[0:00] Well, hello Dr. Gamble. Hello Dr. Baxter. Dr. Ronald Gamble is a theoretical astrophysicist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Space Flight Center. And we are here on the Science of Life podcast because we're waiting for Dr. Tierra Moore. As we wait for her, I thought it would be a great opportunity to learn about astrophysics from not a rocket scientist. I'm not a rocket scientist. But from a theoretical astrophysicist. So first of all, like tell us what is a theoretical astrophysicist? Yeah. So a lot of people don't understand what we mean by theoretical. Like we, they assume, oh, you study the planets and... Well, what is astrophysics? Astrophysics is the study of the natural phenomena of celestial bodies. So it's anywhere from studying, you know, ice on Uranus or something to black holes, to dark matter, to cosmology, to, you know, whatever Hubble's looking at right now. That's interesting. So like, what does ice on Uranus
[1:34] have to do with physics have to do with physics? It's chemistry. So it's really like chemical physics. So if you think of, yeah, we're going, we're about to go deep into the weeds. So if you think of like, you know, ice here in your refrigerator, right, you need physics to describe the phase changes of ice from solid liquid to gas. Okay, cool. We see that weather. Thank you, God. But on other planets, it's, it behaves differently because you have different, you have different kind of like a recipe of parameters, like pressure, temperature, gravity plays a big difference, the rotation rate of the planet. But the laws of physics, they don't change. The laws of physics are universal everywhere. Except for black holes. They are the same for black holes. Now there are holes in our theories and theories that we haven't discovered yet. So the statement that says the laws of physics are the same. Maybe it still holds. We just have an incomplete theory. Hence the theorists.
[2:44] Okay. So then now we expand out to theoretical astrophysicists. Yeah. You study black holes, black holes. But the theoretical physics of black holes. Yeah. So it's so you can think of some people study black holes, and they're not theorists. So every person that looks at black holes or observes them, they're not theorists. They're not crafting the mathematics. They're not coming up with new physics to describe what we see around black holes. And some things that we don't see around black holes that we expect to see. That's my area. What are they studying though? They're studying like things like accretion disk. So this is like the matter that's rotating very fast around the black hole, orbiting around the black hole. And that's stuff that you can directly measure. Those are the things that you can see. Okay. That's what you see around a black hole. That's how we find them. Okay.
[3:41] I study the things. One of the things that I study, we do see, but it's not the disk. It's called a jet. So a jet, a relativistic jet is something that comes off the top of a black hole or the bottom. They can be bipolar. So meaning they're coming off of both poles, but they look like black hole lighthouses. Ooh. And sometimes the jets will wobble and we can see the flare. Can we see those from her? Uh-oh. Yeah. The jets that are pointing directly at us are called blazars. Okay.
[4:18] So you can think of them as like black hole lasers at that point. Damn. But we're fine because the light's coming from millions and millions of light years away. So, and on top of that, we don't have a blazar close enough to us to do any damage. So nobody panic. Are any of those blinking stars or blinking lights that we see in the night sky blazars? Some of them. Yeah.
[4:43] They could be a blazar. We have to check. Ooh. Some of the, some of these, the things in the night sky that you think are stars or galaxies. Oh, blinking? Blinking. Because of the black hole? No. There's extra matter around in the galaxy just going crazy, growing haywire. Really? Some of them have jets. So it's kind of like SpongeBob's house. It's like SpongeBob's house when he has a party. Yeah.
[5:13] So like if we pulled up on a galaxy in the distance, we would hear SpongeBob's house party music. We would see SpongeBob's house. You wouldn't be able to hear it because there's no gas. That's not fun. There's no gas. It's empty space. There's gas. Yeah, but it's not. There's dust. What does it have? It can't vibrate off of anything. The dust. No. Sound doesn't work that way. We tried. They literally put a microphone in space and try to hit record. And what did you get? You got some static. Okay. Let's talk about your theories. Cool. What are your theories about black holes?
[6:03] Okay. No, because we got to set the record straight. And I've been saying this for the last year, plus 10 years. He stays by it. I stand 10 tones dead. He dies on the hill. I will die on this hill until there's no more black holes. Black holes are not funnels. They're spheres. They are spherical. So you can't fall down into a black hole. You fall towards the black hole. It's not like a hole. It's not a hole. Like on Looney Tunes, they'll be cutting the holes into the surface. Yeah. I know. Sylvester's not cutting a hole. No. It's a sphere.
[6:46] And I keep going back to Interstellar owes me money because I keep giving them promo. You should have consulted on that. I should have consulted on it. Kip Thorne didn't call me. If you're watching this right now, you have a black hole scientist here who is available to consult on your next sci-fi thriller or fictional or non-fictional. Or non-fiction. Dr. Ronald Gamble, astrophysicist, theoretical. Theoretical, astrophysicist, theoretically, drgamble.com. Yeah, I know that's right. Tell them where else they can find you. Twitter, Instagram. I am at drdr underscore gamble G-A-M-B-L-E 21 on all socials. He's also an oil painter. But let's talk about your theories. Let's talk about the theories.
[7:35] First, well, no. Before we get into the theories, let's talk about top misconceptions about black holes. You already talked about one. That is that they're holes. Why do we call them holes if they're not actually holes? It was an old term that, if I'm not mistaken, John Archibald Wheeler coined the term black hole. He's like a theoretical physics. They're not holes. They're spheres. They're just very dark. And we don't know what's inside of them. And gravity does some weird funky things when it pulls in everything and it bends space time. So they're not holes. They're not funnels. They're spheres with a ton of gravity. It's just a dark part of space we can't get to.
[8:17] What do you want people to know before we have our other guests come on the show? The earth is not flat. Damn, Cardi B just came out. She was like, how am I ass so round? They think the earth flat. Oh, my God, please. How? How could it be flat? Just don't come up to me in the grocery store and ask me if the earth is flat. If the ass is fat, how is the earth flat? How can the earth be flat? I don't know. If the ass is flat, how could the earth be flat? The Gaussian curvature doesn't make it. There's a bar there.
[8:43] There's something there. Ass fat. Earth not flat. Ay. Ass fat. Earth not flat. Ay. Ass fat. Ay. Ay. Ay. Ay. Ay. Ay. All right. Yeah, compose yourself, Dr. Baxter. There we go. Anyway, if you have any questions for Dr. Ronald Gamble, theoretical astrophysicist, please let us know in the comments. He will be a guest coming on the show soon. And yeah, we're excited to have him. And what else? Sign up for my NASA program, Cosmic Pathfinders. It's a program I created for NASA. It's student-led, first of its kind. We're going to have university chapters, hackathons, conference tag-ups, networking events, research symposiums. We're having a student talk series, professional development, how do I go on?
[9:47] It's international. We have over 500 students already. It launched in December. I work fast. And it's fun. Like, come. Like, you can get internship experience without the internship application. We accept everybody. And there's no application. There's no deadlines. Everybody with an asterisk. Come in, everybody. Oh, no asterisk. Everybody in STEM. If you're a STEM major, come through. Okay, no asterisk. That's it. Come through. Come through. Ass fat. Earth, not flat. Mmm. Ass fat. What? Earth, not flat. What? You trying to get twerked on? Don't do it. Tape coming soon. You trying to make some gravitational waves? You trying to... What? Don't talk about these dark matters.
[10:40] You trying to do a black hole merger? Don't make me launch this jet.
[10:50] It sounds like the thing from The Ring. It's a weird movie. Nope. Nope. Not that kind of movie. It's like... What's that other... That movie with the girl with the hair who's trying to get everybody. Y'all don't listen. Kids Today, y'all don't have the good scary movies. Monday.
[11:20] Tuesday, we be making love by Wednesday, and on Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Some Sunday. And we chilling on Sunday. There we go. Seven days, Craig David. The only Canadian R&B artist I know. Drake. He's not R&B. Tory Lanez. Tory Lanez? He is from Canada. He's Canadian. Wow.
[11:49] Man, I put him in... Celine Dion. Is she R&B, though? What is she? She's pop. She's world music. She's the genre bender, like Michael Jackson. You rock my world. You rock my world. Do you know he did? When you talk to me. We still don't know who Billie Jean... I know who that is. Uh-uh. We still don't know who the father is. I know who Billie Jean is. We know Billie Jean. We don't know who the father is. We ain't never figured that one out. But we know it ain't Michael. You know, I found out Michael had a pet fucking chimpanzee. We knew that. I didn't know that.
[12:28] Wow. And so I saw an update. He brought him everywhere. You could have... When? Like, this was early 2000s, 90s. Sir. Okay. I mean, you could have... You, sure. Never seen it. I got an update on my feed, and it was talking about Bubbles, Michael Jackson's... Yes, Bubbles. ...chimp turns 40 this year, and he's at the home for Great Apes in Florida. And I was like, wait a second. This is too much information. Yo, shout out to Bubbles retiring in Florida. That's great. He is at the home for the Great Apes in Florida. He got to go somewhere. And he got, like, a gray goatee.
[13:08] I was like, y'all... He's seeing some stuff. He'd probably be eating good in the neighborhood. I want to see what the chimpanzee retirement center is. It probably got hella bananas. And if it don't, they doing something wrong. You think they doing something like Donkey Kong in there? I would. If I was a chimpanzee... He would be Cranky Kong. Why would it be Cranky Kong? Because he's old. Because he's 40. How long do chimpanzees live? Clearly... I'm not a zoologist. You know what? We got the intranet. Pull up, man. Pull up the interwebs. Beyonce and Al Gore's internet. Pull up Beyonce and Al Gore's internet. It's crazy.
[13:47] How long do chimpanzees... Watch it be, like, 65. Oh, shit. 32 years. Oh, shit. Bubbles, they feeding you some vitamins. Bubbles is feeding you some vitamins. The Bubbles is giving him the good shit. Hold on. No, no, no. Let me go to chimpanzee... No, I'm getting conflicting information. You looked up, Gorilla. No. I... Listen. I did not do the scientific search that I needed to do. I did a quick Google search. I know better than that. Damn. Chimpanzees. This is 50 to 60 years in captivity. I actually wanted to talk to a primate scientist, specifically someone who studies sex in primates.
[14:36] Because I had... Y'all will see this episode come soon, but I talked to a sexual conflict scientist. That's crazy. How is it crazy? I mean, like... That's like, you know, I don't know. That's like somebody in the life sciences, whenever I talk to them and I say what I do, and I'm like, whoa, I didn't know somebody could do that. It's the opposite for me. Just checking. Yeah. So, sexual conflict scientist, she studied sexual conflict, she studied it in insects, in arachnids. I'm sorry. No. No, no, no. Run that back. Sexual conflict science in insects. Oh, yeah. They are... They're horny. Explain that. Well, if you're a sexual...
[15:27] Okay, so we're talking about... The scientist is horny, or the bugs are horny? Whoa. Maybe both. But, the bugs. Again, I'm not an entomologist. Yeah. But, the bugs have conflicting sex. Is this a question? It's a question. Yeah. Oh, wow. There is sexual conflict in many species. Most species have sexual conflict. And, I learned a lot. Like, it really blew my mind. And, I learned that there is a species of insect. They don't have, like, the females of the species don't have, like, the reproductive opening. That species has evolved so that the males physically penetrate the body of the female to inject their genetic material.
[16:28] Like, they're just... Like, they're just... And, like, the female species have evolved to, like, if they don't find the male suitor attractive or somebody that they want to reproduce with, they have evolved to, like, turn their bodies so that there is a crevice in their body that leads to nowhere. And, they will, like, they will show that part to that male so that it just goes nowhere. And, then, for the males that they do want to mate with, they will, like, be like, actually, put it here. Bro. And, then, that's how they kind of have taken back their power, I guess, when it comes to sexual conflict.
[17:15] I also... No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I have thoughts. The intrusive thoughts are winning. And, they can't. They cannot come out. This is recorded conversation. I... This is why they are not winning right now. I'm just going to throw away the key. Because... Okay. And, so, I also learned that dolphins masturbate. Yo, dolphins are some sick mother... Suckers. And, I don't want to get locked up in prison for trying to figure out how. That's why I need to talk to... A dolphin-ologist. A dolphin-ologist. Young Dolph? It was gonna... It was right there. Wait. It was right there. Young Dolph? Is Young Dolph alive?
[18:12] No. I don't think... Oh, fuck. First in peace, Young Dolph. Anyways, back to these dolphins that are clearly running amok. In the ocean. How do you... Okay. As a guy. Just humor me here. You're in the ocean. There's water everywhere. Clearly. If you've ever spilt something like food coloring in water. It just disperses everywhere. Yeah. Right? Or if you've ever, like, squeezed lotion into a tub of water. It just... Right? So, dolphins masturbating. What? Where does it go? It's just floating?
[19:02] We love long walks on the beach when the nice foamy sea... The sea foam washes upon our feet and we then feel the salt water.
[19:19] And the relaxing sounds of the... Do not tell your kids why the sea foam is actually salty. Oh, wait. Is Tiara here? Or... Tiara's here. Oh, okay. Tiara. We have a marine scientist... We have a marine scientist coming. Let's ask her about the will come. Yeah. Ask her about it. Because I don't... I don't study these things. What's up? Hey, hey, hey, hey.