water

liking chemical group at one end. Once all the oil molecules are thus attached, they should keep together in a monomolecular carpet, showing little tendency to spread more. With just enough oil for a given water surface, the layer would be one molecule thick, with the molecules packed close and upright, like the pile of velvet. With less oil, patches of open water should be revealed. With more oil, there should be excess puddles on the water, as on a greasy soup.

So I think that clarifies the answer. First of all, whether or not the oil spreads out to become one molecule thick on the surface of water depends on the type of oil. It is oil molecules with a water

soluble group somewhere on them that do this. And it happens because they all line up so that the water attracted arm of the molecule is pointed down at the water and the unattracted mass of the molecule is pointing up away from the water, and they arrange themselves in a single massive sheet layer, all oriented in the same way like this.

aliens haven't visited us. That's because I think most people hugely underestimate the level of technology required to take an interstellar trip. Not to say that interstellar travel is impossible, just that it is very, very hard. As humans were used to failing at spaceflight, We've seen so many rocket crashes, satellite deorbits, and media about crashing your spaceship on an alien moon. The thing is, we as humans are just really bad at spaceflight at this point in our history.

We take this bias into how we imagine aliens might interact with spaceflight, as if it might be common that they would crash or be seen without wanting to be seen. The level of technology required to literally compress space in front of your spaceship so that you can get from star to star in anything less than an eon is absolutely massive. I've seen estimates that it would require something on the order of all the energy contained in Jupiter's mass to be able to achieve such a thing, even

for a short time. Aliens with that kind of technology will have mastered the physical world. They won't be crashing in roswell leaving alien corpses. They won't be placing visible beacons on our seafloor. They won't be Whoopsie, we turned on our headlights too bright and a fighter jet solace. Those are human like errors that we expect but aren't realistic. We will either see them because they want us to see,

or we won't see them. That paired to the fact that many, many scientists dedicate their entire lives to detecting alien life with the most sophisticated technology we have and haven't come up with anything yet, it makes any testimony these supposed alien experts give to Congress ridiculous and unbelievable in my opinion, even without knowing anything more than how the universe works on a physical level. Give have the great work. Mark ps. Here's a photo of my friend

on our recent road trip through Roswell. We went to Carlsbad, New Mexico to visit the caverns there and they were absolutely life changingly interesting. Some intriguing history on cave exploring comes from there, too, might be worth looking into as an episode topic.

I'm kind of two minds about this. On one hand, the points you make are things that I'm sympathetic to, and I used to be much more firmly in the camp of you know, travel between stars is so difficult that should massively wait our our starting I don't know what you call it, the starting probability of us entertaining ideas of alien visitation should wait that very low because that's so difficult. Now I've kind of come around that I don't think it's any more likely that we actually

have been visited by aliens. But I just don't place as much emphasis on that kind of reasoning about the difficulty of traveling between stars, because that's sort of another one of those questions like the you know, I can't understand how they could have done the work inside the pyramids without leaving lamp black, so they must have had electric lights. It's to be fair to you. It's not quite that bad, but it is. It is sort of in that zone of I can't see how someone could

have done this. Therefore it's very unlikely, you know, I would allow that there's just lots of things we don't understand. But on the other hand, I do see a kind of I do see your point about the incongruity of like the level of competence required to travel between stars, have an interstellar civilization and visit the Earth, but then also just be crashing all the time and showing up on you know, appearing in the side view of a jet fighter pilot's vision. That does seem kind of incongruous.

all of this, I mean it. It certainly adds to the contemplation, like when I sort of do any kind of like navel gazing and stargazing and thinking about human and some other possible intelligent life out there with the technology to move around and visit us, you know, I mean you end up thinking about, like, well, what does it mean for a civilization to have that kind of technology, to have that kind of travel, that kind of reach, to perhaps have to deal with very long periods of time,

to have to deal with perhaps a movement towards the inorganic. I mean, there are just so many there, you know, there's so many ideas about what such a civilization might be like, and it's all built along around, you know, guesses and best guesses based on what we think life could be elsewhere in the universe. So I mean it's I love thinking about it, but it's it's really hard to come to any kind of, you know, firm conclusion.

it's that fruitful. But then to come back on the other hand, like I have similar thoughts, Mark, I mean, like one is how come how come like we're seeing saucers all the time but there is like absolutely no radio frequency communication at all. That seems like a really strange kind of mismatch there, Like wouldn't we be more likely to pick up radio frequency communications or some kind of signal of some kind and not be seeing spaceships?

physics based world. So I don't know, you can just run around in circles with all of this.

they've never been here. But you can look at the supposed individual pieces of evidence and claims people make about it and say like, yeah, this is not convincing.

think of ourselves. If each planet that has life and is observable to some hypothetical alien is like a television channel, perhaps we are not like peak MTV, Perhaps we are c SPAN and you know, and that kind of lines up with the idea that you know, we shouldn't be thinking about there being anything privileged about the human viewpoint

of the cosmos or human identity. Maybe yeah, maybe we're just only marginally interesting maybe important at the end of the day, but you know, not the kind of thing you give a lot of attention to.

Chris says, Dear Robert and Joe, after listening to a recent episode on the Altana and antenna, the point you were making about you were making regarding low quality data being used to make extraordinary claims is well received and indeed a common problem in the larger community of UFO enthusiasts. In the episode, this concept is introduced by mentioning the recent UFO hearings by the Congressional Oversight Committee. This is

something that happened in the United States Congress. If you're not up to speed, basically, there was whistleblower testimony that included claims from one whistleblower that essentially amounted to this guy saying that other people in the government had told him that the government was in possession of crashed alien spacecraft and alien bodies and had been using that technology

to reverse engineer other types of technology. And I think we were just saying, like, you know, remain open minded, but at this point, it's just it's a guy saying other people told him something, So I would reserve judgment

until any actual solid evidence is presented. So, coming back to Chris's message, while it is an aside from the main concept you were discussing, this investigation is important for multiple reasons unrelated to extraterrestrial non human intelligence, and it's worrisome that aliens are a reason people are tuning out. The primary concern of the whistleblowers grush at all is that is that government spending is occurring on technological research

and development is occurring without congressional oversight. Contrary to mandates in the Constitution. It is against the law for whistleblowers to release their information and evidence to the public, which is the reason the hearing is taking place. It introduces the problem so that laws can be introduced to allow whistleblowers to bring forth their evidence and not be immediately

arrested for leaking classified information. Matters of pilot safety and the failure to declassify documents to the public as required

are also center stage. Bills have already been introduced by the Senate Majority Leader Chuck and may be worth a read for those interested, But I wanted to point out one particular section per the quote Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act of twenty twenty three, and then Chris includes a link this is something that would require the disclosure if such existed of recovered technologies of unknown origin and biological

evidence of non human intelligence. And then the I guess the first item or statute from it exercise of imminent domain. The Federal Government shall exercise imminent domain over any and all recovered technologies of unknown origin and biological evidence of non human intelligence that may be controlled by private persons

or entities in the interests of the public good. And then back to Chris's message here, regardless of aliens, we might look back in history and consider how certain laws regarding matters of national security are interpreted and enforced, even if UAPs are not real or aliens are not visiting US. If this law passes, it may have very important use

to the US government. With the correct broad interpretation, perhaps this law could be used to force companies doing business on US soil to turn over any AI developed by a foreign government or by another generative or self improving AI system which may be considered to be a non human intelligence. A non human intelligence may simply be quote any AI, chatbot, etc. Regardless of actual levels of intelligence

or ability. We might imagine further legislation in the near future that also allows the same imminent domain of non human intelligence, regardless of source. I think this phrase will be very important in future legislation and used to ensure that the US government can take over any AI system of sufficient capability or concern. Best regards Chris.

alien bodies, whatever. I feel like this is something where I hope like skeptics and UFO enthusiasts can be on the same page about because I mean, obviously, I think if the government had alien bodies and alien ships and all that they should be open about that, I would be in favor of transparency. Nobody with good faith wants

to cover up. At the same time, I think I would acknowledge that while we're probably on the same page about that, if they don't actually possess anything like that, which I think is probably what's most likely the case. Then all they could say is, well, we don't actually have anything like that, weren't able to find it, in which case the UFO enthusiasts can always just say, you know, aha, see the cover up continues. So I don't know that's tricky, but I certainly do favor transparency.

and I appreciate those thoughts. Though I would also think, like, if we're going to have a legislation like that, I would prefer it to be like really targeted at that, so that like there's no ambiguity in how the law should be interpreted, Like you know, we should have very clear, well thought out targeted regulations of the development of AI, not trying to like use a law of meant for something else to kind of like wiggle over into that space too. Be my men.

Riddick universe. I just wanted to ask how you mentioned the actor column Fior and some of his movies, but you didn't mention how he had a prominent role in the movie Titus, which you mentioned in a Weird House Cinema a couple of weeks ago. Sorry, I forget which episode. After you brought up Titus, I found it on an eBay and acquired it watched it three days ago. That would be a great movie to feature on Weird House.

of war, including the Tamara, the queen of the Goths, I think, and that's that's Jessica Lang's character. But after that, while it is a very great looking and visually striking kind of at least like textually weird movie, it is mostly I think, set within an ancient Roman millieu. It

doesn't have weird technology running all around. There is another Shakespeare adaptation that I do remember being anachronistic in a way that I liked, which is the Oh, what's it the Ian McKellen version of Richard the Third, where oh yes, he plays Richard the Third and it's got Jim Broadbent is Buckingham.

guy's doing Shakespeare at some point. But he's a small role, but he's great in it.