It was on BBC two.

So many millions of people saw it, and I thought it was fantastic a night with the stars that I was amazed that he had the courage and then the ability to explain quantum mechanics quite like he did Thio to the general public on Dhe.

It got quite technical at times.

I didn't watch here the time.

No, no.

But since then I've become aware that it's all kicked up.

Basically, it seems to me to have caused too two reactions.

One amongst the physicist.

That's a more technical level on then one amongst a group of people who have jumped on some words that he used.

Some guys were posted.

Your scientists were posting their blog's on blocks, were saying, you know, this is this is This isn't right.

And Brian Cox himself was then responding to these blog's.

It was all kicking off on Twitter.

He was talking about how everything in the universe, when you're dealing with quantum mechanics, how things are connected.

On in particular, he was talking about electrons on the energy associated with electrons and is being this sort of to enthrone some of it quite nasty And, you know, on Twitter on blog's discussing the rights and wrongs of what?

Of what?

Brian said he had this fantastic dime twitch.

It managed to get hold off worth a £1,000,000 I think itwas in this diamond there are 1,003,000,000 billion carbon atoms don't have diamonds to play with.

But he had a diamond and he said, Oh, if I wrote this diamond, then I moved the energy levels of the electrons within that diamond.

And he said that because of Polly's exclusion principle, that would cause the electrons far away everywhere in the universe to move a little bit as well.

Of all the electrons in the universe must respect power.

Aly that for every electron around every accent in the universe.

Andi that he went on to say that because of what's known as the Paoli exclusion principle, which says that no two electrons can ever be in the same quantum state, except he didn't use the word quantum state.

He used the word energy, and that's where the physicists have come in, sit in precisely the same energy level because they can't be in the same quantum state.

Therefore, if you move one electron up on our group of electrons and change their energy than the whole system throughout the universe will change as well.

It's not quite right what he said.

No, but this spirit of what he said it is OK.

It didn't draw on an implication in the sense off saying anything controversial.

It seems to me he just said he was just pointing out.

Its other people have drawn the implications of it.

They have inferred from it that that means that for example, one group of people are saying that accounts for the fact that we were all connected in our consciousness is all connected because when you change energy levels in one group, that immediate effects the energy levels in another group that link Israel.

So everything is connected everything else because in quantum mechanics you can't precisely say where something is at any given or where it is and what it's velocities of momentum is there's uncertainty.

So you describe things in terms of wave functions which give you what are known as the probability of finding things.

So the bigger the value of the wave function in a given region, the more likely it is that object is there.

But these were functions can spread and they do spread on.

But the interconnectedness is simply the fact that all of the electrons the wave function describing all of the miss spread across the universe.

That's what quantum mechanics can do for you that classical mechanics can't.

It can describe all of the particles with one wave function.

That's what the idea is.

And so it's not surprising to me that if you alter the state of an electron over here on DDE that it's gonna have a knock on effect somewhere else.

Where, where all this concert is the public's cruise and principles.

So this is the This is the base of the idea that no to family owns and, like electrons are our family owns can occupy the same quantum state.

Okay, now they said something slightly different.

That's what Brian said.

He said energy levels because, you know, you could maybe associate an energy level with one particular quantum number, but it doesn't necessarily describe the whole quantum states of the electron.

Well, I I wanted a lecture.

I thought, Fantastic nature.

As I've said, I do remember that last bit of it thinking, I've never thought about the interconnectedness of it and the, but it didn't cross my mind that there was anything untoward that he was.

He was talking about things propagating fast in the speed of light or anything like that.

He wasn't.

But what has happened is, first of all, there's a group of people, as I said, have interpreted it as being an example of the fact that our consciousness is are all connected and we're in one beautiful universal universe and which I think is just irrelevant here.

The second group, which is more relevant, is that the physicists have picked up on the fact that Brian was was using the exclusion principle that the funding of fundamental principle in physics on talking about in terms of energy levels alone, whereas the exclusion principle is a bit broader than that includes energy levels.

But it includes other unique numbers quantum numbers associate ID with with the state of a particle on.

So there's a technical, uh, argument, our discussion that's been going on and that's been going on a really neat level, I think watching Twitter, the discussions that are going on, so high quality argument as they're talking about the various physical aspects, that this isn't simple stuff, but it caused the other side of it.

This thing about the consciousness eccentric, I think so, irritated Brian.

I didn't see this better bit of the on the Twitter Twitter world.

I don't have a Twitter account, but it's so irritated him that he decided he wrote an article for The Wall Street Journal in which he basically pointed out he was not implying that that this instantaneous effect of the of the electrons reacting to one another can be made.

Use elven terms off sending information.

You can't send any information faster than the speed of light so you can't make use of this to actually say I know exactly what that person's thinking.

Therefore, every electron around every atom in the universe must be shifting.

You know Brian Cox.

I know Brian.

You his good friend.

Has he stuffed up?

Has he done something wrong?

No, I don't think so.

I I think what's happened here is the physicists have got very excited and rightly started talking about the physics that he was describing, but that the language that he used we have to bury mind he was using in a television programme towards the end of a television program being broadcast to the general public.

And so, rather than talking, this is my interpretation, I haven't asked.

Brian Rather decided to talking about the quantum state, which would involve talking about the angular momentum and the magnetic moments and the spins.

Potentially.

You could talk about the energy levels, the angular momentum spin and a whole bunch of quantum is that you could include.

And in fact, that's one of the key.

The key features of this.

That there are a number of things that you could include to describe this this particle so none of the electrons in the universe consists in precisely the same energy level.

He decided to concentrate on the concept that people are familiar with which is energy.

The idea that you can move from one energy level toe another that was probably knew enough for most of the audience as a rather describing the things in terms of quantum state.

See, he concentrated on energies and said that you couldn't have things having exactly the same energy on That's not necessarily the case with this power, the exclusion principle, which he was making yourself.

You can't have two firm unions indistinguishable firmly, owns in exactly the same quantum states, so they could have the same energy as long as some of the other numbers in the quantum state are different.

All the electrons across the universe instantly but imperceptibly change their energy levels.

So everything is connected.

Everything else.

I mean, there is some inter connectedness, but this is this oversimplifies, and I think that's what's got people's backs.

It says he's talking about energy levels there, and I mean, you can't have two electrons in the same energy level, but that's not entirely true.

We know in a helium atom, two electrons occupied the lowest energy level that the reason they could do that?

The reason that doesn't violate Polly's exclusion principle is because they have different mental.

He was picked up on that and that then led into a more general discussion about the implications of all of this off.

The fact that it is it is the case in quantum mechanics when you.

You.

When something changes, maybe the energy of a system changes.

Are you in this case, rubbing the carbon?

Andi, you change what's known as the Hamiltonian, which effectively is the energy of this system on that changing in the Hamilton and effects all the other particles because of this property, which I mentioned that in quantum mechanics, the wave function that describes describes all of the particles, so changing some over in one region will affect others in another region.

But the key thing is, that doesn't break cause ality doesn't mean that you can send a signal over to it.

Your experimental friend and saying the Andromeda Galaxy, which they commit use off faster than light could have traveled.

That's not possible.

Guilty of some oversimplification.

I think that's why he's on BBC two.

You're on 60 symbols.

Yeah, you know, I you know, personally, I think people should have a little bit, and it's good that you know that this is sparking a debate within science because at the end of it all, and you know, we're all gonna land.

Land something, right?

What?

We're going to learn it, you know?

Okay.

Bryant Bryant made this point.

It's got people interested in what what he's talking about.

And then people are starting to look a bit deeper and get to the real physics behind.

I think what he was trying to say, what he would have liked to have said but which would never have been shown on BBC, he said.

You're talking as if it's all being a very collegiate debate and everything's been lovely.

But the physicists have been a bit sniper.

Yeah, no, I mean because they're quite passionate about the subject, but I don't think they have necessary.

I mean, they're now discussing it right, the initial, and I think that's probably a problem with Twitter, as opposed to a problem with the physicist.

Twitter has become this staggeringly powerful forum by, But you're limited to What is it?

140 characters or something that you can't really describe palace exclusion principle or what you really meant in a lecture in that kind of language in 100 and 40 carats or if you can, it's pretty impressive going.

Yeah, I mean they do.

It's quite normal for physicists out to have fights with one another.

I think that's how the scientific method works, so nothing wrong with that.

Some of it's getting a bit society, and I think maybe there's a little bit of jealousy involved.

But also, you know, it is important to get to get things right.

I think it's actually science working really well.

And it's also a manifestation of how science itself is evolving, that the way it's been communicated.

Maybe some of his responses to the Twitter comments might be a little bit more.

Ah considered so say they've now actually effectively gone underground again in the sense of probably gone back to original email using e mails and talking about it.

But the initial discussion about this points was done in the open for everyone to see, and it's really interesting.