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04: Minisode with Dr. Ronald Gamble, Jr.
1.2k Plays6 months ago
Meet my partner, Dr. Ronald Gamble, Jr.! Ron is a theoretical astrophysicist at NASA, and one of my biggest supporters. While waiting for our previous guest, Dr. Tiara Moore, to arrive, Dr. Ron took the hot seat to tell us all about BLACK HOLES and his research. He'll be back on soon! If you have any questions for Dr. Gamble to share on his full episode, find me online and leave a comment with your question!
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Transcript
Introduction to Astrophysics with Dr. Ronald Gamble
00:00:16
Speaker
Well, hello, Dr. Gamble. Hello, Dr. Baxter. Dr. Ronald Gamble is a theoretical astrophysicist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
00:00:32
Speaker
Space Flight Center. And we are here on the Science of Life podcast because we're waiting for Dr. Tiara Moore. As we wait for her, I thought it'd be a great opportunity to learn about astrophysics from not a rocket scientist. I'm not a rocket scientist.
00:00:52
Speaker
but from a theoretical astrophysicist. So first of all, tell us what is a theoretical astrophysicist? Yeah, so a lot of people don't understand what we mean by theoretical. They assume, oh, you study the planets. But what is astrophysics? Astrophysics is the study of the natural phenomena of celestial bodies.
00:01:16
Speaker
So it's anywhere from studying ice on Uranus or something to black holes, to dark matter, to cosmology, to whatever Hubble's looking at right now. That's interesting. So what does ice on Uranus have to do with physics?
00:01:36
Speaker
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.
00:02:01
Speaker
But on other planets, 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.
00:02:27
Speaker
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, it still holds. We just have an incomplete theory. Hence the theorists. OK, so then now we expand out to theoretical astrophysicists.
Deep Dive into Black Holes
00:02:50
Speaker
Yeah. You study black holes, but the theoretical physics of black holes.
00:02:57
Speaker
Yeah. So you can think of some people study black holes and they're not theorists. So every person that looks at black holes or absorbs 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?
00:03:24
Speaker
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. 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.
00:03:52
Speaker
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. Can we see those from her? Yeah. The jets that are pointing directly at us are called blazars. Okay.
00:04:18
Speaker
So you can think of them as black hole lasers at that point. But we're fine because the light's coming from millions and millions of light years away. And on top of that, we don't have a blazer 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 blazers? Some of them, yeah. They could be a blazer. We have to check. Ooh.
00:04:47
Speaker
Some of the things in the night sky that you think are stars are galaxies.
Exploring Celestial Phenomena
00:04:53
Speaker
Oh. Blinking? Blinking. Because of the black hole? No. There's extra matter around in the galaxy just going crazy, going haywire. Really? So we're going to have jets. So it's kind of like SpongeBob's house. It's like SpongeBob's house when he has a party. Yeah.
00:05:13
Speaker
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 oxygen. What does it have? It can't vibrate off of anything. The dust. No.
00:05:41
Speaker
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
Debunking Black Hole Myths
00:05:59
Speaker
theories. Cool. What are your theories about black holes?
00:06:03
Speaker
Okay, so. No, because, no, because I'm gonna set, we gotta set the record straight. And I've been saying this for the last year plus. 10 years. He stands by it. I stand 10 tones. 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.
00:06:32
Speaker
You fall towards the black hole. It's not like a hole. It's not a hole. Like our Looney Tunes really be cutting the holes into the surface. Yeah. So that's just not cutting a hole. No, it's a sphere. So and I keep going back to Interstellar owes me money because I keep giving them promo.
00:06:51
Speaker
You should have consulted on that. I should have consulted on it. Kip Thorne didn't call me. But if you're watching this right now, you have a black hole scientist here who is available for consult on your next sci-fi thriller or fictional or non-fictional or non-fiction. Dr. Ronald Gamble, astrophysicist, theoretical, theoretical astrophysicist, theoretically, Dr. Campbell dot com. Yeah, I know that's right.
00:07:19
Speaker
Tell them where else they can find you. Twitter, Instagram, I am at drdr underscore gamble g-a-n-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. First, well, no, before we get into 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?
00:07:48
Speaker
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.
00:08:18
Speaker
What do you want people to know before we have our other guests come on
NASA's Cosmic Pathfinders Program
00:08:21
Speaker
the show? The earth is not flat. Damn, Cardi B just came out. She was like, how my ass so round? They think the earth flat. Oh my god, please. How? Like, how could it be flat? Just don't come up to me in the grocery store and ask me if the earth is flat.
00:08:34
Speaker
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 sense. There's a bar there. There's something there. Ass fat, earth not flat, ay. Ass fat, earth not flat, ay. Ass fat, earth not flat. Ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, ay. All right.
00:09:01
Speaker
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?
00:09:29
Speaker
Time 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? It's international. We have over 500 students already. It launched in December. I work fast. And it's fun. Come. You can get.
00:09:58
Speaker
internship experience without the internship application. We accept everybody. And there's no application. There's no deadlines. Everybody with an asterisk. Everybody. Oh, no asterisk. Everybody in STEM. If you're a STEM major, come through. Okay, no asterisk. Come through. Come through. As fat, earth not flat.
Chimpanzee Lifespan and Pop Culture
00:10:18
Speaker
As fat. What? Earth not flat. What? You trying to get twerked on? Don't do it.
00:10:28
Speaker
tape coming soon. He's trying to make some gravitational waves. You're trying to what? And don't talk about these dark matters. He's trying to do a black hole merger. Don't make me launch this jet.
00:10:57
Speaker
Sound 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 was trying to get everybody? Saturday, Saturday. Y'all don't, listen, kids today, y'all don't have the good scary movies. Monday, Tuesday, we be making love by Wednesday, and on Thursday and Friday and Saturday,
00:11:29
Speaker
And we chillin' all 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. A man. Celine Dion. Is she R&B though? What is she? She's pop.
00:11:58
Speaker
She's world music. She's the genre bender, like Michael Jackson. You rock my world. You rock my world. You know he did. And when you talk to me. We still don't know who Billie Jean. I know who that is. 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 ever figured that one out. We know it ain't Michael.
00:12:23
Speaker
You know, I thought Michael had a pet fucking chimpanzee. We knew that. I didn't know that. Wow. And so I thought he brought him everywhere. You could have when like this was early 2000s, 90s, sir. OK, I mean, you could have, you know, never seen it. I got an update on my feed and it was talking about bubbles. Michael Jackson's bubbles chimp.
00:12:50
Speaker
It 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. Shout out to Bubbles retiring in Florida. That's crazy. He's at the Home for the Great Apes in Florida. He got to go somewhere. And he got, like, a gray gold tea. I was like, y'all, he's seeing some stuff. Man, he'd probably be eating good in the neighborhood. I want to see what the chimpanzee retirement center is. It probably got hella bananas.
00:13:21
Speaker
And if it don't, they're doing something wrong. You think they're doing something like Donkey Kong in there? I would if I was a chimpanzee. You would be cranky Kong. Why would be cranky Kong? Because he's old. Because he's 40. How long do chimpanzees live?
00:13:35
Speaker
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 is crazy. Chimpanzees. Watch it be like 65. Oh, shit. 32 years. Oh, shit.
00:13:57
Speaker
Bubbles, they feeding you some vitamins. Bubbles is eating good dog. Bubbles is, they 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.
00:14:12
Speaker
No, listen, I did not do the scientific search that I needed to do. I did a quick Google search. I know better than that. Chimpanzees.
Sexual Conflict Science in Insects
00:14:21
Speaker
This is 50 to 60 years in captivity. I actually wanted to talk to a primate scientist, specifically someone who studies sex in primates.
00:14:36
Speaker
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.
00:14:52
Speaker
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 scientists, she studied sexual conflict. She studied it in insects and arachnids. I'm sorry. Nope. No, no, no. Run that back. Sexual conflict science in insects. Oh, yeah. They are. They're horny.
00:15:23
Speaker
Explain that. Well, if you're a sex... Okay, so are we 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.
00:15:50
Speaker
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 i learned that there is a species of insect they don't have like
00:16:10
Speaker
the females of the species don't have like a reproductive opening they that species has evolved so that the males physically penetrate the body of the female to inject their genetic material like they're just yes, literally that but the female species have evolved to
00:16:35
Speaker
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 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.
00:17:05
Speaker
And then that's how they kind of have taken back their power, I guess, when it comes to sexual conflict.
00:17:20
Speaker
I also- Nope, 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. This is why they are not winning right now.
Dolphin Behavior and Ocean Mysteries
00:17:39
Speaker
I'm just gonna throw away the key because- Okay, and so I also learned that dolphins masturbate.
00:17:49
Speaker
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 dolphinologist. A dofologist.
00:18:06
Speaker
Young Dolph? It was right there. It was right there. Is Young Dolph alive? No, I don't think so. Where's the piece, 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.
00:18:35
Speaker
If you've ever spilt something like food coloring in water, it just disperses everywhere. Yeah. Right? Or if you've ever like squeezed the lotion into a tub of water, it just right. So dolphins masturbating. What? Where does it go? It's just floating. We love long walks on a beach when
00:19:06
Speaker
the nice foamy sea, the sea foam washes upon our feet and we then feel the salt water and the relaxing sounds of the... Do not tell your kids why the sea foam is actually salty. Oh wait, is Tiara here? Tiara's here. Oh okay.
00:19:31
Speaker
Sierra, we have a marine scientist. We have a marine scientist coming. Let's ask her about the wheel come. Yeah. Ask her about it, because I don't study these things. What's up? Hey, hey, hey, hey.