What The If?

We shrunk the universe down to the size of a football field. We also shrunk your dorm room. And it's Friday night. Things are about to get downright WTiF! Put on your lampshade and let's party!

Are you enjoying your life in this SIMULATION we call... Earth? Is it a simulation? How would we know? Last week we began to ponder the mystery... and this week we set out... using REAL SCIENCE... to HACK it! Join us as we try to figure out how to FIND THE SEAMS and contact our DIGITAL OVERLORDS. We'll try anyway!

Elon Musk asked something many of us have wondered (while in various states of sobriety)... "Do we live in a SIMULATION?" Well, we figured if we dooooooo live in a simulation, maybe it's a REALITY TV SHOW or, much more fun, maybe it's a VIDEO GAME? How, how, how, might SCIENCE try to answer this question? Insert your quarter, hit play, and READY IFFER ONE!

WTiF the Earth was STUCK with ONE side always facing the Sun? Is there a battle between the DARK SIDE and the LIGHT? Are you a NIGHT person or a MORNING person? Join us and find just the right spot for you as we explore the SCIENCE behind a tidally locked planet.

49 - OUMUAMAUA Has It's Eyes On YOU by Philip Shane, Matt Stanley, Gabrielle Paniccia

48 - The Girl Scouts Make A STARGATE by Philip Shane, Matt Stanley, Gabrielle Paniccia

47 - The Early Bird Gets The WORMHOLE by Philip Shane, Matt Stanley, Gabrielle Paniccia

46 - WTiF There's ANIMALS On MARS? Cute Ones! by Philip Shane, Matt Stanley, Gabrielle Paniccia

(Apologies if you heard this episode earlier, it was accidentally uploaded last week for a brief time. Still... it's a fun one! Enjoy.)

Professor Brian Keating is an astrophysicist with UC San Diego’s Department of Physics. He and his team develop telescopes to study the Big Bang. He is the author of over 100 scientific publications and holds two U.S.Patents. He received the 2007 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers at the White House from President Bush for a telescope he invented and deployed at the U.S. South Pole Research Station called “BICEP". Professor Keating became a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2016 and is the author of Losing the Nobel Prize: A Story of Cosmology, Ambition, and the Perils of Science's Highest Honor, selected as one of Amazon.com’s Ten Best Nonfiction Books of the Month and one of Nature Magazine’s Six Best Books of the Season. Website: BrianKeating.com Twitter: @DrBrianKeating

Professor Brian Keating is an astrophysicist with UC San Diego’s Department of Physics. He and his team develop telescopes to study the Big Bang. He is the author of over 100 scientific publications and holds two U.S.Patents. He received the 2007 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers at the White House from President Bush for a telescope he invented and deployed at the U.S. South Pole Research Station called “BICEP". Professor Keating became a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2016 and is the author of Losing the Nobel Prize: A Story of Cosmology, Ambition, and the Perils of Science's Highest Honor, selected as one of Amazon.com’s Ten Best Nonfiction Books of the Month and one of Nature Magazine’s Six Best Books of the Season. Website: BrianKeating.com Twitter: @DrBrianKeating

43 - The World According To Greek Weirdos by Philip Shane, Matt Stanley, Gabrielle Paniccia

42 - SuperMegaUltraHyperConnectedWORLD! by Philip Shane, Matt Stanley, Gabrielle Paniccia

41 - M.I.T., The Mysterious Inter-Terrestrial by Philip Shane, Matt Stanley, Gabrielle Paniccia

Professor Matt returns to the WTIF Studios to drop some knowledge on all the questions and imaginary scenarios we generated in our last episode when we... whoops!... turned off all the FRICTION in the universe. Snap on your seatbelts and put on your helmet because we're joining the greatest lover of friction ever: Evil Kenevil for a high flyin' episode of big, big IF's!

Did you ever try ice skating? Did you fall, or did you fly??? This week, Philip flips the friction switch! What if we could TURN OFF FRICTION all across the universe? A slip sliding world like we've never seen before! Slap on your slippers and strap on your safety helmet, here we go, go, goooooooooo...!!!!

Super fan and fellow IFFER Eric is desperate to de-clutter his apartment and, gosh darnit, no matter how much he piles things together, the dagnabbit things don't get smaller... THE UNIVERSE REFUSES TO BE DECLUTTERED! Or... Does it? MAGIC MATT, aka Professor Matt Stanley, Chief Wizard of the IFFERS has a solution! Maybe. Click and listen... And find out if The Power (!!!) of Quantum Mechanics can help Eric turn his apartment from pigpen to Zen!

Astrology is super complicated and totally crazy. But! What The IF... Astrology were REAL? Would there be "personality rays" shooting out of the planets? So many, many questions. Our crack Crazy Elaborate Systems Construction Department is working overtime to make this Astrology thing work in a genuinely SCIENTIFIC way. Amazingly, our WIZARD OF SCIENCE AND SCIENCE HISTORY AND CRAZY OLD BELIEF SYSTEMS, Professor Matt, is an unstoppable font of REAL knowledge about everyone from Ptolemy to Newton to Nancy Reagan. Join us for a journey of nearly 2,000 YEARS of people looking up and asking WHAT THE IF? (PS: Read your horoscope before listening, because after this episode you won't read it ever again.) This is one of our funnest, most skepticalist, wackiest, mythbustingest episode yet. Ok click that button and let's fly to the ZENITH.

Edward Teller, creator of the Hydrogen Bomb wondered one day (smoke drifting from his pipe) could NUCLEAR BOMBS be used for (puff puff) PEACEFUL purposes? Could you build a harbor with the flick of a switch? Egomaniacs that we are, today we go even further and ask out loud to you and us.... Heck if BOMBS could be used for construction, what about BIG BANGS?! WTiF you could make a bang in your backyard? DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. But do listen, at home, or wherever you are most compelled to ask the BIGGEST, BANGIEST question in the Universe: "What The IF?" Click & listen!

In memoriam, we remember and celebrate Stephen Hawking by turning up his HAWKING RADIATION to eleven!!! What the IF would happen if, as Black Holes not only evaporate, as Hawking discovered, but they do it really really fast. What if Hawking Radiation was as bright and fast and mischievous as the man himself? In this very special episode, in which we also celebrate Pi Day and Einstein's Birthday, we explore and stand in amazement as we gaze upon one of the epic discoveries that made Stephen Hawking famous. What the IF all the Black Holes in the Universe exploded with light and put on a show for this scientist who triumphed over so much, and gave so much to the world. Click and enjoy!

What The IF we experienced our world operating by the BIZARRO rules of QUANTUM MECHANICS? Matt is holding up an umbrella and urging us to join him on the street corner, where we'll team up by the buddy system, walk through the gate and enter QUANTUM STREET... where the ordinary is extraordinary. Grab your camera and your towel and we'll say the three magic words "What The IF!" and off we go!

What The IF the SPEED OF LIGHT were much much much much much s... l... o... w... e... rrrrrrrrrrrr? Like WTiF it were only 4 MPH, so that when you went walking, you were already rocketing along, step by measly human step, at HALF the speed of light? What if you RODE A BIKE and tried to pedal faster, faster, faster, could you push your way past the pokey 4 mph speed of light??? When he was a spry young 16 years old, Albert EINSTEIN imagined himself doing all kinds of crazy races with his bike against light beams. And boy did his imagination tell us some AMAZING and BIZARRE things about what we would experience in this (relatively!) magical bicycle ride down our street. Strap on your helmet, hop on your bike, and get ready to race a light beam. You can do it, all you have to do is shout, What The IF, and hit that play button!

From the pre-Harry Potter Scottish Enlightenment to public relations wizardry of Galileo to the classic anchor pairings of Fox News to genius of SETI and.... badda-BING we find ourselves asking What The IF there are alien civilizations who communicate using GRAVITY WAVES? They gotta bang a whole lotta BLACK HOLES together -- just to use A-Date for a fun Friday night! Join Grab your BONGOS and let's follow STEPHEN HAWKING to the clambake! TGIF, it's WTiF!!!

It's an epic WTiF DOUBLE FEATURE! The apocalyptic scenario served up to us by our imaginative listener Kyle, in which the Earth's core dances like a chicken at a chicken wedding... continues! In our previous episode, we dove deep, into the core, and into the workings of the mysterious magnetic forces which protect us from the radioactive spittle of the Sun. How could we survive when the Earth's SHIELDS ARE DOWN? We're gonna have to be clever. And might diapers be the savior of humanity? Find out in the exciting conclusion of one of our biggest, baddest IF's yet!

Another awesome IF inspired by a listener! This week, listener Kyle asks, WHAT THE IF would happen if the Earth's magnetic pole FLIPPED? Birds depend on it, fish depend on it, and by golly WE depend on it staying STABLE. If it goes flippin' around, every electronic thing we depend on goes haywire. We live on top of a gargantuan spinning magnet, and sometimes it starts thinking outside the box, and that gives us a BIG BAD case of the IF'S.

ELON MUSK launched his own car into space, on a flight to Mars and beyond. What The IF we could ALL do that? And ride in our space cars wherever we wanted to go?

SALT is life. Potato chips are even better life! No salt, NO LIFE. What The IF all the salt in the world ran out??? A very special, very imaginative, spectacular episode, pulled straight out of our listener mail bag! And this is by FAR our most TASTY episode yet. Betchya can't listen to it just once! Do YOU have an idea for a WTiF adventure? A vision that wakes you up at night, or in the middle of your nap? A hope? A fear? What The IF, send it in and we might feature it on the show just like we are THIS week. Share all your ideas, reactions, and just plain old how-do-ya's with us at: [email protected] or WhatTheIF.com/contact

TODAY WAS CRAZY because GEOLOGY suddenly sped up like craaaaaazzzzy. No more waiting eons for mountains to rise, watch 'em before your very eyes. Heck, ride that mountain as it grows, grows, grows! The continents move at wicked speed under our feet. Earthquakes, earthquakes and more earthquakes Volcanoes, volcanoes, oh boy, so many erupting volcanoes! Come with us on this hair raising, and flaming, ride, it's super, super fun, if you can stand -- literally, can you stand? -- this volcanic visit to EARTHQUAKE EARTH. Also, did we say LAVA? Lots and lots of lava! What the, what the... What The IF?

Today we solve, once and for all, one of humanity's greatest mysteries: WHY are the Aliens TEASING US??? Plan for the best, prepare for the worst, people of Earth! Professor Matt is back from ICELAND with new insights and a whole new fascinating barrel of SCIENCE and FACTS for us to hold and taste and throw in the air and dance among their glittering rays. And we try to talk to the creatures of the SEA! What The IF we survive this experiment, of which we may be the subjects??? Turn it on. Turn it up. Dive in!

PART THREE OF THE WTiF UFO CHRONICLES. Philip rubs his hands together and plots how to score an interview with one of the aliens who've abducted him. We urge ALL CITIZENS to take one for the team (EARTH!) and get some photos of your travels on a UFO. Our listener Jay, who wrote in to tell of his journeys to "the most beautiful places in the Universe" (!!!) has made us so envious we're more green than a Martian. Were the places more beautiful than, say... Paris??? Or Iceland??? Or Nabu??? PLUS more secrets from behind the scenes of what it's like when you're making a UFO documentary. How to do it, without selling your soul to the Vogons. This is a wild, wooly and wacky episode, come along for the ride. Put on your big ol' aviator sunglasses, zip up your flight suit, shout "What The IF?!!!" and away... we... goooooooo! Send your thoughts & ideas! [email protected] Follow us on Twitter: @WhatTheIFshow Share a review on iTunes or your favorite pod service! Hear all episodes & learn more at WhatTheIF.com

DEAR ALIEN ABDUCTEES: Please help us out, take pictures! Also, can we get AIRLINES to pick us up at home, while we're sleeping, too??? It'd be so much more CONVENIENT. And we also have some REQUESTS for ALIENS WHO ARE ABDUCTING PEOPLE: what's a poor SKEPTIC gotta do to get picked up??? 'Cause that would be awesome, ok, thanks. Also, PRO TIPS for potential abductees. HELP US OUT, KIDS! Sleep with your camera in your pocket! Crucial information for EVERYONE in this special holiday edition (!!!) of WTiF, with your host, Philip Shane, flying solo, without a SEATBELT but with a MARTINI. Hop aboard, let's go, up up and away... to a galaxy far far... YEP! Send your thoughts & ideas! [email protected] Follow us on Twitter: @WhatTheIFshow Share a review on iTunes or your favorite pod service! Hear all episodes & learn more at WhatTheIF.com

We watch the skies, and read the New York Times and we shout OMG! A very special What The IF?

WE DELAY THE ASTEROID that killed the dinosaurs by five minutes, and thus... the giant lizard dudes and dudettes continued to breed, and evolve. And then they got big ideas in their head. Well, they got big brains at least. And BAD ideas. THE DINOSAURS START THINKING, like humans. What's a human? Those little creatures who won't evolve now, because Tyrannosaurus RICK is in charge of the Earth, buddy! DO NOT WEEP FOR THEIR TINY HANDS, these guys and gals evolve opposable thumbs, and they start to use tools and we wonder.... what kind of skyscraper would a dinosaur would build? Because they definitely would do that, because they think like people. What The IF???

• Email us [email protected], let us know you're listening & share your thoughts! FLAT EARTH: words the strike fear into the heart of every fact loving, rational thinking human. To imagine it is to fall into the depths of insanity, stupidity, comedy, tragedy. Oh, the madness! And yet (WTF?!!!!) people are all chitty chatty these days about the Flat Earth theory. Inexplicably (seriously, WTF?!!!!) basketball players are at the forefront of the Flat Earth crusade... I mean, you'd think that they'd want the world to be shaped like a basketball. Ok, breathe, breathe, flat earth is a joke of an idea, people haven't believed the Earth was flat since Columbus sailed the ocean blue... right? Well, not right, with apologies to every grade school teacher I had, this wasn't true. Thanks to the tremendous bank of knowledge that resides in the brain of Professor Matt, our guide to all things IF, we learn the truth of how *ancient* people figured out that the Earth was round, and they probably played better basketball, too. Flat Earth is synonymous with silliness, it has, as they say in Science, a crazy high "giggle factor". And yet, and yet... And yet we are COMPELLED to envision it. Let's face it, it's an incredible What The IF, and baby, we go there. We go ALL THE WAY there. Don't bother fastening your seatbelts, since there's no hills we can fall down on this bizarre flat planet, but there's no shortage of completely bizarre things we discover on this Pancake Earth. I mean, seriously, I ain't kiddin', I just got back from a tour of it with Matt and trust me, it is really, really strange, and I'm not even talking about what happened when we reached the EDGE. Come with us, enter the WTiF Machine and we'll take you to the where the world is FLAT. You won't forget this episode, let's go!

How FAR can you stretch a thought experiment? How much can you bend your mind? How far off the cliff can we run without looking down? Today we push the concept of learning from an IF into new dimensions. It's the exciting conclusion to our wild & wacky "Haiku In The Collider" scenario! We learn a tremendous amount of amazing REAL science in the process, as we spin out (of control!) this SciFi idea, keeping it as rooted in scientific facts as possible. We rejoin the scientists at the Large Hadron Collider... they're transfixed by the HAIKU flashing on all the screens in mission control. They've spent months ruling out all possibilities that this is an error, or a prank, or that they're dreaming and will wake up and find normality restored. Nope! The mystery begs for explanation. Who is sending this message? Why is it in Japanese? Why Haiku??? HOW did they do it? Where are they? So many many questions. We summon the minds of a fantastic cornucopia of scientists, and the best hard-SF writers to bring this trilogy to a conclusion. So many questions... so many answers... so many laughs and facts and fun in this outstanding episode of What The IF!

Click here rate us in iTunes, thanks!: getpodcast.reviews/id/1250517051 Thanks! Send us your comments, questions & suggestions: [email protected] What will happen after our cliffhanger at the end of the previous episode??? We find ourselves floating in the air, like Wile E. Coyote, safe and oblivious... until we look down! In our most dangerous, craziest WTiF yet, we've imagined what the IF would happen if the Large Hadron Collider, the most powerful atom smasher in the world, discovered the most fundamental answer about what makes everything go and go and go in the Universe. Einstein and all those who love him theorize that there is a single equation from which all other workings of the universe follow. But what if (and it's a big what if, I mean totally what the IFFFFF?) instead of the mathematical data that they see on their screens at LHC Mission Control, which looks like numbers, lines, graphs, and when all plotted out, it looks like fireworks... all the zillions of different particles spraying out from every collision... well, what IFFFFF, instead of nice mathematical lines, they saw a Haiku. In Japanese. I mean, seriously, WTiF? As always, and even more so this week (!) the incredible awesomeness of this technique of pondering wild (weeeee!) SciFi scenarios, push us harder than ever (the way we like it) to learn about the REAL science behind everything. The amount of fascinating reality that emerges from this imaginary wacko situation is really wonderful, you're gonna love it. Tune in! Enjoy!

Click here rate us in iTunes, thanks!: getpodcast.reviews/id/1250517051 Thanks! Send us your comments, questions & suggestions: [email protected] MATH! It strikes fear into the hearts of millions of people. Or billions of people. OR GAZILLIONS of people. Yes we're having fun with big numbers! Math is so scary to the British that they even call it MATHS -- like there's too many of them -- run for your lives! NOTHING happens in the universe without MATH knowing about it. Math rules over everything, to infinity and beyond (yond, yond, yond...) What The IF you could really understand Math? Really FEEL it, like a Mathematician feels it? You see it, you taste it, you feel it in your bones, and you look at all the beautiful math in your beautiful mind and your beautiful hot tub, and you'll ask your fellow hot tubbers, "Holy cr*p, where does all this Math come from? Why does everything from super stars to slimy snails eat, breathe and sleep... and live and die... and party like it's 1999... All according to the rules of mathematics?" Among the many amazing creatures we meet in this episode to infinity (and beyond, yond, yond...) is A BARBER WHO CANNOT CUT HIS OWN HAIR. I mean, this is one of our weirdest episodes yet. Be forewarned: by the end, we find ourselves driven right to the edge of a cliff. WTiF?

Click here rate us in iTunes: http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1250517051 Thanks! Send comments, questions & suggestions: [email protected] ARE YOU a thinker or a do-er? Or perhaps you're ambi-thinkerdo-extrous? Sure, it takes all kinds, but what if one particular kinda humans got NASA in their grubby little paws? It'd be funny! But I also suggest you RUN FOR YOUR LIFE because that Saturn VI rocket ain't gonna fly straight. PHYSICS HAS TWO KINDS: Theoretical Physicists and Experimentalists. The world has thrived with these two mighty species working together. But what if one of 'em ate a million cans of spinach and got super buff and kicked out the others? This is a deep thinking, big bun busting episode of WHAT THE IF... I mean it's really wild, like a safari suddenly broke out in our recording studio. Aristotle, that ancient greek guy, guest stars! Listen now, and get thinking' young paduan, because you'll never become a Jedi by sitting around the house. Open the window and shout it, "WTiF!"

Click here rate us in iTunes, thanks!: http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1250517051 Thanks! Send us your comments, questions & suggestions: [email protected] THERE'S A RECIPE for our universe. Screw up the ingredients and your cosmological soufflé collapses into a messy goo, or explodes and splatters all over your oven and burns and sets off the smoke detector (an all-too-typical situation in my kitchen). If we were smarter and better at physics, we'd call this the Fine Tuned Universe theory, which says that if any of the important physical constants in our universe, like the strength of the strong force which holds the atomic nucleus together, or say... the strength of the force of gravity. WTiF would happen if we turned that dial??? What if we turned it PAST eleven??? Omg, this is one hell of an exciting and enlightening episode, check it out!

Love the show? Click here to give a 1-click iTunes rating: http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1250517051 Thanks! Listen for End-Of-The-Episode Shoutouts! We salute our most dedicated Twitter followers... listen for your name! We continue to be riveted to the exciting news from LIGO about the incredible field of gravitational astronomy bursting upon the world. Being able to FEEL the gravitational waves of the universe have revealed an entirely new vision of gargantuan structures and epic events happening all over the sky, all the time. It's a true 'revelation'. What FUTURE revelations await our discovery? What new views of the universe? What new realms? Strange forms of matter and energy? DARK MATTER looms over us, and below us, and through us... but we know very little about it. It's not even really "dark" -- it's INVISIBLE, but it's so huuuuuuuuge we can see and feel how it bends the the fabric of the universe all around it with unimaginable gravitational strength. But, hey, that's a weird thing. I can't get my mind (my grey matter!) around it, can you? It'd be a heck of a lot easier if we could SEE it. And when the hard working, brilliant telescope builders of Earth figure out a way, WHAT THE IF will we see???

Enjoy the show? Leave an iTunes review! http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1250517051 We humans share the Earth with many species, and some people see us Homo Sapiens as the masters of the planet. But that wasn't always the case. Watch Jurassic Park, it's a scary movie, and it's got great dinosaurs and really tiny, tasty people. What if another species evolved in the future to challenge humans for control of the Earth? What kind of park will they build? What kind of movies will they watch? How much do you love Giraffes? How can you not? This is a fun and scary and furry and tasty episode of the super imaginative, improv sci-fi series called What the IF? (if... if.... if...) Enjoy! Subscribe! Enjoy more! We'd love to hear from you, email [email protected] or tweet us @WhatTheIfShow. If you like, we'll give you a shoutout on the show because, hey, what the if?

Using gravity waves, Astronomers announced they discovered two neutron stars colliding in an epic explosion! Forbes Magazine's favorite fact about this natural wonder is that the event created 28 Octillion Dollars worth of Gold! (Priorities, people, c'mon.) Everyone says the global race to space won't really begin until we find some kind of (boring, so boring) natural material (yawn) to mine (geez, really) on some asteroid, moon or planet. What do people really love on Earth? Oil! What the IF oil (sticky, smokey, delicious) oil were found on Mars? A bazillion tons of it! Would Elon Musk's dreams of a massive Mars-based corporate economy erupt, using all that cheap, stinky oil? What would happen on Earth with all this insanely cheap oil suddenly available to everyone? Rocket cars belching smoke! And so much more. Check out this really fun, crazy, saga, chock-a-block full of REAL SCIENCE and our awesome flavor of extrapolation imagination as we envision another entirely new world that comes to life when we ask... What the IF?

NASA has emergency plans for what to do if they find an alien artifact on the Moon or anywhere in space (for real!). Elon Musk probably does, too. What The IF would happen if we found something left by Aliens? What if it was trash? Like, I dunno, maybe a Big Mac wrapper? How would a trashy hamburger wrapper change the world? A quick, hot and delicious episode awaits you, enjoy! Visit WhatTheIF.com for more episodes, info, and to contact us -- we'd love to hear from you. Your 5-star review on iTunes is also much appreciated! https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/what-the-if/id1250517051?mt=2

If miracles could be proven by science, oh man, wouldn't things would be better for everyone? Wouldn't it be awesome? And fun? And super helpful? We imagine the wild & wacky day that science discovers that miracles are real, and repeatable, and their rules are mathematical and logical. Because if you could figure all that out... well now you can hack 'em! Need a miracle? There's an app for that. Just count to three... and click!

Imagine if space was breathable... If you could swim in it, fly in it, go anywhere you want wearing only your bathing suit, or your birthday suit! Would you swim to Jupiter? Paddle to Alpha Centauri? How would life have evolved if it could swim, crawl, fly into space? We ride whales to the Moon. We tremble at the sight of a giant plankton sphere swimming around the Sun. Grab your inflatable doughnut and come along to the worlds of What The IF!