The Unruh Effect
1,009,053
Published 2018-04-04
Worried about black holes? Consider this: Every time you accelerate - you generate an event horizon behind you. The more you accelerate away from it the closer it gets. Don’t worry, it can never catch up to you, but the Unruh radiation it generates sure can.
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The Andromeda-Milky Way Collision
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Around the same time that Stephen Hawking was demonstrating the existence of the black hole radiation that would bear his name, three other researchers, Stephen Fulling, Paul Davis, and William Unruh, were looking at an effect that now seems eerily similar. They were independently studying how the nature of quantum fields appears to change depending on whether or not an observer is accelerating. They found that simple act of acceleration cuts off your causal access to a region of the universe. It creates a type of event horizon. As we saw in our episode on horizon radiation, the presence of horizons distorts the quantum vacuum in a way that can create particles.
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Written by Graeme Gossel and Matt O'Dowd
Produced by Rusty Ward
Graphics by Grayson Blackmon
Assistant Editing and Sound Design by Mike Petrow and Linda Huang
Made by Kornhaber Brown (www.kornhaberbrown.com)
Classical analogue of the Unruh effect
Leonhardt, Griniasty, Wildeman, Fort, & Fink
arxiv.org/abs/1709.02200
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All Comments (21)
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No matter how many times I play this vid, the understanding never catches up
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The Rindler Horizon confirms that I really CAN run away from all my problems, as long as I keep running faster and faster!
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"Are you worried about black holes?" Finally a commercial that gets me!
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"The very existence of particles is observer-dependent." Me, arguing with my physics prof about why I got the question wrong.
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My new catch phrase is "I have to jet, but not too fast, lest I combust in a Fulling-Davies-Unruh bath"
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I read the title as "the unbruh effect" what has the internet done to me
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physics is a trip. Every time I watch one of these I'm reminded that our conception of reality is so incredibly comically limited. Shit is eye opening, humbling, scary, awesome; I'm sure theres plenty more words. Thanks for these videos, accessibility of this knowledge is invaluable.
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0:00 "(casually) Are you worried about black holes?" Best opening ever 😂
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"It's been worked out with math and everything"
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The Rindler would make an amazing Batman Villain. He'd never be able to catch up with him.
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I've been afraid to leave my chair for 2 years now.
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Slowly but surely, I am beginning to understand. Thank goodness for PBS Space time.
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It's interesting how you can use different explenations to different events, and find out that the end result is the same. To me, it adds credibility.
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first the delayed quantum eraser, now this. the universe is mocking us in various ways depending on how we look at it.
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As challenging as this is, this is why I love this channel... There are tones of channels that explain medium level concepts usually atleast a bit dumbed down if not down right misleading but I want to challenge my understanding and go further, and that will always involved feeling slightly confused. Great stuff keep it up!
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Today: Cop pulls you over for speeding Tomorrow: Cop pulls you over for accelerating too fast.
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PBS: "We need an infographic of a Rindler observer out of causal connection..." Graphics Designer: "uhhm... you can have a monkey, mmkay?"
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These videos help me balance my ego. Whenever I feel unrealistically smart, I come here and am put right back in my place. Average. I understand some of it, but some of it is just gibberish to me.
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"A space-time diagram has two axes, space and time." Thanks, I learned something new.
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The Unruh ("unrest" in German) effect is aptly named.
