Cosmic Voids could be the key to unlocking the secrets of our Universe.That’’s why Cosmologist Dr. Alicia Pisana has spent her life studying them. We talk the origin of Cosmic Voids, Earth’s place in the Universe and why Dark Energy could be at the center of it all. Then, it’s Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune vs. Family Feud and Double Dash as we countdown the Top 5 Game Shows of All Time.
Dr. Alicia Pisani: 01:07
Pointless: 24:41
Top 5 Game Shows: 41:57
Interview with Cosmic Void Researcher Dr. Alicia Pisani
Nick VinZant 0:00
Nick, welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant Coming up in this episode voids and game shows.
Dr. Alice Pisani 0:20
These are, in fact, the largest regions of our universe. You can think of voids as preserved pockets for our universe, regions where very little happened on cosmological scales, knowing more about dark energy will tell us what is the destiny of our universe.
Nick VinZant 0:40
I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance subscribe, leave us a rating or review. We really appreciate. It really helps us out. If you're a new listener, welcome to the show. If you're a long time listener, thank you so much for all of your support. So I want to get right to our first guest. This is cosmologist and void researcher, Dr Alicia pasani, so what is a cosmic void? As
Dr. Alice Pisani 1:10
the name says, one will tend to think that cosmic voids are empty. Cosmic voids are not really empty, just like less crowded areas of our universe, if you see what I mean. And what is absolutely amazing is that these are, in fact, the largest regions of our universe, and it's only with the last few decades where we can actually build huge maps of the galaxy distribution. And in these maps, we can find those regions with fewer galaxies that are known as cosmic voids. Can you
Nick VinZant 1:44
kind of put it in a perspective that somebody like me would understand, like, okay, it's an empty space. Like, I get it, but in my mind, I can't kind of quantify how empty the universe or full the universe would be. Voids are
Dr. Alice Pisani 1:58
of sizes of 10s to hundreds of mega per second, because this doesn't really, you know, speak to us. I'll try to give a bit of an idea. We know that light takes time to reach us. For example, the light from the Sun is, you know, was emitted eight minutes ago, and it says, reaching us now. So it takes eight minutes to go all the way from the sun up to us. And if we were to, you know, think of the time that it will take for light to cross voids. It will basically be of the order of 300 million light years. So, you know, it's really huge distances. And over those distances we may have, you know, maybe 100 galaxies or something like this. So those are extremely isolated galaxies that live in very quiet spaces of our
Nick VinZant 2:51
universe. Do we know how they would have formed? Like? Why would these parts of the galaxy or the universe, rather, be empty and other parts would be crowded? If
Dr. Alice Pisani 3:00
we think of the primordial universe, there were already tiny regions where there were, there was a little bit less matter, and those regions became emptier and larger, so forming the basis of the structure that we see nowadays. So we call this the large scale structure of our universe. So looking at the distribution of galaxies, we see that it's not, you know, a uniform distribution in some sense. There are regions where we have a lot of galaxies and regions where we have fewer galaxies. So the regions where we have lots of galaxies are called clusters of galaxies, and then the empty regions where we have very few galaxies are called Cosmic voids. And it makes this beautiful pattern. But
Nick VinZant 3:37
why would it cluster in one area and be empty in another like, why wouldn't this all ultimately kind of homogenize over time?
Dr. Alice Pisani 3:45
So basically, there are two different effects that are going on. On the one side, our universe is expanding, and on the other side, so it's becoming, you know, larger and larger. And on the other side, we have gravity. So gravity likes to pull things together. So the combination of these two effects actually makes what our universe is seen today. So imagine, for example, that you have a galaxy that is sitting on a very crowded region of galaxies. It's very hard for this galaxy to move away because it's attracted gravitationally by the other galaxies. On the other hand, a galaxy that is all alone inside the Void is in some way more free to be attracted towards the local cluster. So you can imagine, as you know, matter wanting to grow, those perturbations, those variations in density, and so emptier regions will become emptier, and denser regions will become denser.
Nick VinZant 4:47
What do we ultimately, what can we learn from the voids that we maybe we couldn't learn from studying the clusters?
Dr. Alice Pisani 4:53
This is an awesome question. Thanks a lot for asking it. So basically, the idea is that we know that our. Universe is expanding. And this is already super surprising. But what is even more exciting is that, you know, a few decades ago, observations started to indicate that the acceleration that the expiry, the expansion of our universe, was accelerating. So not only our universe is becoming larger, and that's already, you know, interesting and surprising, but this is happening faster and faster. So our universe is becoming larger and larger, and this is happening at an accelerated rate, and we don't know why. So because we don't know why, we basically believe there may be a component that is called dark energy, which, you know, we really don't understand. And so we say, okay, maybe this component, this dark energy, can be responsible for the acceleration of the expansion of our universe. So taking, you know, the galaxies in their in the universe, because the universe is expanding, they're being pulled away, one from the other. So the universe is becoming larger and larger, and responsible for this will be dark energy. Now, why are voids interesting in this respect? Because, by definition, voids are regions where we have very little matter. And if there is one thing that we believe dark energy is, is that it's not matter. So in some sense, voids are dominated by this component. We know that voids are going to be dominated by dark energy. So if we want to understand why our universe is accelerating its expansion, we need to look into those regions where there is very little matter, so that the signal from dark energy can be captured nicely. So those are the regions where we expect to have answers about the most crucial questions in cosmology nowadays, if
Nick VinZant 6:49
we were to kind of look at it as Okay, on a scale of one to 10, one, we know absolutely nothing about these voids. 10, we got everything figured out. Where do you think that we would be on that scale? Um,
Dr. Alice Pisani 7:04
I think it really depends on the application. And if you allow me, I'll, I'll give a bit, you know, some details on this. Basically, with voids, there are very different things that we can do once you have, you know, you take a map of the galaxy distribution, and you find regions with fewer galaxies. So you say, Okay, these are my voids. These are my pockets that I'm going to call voids. I can do different things with those. I can look at their shape. I can count them. And so all these different applications they will have, they will tell us different things about our universe, and they are not at the same level. So to answer your question, where are we right now in terms of understanding voids, it depends, for example, we have a pretty good model that predicts how many voids we should have in our universe. Another thing that we understand well is how what is the shape of voids, not on a one by one basis, but on average. So if you look at voids, you know, even though our universe, on very large scales, doesn't have any preferential direction or position, voids, as a matter of fact, they will have locally very weird shapes. Some will be elongated. Some will be more roundish. Some will be, you know, completely distorted. So it's very hard to predict their shape, but what we can do is to look at such voids and look at, on average, what their shape should be.
Nick VinZant 8:35
The thing that I've never understood about, okay, so the universe is expanding, but like, what is it expanding into
Dr. Alice Pisani 8:42
well, I guess that's where you can put some limits to science, because in science, we often need to be able to prove seeing and test things. And as of now, when you think about it, what we can test is what we see and we are inside our universe. So what we see is that our universe is expanding, and we can measure, you know, the distance between galaxies, and we see that that distance is increasing, but that is so far all that science can say, we cannot go far farther than
Nick VinZant 9:12
that. Are we in one of these voids? It's
Dr. Alice Pisani 9:15
harder to measure things locally. And so we actually see that our galaxy is part of, you know, a local group, and this local group is going to move to the local cluster. And so in the end, the universe is emptying and emptying,
Nick VinZant 9:29
so we're kind of moving into a cluster, yes, and
Dr. Alice Pisani 9:33
this is generically true for most galaxies, right? Generically, if you're going to galaxies are first going to move towards filaments, and then those filaments are going to, you know, like roads, uh, bring matter into the clusters of galaxies.
Nick VinZant 9:47
So if we were in, if we were inside one of these voids, like in the middle of it, what would space look like to us?
Dr. Alice Pisani 9:55
So in some sense, locally, you wouldn't perceive any difference at all. Um. The only way to actually measure the movements of galaxies on very large scales is by looking at, you know, this, very large surveys that actually measure the light from galaxies far away and see how they move in the sky. So it is not because the scales are so large, it is not something that we can perceive.
Nick VinZant 10:20
Does space behave differently in these areas? The
Dr. Alice Pisani 10:23
question really depends on whether you ask it locally for us or on a very large scale. So from a human perspective, my answer is no, because, as a matter of fact, whether I'm on a galaxy that is sitting on a void or on a galaxy that is inside the cluster for me, I mean, you know, I'm on a planet, I'm going to fill the planet's gravity, and that's it, right? So it's not going to make any difference for me as a person. However, on cosmological scales, things might be very different. For example, galaxies that live inside voids, they will, for example, interact less with other galaxies because they never meet other galaxies in those under dense regions, and so there are fewer things such as mergers of galaxies and all these complicated effects that astrophysicists try to model. So in some way, you can think of voids as preserved pockets for our universe, regions where very little happened on cosmological scales, and this is precisely the reason why they are easy to model. Because we don't have a lot of complicated effects. We don't have non linearities. We don't have things that will, you know, make our theory more complicated.
Nick VinZant 11:39
Are you ready for some harder slash listener submitted questions? We'll see are voids, the exception or the rule? I would say
Dr. Alice Pisani 11:48
they are the exception in terms of the amount of information that we can get, because they provide, as I was saying, very clean information. They're also a region that was not, you know, seen and studied until very recently? So they are new, and they provide a link to things that we want to understand the most nowadays, in cosmology. However, when you look at our universe, they are not the exception at all. The universe is filled by voids. Basically, they are avoids are ruling the universe in the sense that most of the volume is occupied by voids.
Nick VinZant 12:25
It's occupied by voids in the sense that, like, No, it's the void itself, or like it's a void, and that most of the galaxy is empty space. I don't know if I in my mind, somehow that question is different. I don't know if I phrased it right, but in somehow it's different. In my mind, the
Dr. Alice Pisani 12:41
idea is that most of the volume of the universe is occupied by regions with very few galaxies, so of course, not completely empty, but where we have fewer galaxies. And while, of course, clusters occupy tiny regions of our universe, what
Nick VinZant 12:59
would finding out more about dark energy ultimately teach us like, Okay, if we find out that it's dark energy, is this the kind of thing, like, Okay, we found it, or does the fundamental knowledge change with that knowing
Dr. Alice Pisani 13:12
more about dark energy will tell us what is the destiny of our universe, because we know that dark energy is driven this accelerated expansion of the universe. So it's making our universe becoming larger and larger, and this is happening faster and faster. So understanding dark energy means that we can understand how our universe will change. Yeah,
Nick VinZant 13:34
that's one of those things where I actually said it like I really thought about that. I was like, Oh, that seems really important. Which one is the biggest one is there one that kind of seems to dominate over the others, though?
Dr. Alice Pisani 13:44
So there are interesting voice that we can look at. And for example, famous one is the boots voids. But I will say that, because I'm looking at extremely large scales, I really like you know how at first, we were only able to see a tiny slice of our universe and only have a hint of the existence of those voids. And now we see something like 6000 voids. So I can finally do all my studies with, you know, statistics.
Nick VinZant 14:16
What? How come we weren't able to discover them sooner? Because
Dr. Alice Pisani 14:20
in order to observe voids, because they're so big and you know, and also they have very few galaxies, you need to have service that cover large volumes of the sky. And so, just to give you an idea, you know, does it right now, the dark energy stack of instrument is mapping roughly 1/3 of the sky, which is big enough for us to see those regions. But not only you need to be able to map those regions, you also need to be able to measure and observe the faint galaxies, because those are the ones that are going to be populating voids. But. So if you're only sensitive to the most luminous ones, then it's harder to actually see the whole cosmic this cosmic web of structures that we see. So voids are one of the few tools that need both volume so we need telescopes that observe very wide areas of the sky and also a very high sensitivity to low mass galaxies, and this is something that only recent technology can give us. Were people
Nick VinZant 15:26
really surprised when they found this? Or was this something that, okay, we know this is going to be there, we just haven't found it. Or was this like, wait a minute, what the hell is this?
Dr. Alice Pisani 15:36
People were absolutely surprised. There was a very important paper in 1986 from Valerie de la Peral and Margaret Geller and John Bucha, which for the first time showed a slice of our universe where you could actually see that the matter, and you know, the galaxies were distributed in this non, non random way, was following voids and filaments and clusters. And even though people were trying to model these things, they were at first absolutely surprised to see that, you know, this was how the universe looked like a large scale, is
Nick VinZant 16:13
there, when you look at it overall, the universe is there like a pattern to where the voids are, like, Okay, you got a super cluster. You got a super cluster. We're going to have a void. Or are they just kind of like somebody just all over the place?
Dr. Alice Pisani 16:25
I will say there is no, even though there is some kind of pattern, there is no regular pattern or some kind of fractal these things have is not something that we see in observations.
Nick VinZant 16:36
They're just kind of all over the place, like you never can tell where one's going to be,
Dr. Alice Pisani 16:40
yeah, yeah, exactly. So basically, you can statistically, you know, study the distribution of voids, or actually also distribution of galaxies, for example, to what is called the two point correlation function that gives you the probability if I find the void here, you know, what is the probability that I'm finding my Galaxy here for the void Galaxy cross correlation function. But other than, you know, statistically, it's, it's very
Nick VinZant 17:03
hard. I feel like this question is going to make no sense, so bear with me a little bit, right? But if we go from the Big Bang, which everything was kind of condensed into one area, and then it expanded, and the voids formed as the universe expanded, are the galaxies in those voids made of something different? Like, why would that area not have stuff in it? Like, is there something different about the mass or whatever that wouldn't have kept things close to it? Does that make any sense so
Dr. Alice Pisani 17:39
generically? It's a very, you know, it's a very today question, because nowadays, because we finally have access to voids, we're trying to understand whether the properties of galaxies inside under dense regions are very different from the properties of galaxies in over dense regions. So it's more the other way around, right? We are finally accessing those voids, we can look at those galaxies with very deep surveys, and then we're trying to understand whether they're different or not. One thing that seems, you know, consensus is that galaxies in voids have a somewhat lower mass, but all these studies are, you know, just starting because void cosmology and even the study of galaxy evolution for for void galaxies, is something that has been, it's relatively recent, I would say, in the field,
Nick VinZant 18:28
okay, even though you basically said, like, we're still figuring out, I'm going to ask the question that Barry doesn't have the answer. But why would they have less mass? Well,
Dr. Alice Pisani 18:36
in some sense, for example, you can think, if I'm a galaxy and I'm sitting in a region where I'm not finding other galaxies, things like mergers of galaxies, which is when you know, when you have pure galaxies that become one galaxy, are going to become more rare. So this is the one, one example of things that could have an impact, generically, in regions that are known as voids, there is also less matter. And as a matter of fact, matter, and more precisely, dark matter, is the seed for galaxies. So if you have less matter, it's also less likely that you have, you know, extremely massive galaxies.
Nick VinZant 19:14
There was something and then it just kind of snowballed over billions and billions of years, like there was something different about them, and then they just didn't evolve the same way that other places did.
Dr. Alice Pisani 19:24
Yeah, it's because they were in under dense regions. So the initial perturbation of our universe indicated regions where we had a little bit more matter and a little bit less matter. And this tiny difference that we already see in the, you know, in the primordial universe, leads to the formation of structures that we see nowadays. Let
Nick VinZant 19:41
me follow that up with this brilliant question from our audience, could voids explain why we haven't found aliens?
Dr. Alice Pisani 19:50
I think what really explains why we haven't found aliens, it's mostly because the universe is so big, and you know, we are. Are very far away, and we're very, very tiny in this huge universe. So definitely, I don't think that boys are the reason why we haven't find found aliens.
Nick VinZant 20:12
Do you ever find yourself thinking like, oh, this can't be real, like, the universe can't be that big. There can't be all this. Because to me, like in my little house in Seattle. Like, no, yeah.
Unknown Speaker 20:23
So, very often,
Dr. Alice Pisani 20:26
very often, what I like to do is to, and I do this with my children too. So I like to think about skills, right? And it makes me saying there was this beautiful book that was, you know, popular few years ago. It's called powers of 10. And, you know, it starts, it starts from a hand, and then it goes away the universe increasing in powers of 10s. And then it also goes inside the human body. And I think that the fact that scales are all around us in mathematics is the language that we need to speak to really understand that scale those skills is something that helps me a lot. And in really feeling how real all of this is, how real science is
Nick VinZant 21:07
like, what do you think is the single most interesting of a thing about void?
Dr. Alice Pisani 21:12
So I think the whole community in cosmology right now really wants to understand dark energy. And when you don't understand something, one of the first thing you're going to do is to look whether it changes or not with time, right? And because voids are ruled by dark energy, they are dominated by dark energy, I think boys are in a pretty good position to tell us if dark energy changes or not with time. And so I'm hoping that if we go ahead with upcoming data, we can actually make a measurement from voids on the properties of dark energy, which will really wall a lot of people in the cosmology community and outside of it.
Nick VinZant 21:50
Do you think the solution will be more complicated or less complicated than we think that it's going to be? Um,
Dr. Alice Pisani 21:58
I don't know. I think it's good not to know the elsewhere for now,
Nick VinZant 22:01
but so we have the voids. So then there obviously would be the opposite of that, where we would have just, are there places in the universe that are just massively, massively packed together? Yes,
Dr. Alice Pisani 22:13
clusters. So, and you will say, why can we use clusters to extract cosmological information? Well, we can, but because gravity is what is really pulling those, you know, regions together, these clusters of galaxies, as a matter of fact, is very hard to extract information and learn something about dark energy, because gravity is ruling there. And whenever gravity is ruling, things become very highly non linear, and this is so complicated to model. One of the good things about voids is that they are simple. They behave linearly. We can model them. They just mostly expand. And so this means that mathematically, the models that we use can go straight to the point and measure things in an easy way.
Nick VinZant 22:59
Are there any voids that are shrinking.
Dr. Alice Pisani 23:02
So the theory tells us that there should be very, very tiny voids. Imagine basically you have an under dense region, and around it you have, you know, galaxies. Those galaxies will want to be attracted, one from the other, and so they may eat the small under density away. So those are local, tiny under dense, under densities, sitting in high density areas. So yes, some tiny voids may disappear out of existence. Our theoretical model predict this, but currently we are not able to see those scales with modern telescopes. But
Nick VinZant 23:36
is there any place that we know of like, oh, there is just nothing there. Like, this is not just a void. This is like a super void, in the sense that, like, not is there, not only is there very few things, there is nothing there.
Dr. Alice Pisani 23:49
So there are absolutely, very large regions of space where there are no galaxies. And you can go on from mega parsec and mega parsec and there are no galaxies, but if you move in the universe. So basically, we know that there are, you know, super clusters and super voids, so regions where, really, galaxies are an extreme rarity. So the short answer is, where it's yes, those regions exist. I
Nick VinZant 24:14
want to thank Dr pasani so much for joining us. If you want to connect with her, we have linked to her on our social media sites were Profoundly Pointless on tick tock, Instagram and YouTube, and we've also included her information in the episode description. And if you want to see more of this interview, including some of the things that we talk about, the YouTube version of this will be live on january 30 at 12:30pm Pacific. Okay, now let's bring in John Shaw and get to the pointless part of the show. Do you look different in your mind than you do in real life? Absolutely. You sneak a glance at the mirror. Are you surprised what's looking back at you like, Oh, that's not what I thought I looked
John Shull 24:59
like. I wouldn't say the mirror, I would say pictures. Whenever I see a picture of myself, I'm like, that's not what I see. But clearly, that's what it is.
Nick VinZant 25:09
Oh yeah, whenever I see a picture of myself, I'm like, How did I ever get married? Like, why does anyone talk to me like I feel like, whenever I see a picture of myself that I look like the biggest doofus. Yeah.
John Shull 25:23
I mean, listen, I just think I look like an average dude, whatever. But I have no idea how people talk to me, how I have friends, how the other sex may have been attracted once in a while. Okay,
Nick VinZant 25:35
that was, that's pretty much all the only that's That was my question to you, and you kind of just answered it succinctly, and then I had nothing to say. Usually, you ramble on for 20 minutes.
John Shull 25:45
I mean, positive body images are important to me, because I struggle with body image issues my entire life, so gotta be positive about it. You know, if you're happy, then then good if you're not happy, you know, there's things that you can do about it. But, you know, looking in the mirror. None of us, I think, look in the mirror, unless you're completely narcissistic, which there are some of them out there, I'm sure, but I don't think anyone looks in the mirror and goes, Man, I'm looking great.
Nick VinZant 26:12
I try not to look at myself. I don't like to have my picture taken. I try not to really be confronted with reality as much as I possibly can.
John Shull 26:22
Well, it all kind of sucks. So it's probably a good thing.
Nick VinZant 26:24
It's definitely weird getting older, like, Oh, don't you kind of, I don't feel like, I feel like getting older, I don't recognize my own body. Like, I'll go, especially like playing sports or running around after my kids, I'll do something and I'll be like, what's this isn't working the way it used to. I feel like a stranger in my old own body. As I get older.
John Shull 26:49
Well, I mean, my calf still feels like a jelly bean rolling around in a glass of water. So that's going to be fantastic. Oh, that's
Nick VinZant 26:56
so that's fast. Three minutes into the show, John has brought up his calf. For people who are new, we always try to keep a time of when John will bring up his calf injury, the weather or his basement. I think you made it. Oh, you seven. Don't want to talk about your basement. I think we made the base minutes. I think we made it 17 minutes before you talked about your basement. Last episode, I
John Shull 27:20
just put up a dartboard.
Nick VinZant 27:23
Oh yeah, the Dart I do like darts. I'm really starting to enjoy, like, slightly active drunken games, darts, skee ball. I love it. Yeah,
John Shull 27:32
i When my wife got it, I'm like, nobody plays darts. And then I found that tons of people like darts. So everybody likes
Nick VinZant 27:41
darts. It's like, I'm not gonna not play darts, not gonna not play ping pong or shuffleboard.
John Shull 27:46
I think I lived my 20s the wrong way, because I had one goal every night I went out, and that was to get hammered and do stupid things. I wish I could go back get hammered, but like, play darts or play pool or like, do something that was somewhat functional, other than just sitting or dancing drinking.
Nick VinZant 28:09
I mean, dancing is fun, like, but you gotta get appropriately leveled hammered so you can go out there. Oh, yeah,
John Shull 28:15
Truly, truly, dance. Shout out to Jim Cavanaugh.
Nick VinZant 28:19
Yeah, Jim Cavanaugh,
John Shull 28:22
legend, there. Man, legend, man, yeah. So anyways, if you ever come to Detroit, which you should, because the weather is fantastic,
Nick VinZant 28:29
oh, my God, no, it's not so I did
John Shull 28:31
there. Uh, you we should play some darts. I would love
Nick VinZant 28:35
to play darts. I think it's fantastic. What kind of weight, what kind of dart board did you get? Though? Did you get the fake plastic darts? Or did you go for the real thing?
John Shull 28:45
No, we got a full on cork dartboard with the, you know, the real thing. Oh, wow. Good for you. I'm proud of that. It wasn't me, though, I can't take any credit for this. My wife even got a laser follow line.
Nick VinZant 28:58
So, wow.
John Shull 29:01
Yeah, she's
Nick VinZant 29:02
too much, right? Like, that's my wife is like that. I swear to God, if you if something costs $10 she'll find a way to make it 15. Oh, it's anytime that you have more people involved than just yourself. It's always going to take longer and be more expensive. I don't know the last time that in something in my life has been easier or cheaper than I thought it was going to be. Probably not in the last 10 years,
John Shull 29:27
I will say that I'm actually becoming and it would be interesting to go back to this podcast to see how I have progressed as a homeowner, because I used to be somewhat timid about putting holes in my wall. Now I love it. Let's do it. You know what? I mean? It's exciting. It makes you feel it's gratifying.
Nick VinZant 29:47
Okay? If it's just you and you're eating hot dogs, how many hot dogs are you gonna have for dinner?
John Shull 29:53
This is the debate of all time. Are we going buns or no bun? Well, yeah, you're going buns. Well, if. I'm going buns. I'm only doing two, but I could do a dozen for sure. Oh,
Nick VinZant 30:03
I'm not eating less than three hot dogs. If I'm having hot dogs for dinner, I'd be embarrassed to leave the room with two hot dogs. I'm
John Shull 30:11
the kind of fat guy that like, if I do have more than two, I double up per bun.
Nick VinZant 30:17
Oh, god, you're putting That's embarrassing. Wow. What's the most hot dogs you've ever eaten?
John Shull 30:25
Oh, I mean, I don't know, to be honest, it was at some party. I'm sure. No, actually, I do kind of have a rough estimate. All right, my bachelor my bachelor party, I wouldn't eat buns because I said I was at a wedding or something. I'm sure the guys who were there laughing right now wedding to get rid of I remember I got a wedding bro, but I'm guessing, and I don't know the number, but I probably slammed over the course of a few hours between 15 and 20.
Nick VinZant 30:52
Man, you sucked down 15 pieces of meat, huh,
John Shull 30:57
at least, and it knocked me on my ass. There's a, there's a there's a picture of me laying on my back just surrounded by meat. Yeah,
Nick VinZant 31:05
I'm sure there's a lot. Okay, all right, well, let's just move on. I don't think I've ever had more than four. That's a lot,
John Shull 31:12
I mean, but I used to be a competitive eater in my own mind, so I've done done a lot of stupid shit,
Nick VinZant 31:19
man. Yeah, there's a lot of things that I do in my own mind that not in reality. Alright,
John Shull 31:24
let's see. Shout outs, oats, oats, oats. Jeremy strong hillarya, Gustavo Lopez, I only put that on there because that was a handful to say, but it felt good to say it's most
Nick VinZant 31:40
likely. Hilaria, oh well. Ditzer culture, man
John Shull 31:50
Lucas Conan, Amelia, young blood, Brian Anderson, Mark Chavez. I once again, I found this on on YouTube, but someone, apparently, his name is Cameron Diaz. I don't think it's the Cameron Diaz, but
Nick VinZant 32:06
most likely not, although she's making a comeback,
John Shull 32:10
if it is God, God bless you, Cameron Diaz, or the whatever Cameron is, alright, uh, Paul minkowitz, Nick Bryant and John Chase, appreciate all of you this week. Nice,
Nick VinZant 32:23
nice. I like how you struggled with the easy words, yeah. Well,
John Shull 32:27
I wanted to make sure I got them right, John, let's see. Well, I feel like I have to put this out there and admit to you finally that I am not a jinx, because yesterday was the chiefs in bills game, and I put as much money as I possibly could afford down on the chiefs to win, and they won. Yeah, but
Nick VinZant 32:53
You jinxed me, texting me stuff about how the bills were gonna come back. So you and you are a
John Shull 33:00
jinx. I'm not a jinx. You
Nick VinZant 33:01
are, dude, you need to just accept the reality that's in front of you. You're a jinxer. You're a notorious jinxer. Besides, you said that I knew that they were lost. I knew that they were going to lose as soon as you said, Oh, the bills are going to come back. That's when I thought, nope.
John Shull 33:16
Well, not besides Kansas City and Philadelphia. You know, I know everyone in Metro, Detroit's could care less about this game. I just feel like it's the blandest matchup there is. Oh, I
Nick VinZant 33:28
have no interest in it whatsoever. I have no interest in it whatsoever. And I don't think I'll even watch the highlights on YouTube like I usually do. I don't have any interest in it's just like I'm sick of them. I
John Shull 33:40
mean, I'll watch it because I gamble. But other than that, I have no I'm not watching it because I want to watch it. I'll tell you that.
Nick VinZant 33:47
Okay, okay, okay, all right. So far, the poll results are, do you look different in your mind than you do in real life? 100% of people have said yes.
John Shull 34:02
I would be surprised if it doesn't end up, you know, 9010
Nick VinZant 34:06
Oh, yeah, I would think it's really stacked one direction. I think it's
John Shull 34:11
Unilever. All right. I thought this was interesting, okay, last week, Pamela Anderson, apparently people, for some reason this was trending, and I don't know why, but she's never been nominated for an Oscar. Imagine that. So she was quoted as saying, I always say the win is in the work. Think she did a lot of winning in her day. Yeah,
Nick VinZant 34:35
she's kept it going. I mean, for someone that was really just attractive, essentially, like did, was she a great personality? Was she a good actress? Was she a good singer? Did she have other talents really, than just kind of being attractive? She did really well with that.
John Shull 34:57
Yeah, I mean, I. We should probably just move on.
Nick VinZant 35:02
Yeah,
John Shull 35:04
okay, because I'm not really sure that she was technically an actress, unless you consider the types of things she did,
Nick VinZant 35:11
but she wasn't in that. She wasn't in mainstream stuff, right?
John Shull 35:16
Uh, not until the video was released of her and Tommy Lee. I don't believe I could be wrong. I
Nick VinZant 35:21
feel like that, yeah, I also don't feel like that's really in any way true, that those videos just leak somehow, like someone just happened to get access to my sex tape. I don't believe that whatsoever. I
John Shull 35:34
mean, oh, I'm sorry. Someone actually, apparently is listening to our live stream, because they just texted me and said, You idiots. She was in Baywatch.
Nick VinZant 35:45
Okay, okay, my bad. Did she get an Academy Award for Baywatch? Like, you're kind of proving our point by that, to be honest with you. Like, so Well, David Hasselhoff, I don't remember David Hasselhoff as being a great actor. I didn't realize
John Shull 36:01
she did, uh, Bo rat. She did a couple other movies. The one that she's really known for is called barbed wire. Yeah,
Nick VinZant 36:09
when they're when you're really known for something nobody else has heard of, that's not, it's not, you're not proving your case. There also It's Bo rat, not Bo rat.
John Shull 36:22
I I'm not gonna lie to you, I never have found him or his characters funny at all.
Nick VinZant 36:27
I don't generally find any kind of prank humor to be funny. I'm
John Shull 36:32
gonna finish up the Pamela Anderson because I feel like she deserves a quick 15 second shout out in 2022 her career resurged as she was on Broadway, and also looks like she earned a nomination for a Golden Globe and a SAG Award for Best Actress for her indie drama, the last show girl that came out last year. So God bless you. Let's see, do we? Do we want to talk Donald Trump,
Nick VinZant 37:03
not really.
John Shull 37:05
All I'm going to say is, if I have to start paying $12 for a venti coffee at Starbucks, I'm going to go to the White House and stand outside with a sign. All right, that's insane. But also first world problems, I understand that.
Nick VinZant 37:19
Yeah. I mean, I think that everything I don't know, man, we'll just see how this whole thing goes. Right? We're just gonna see how this whole thing goes. Because I do think that regardless of whoever is in charge, you ultimately can't make that big of changes. Like, there is kind of a reason why things are the way that they are. As somebody who used to work in news and somebody who used to work in government, you kind of find out that all these policies that you think are really dumb are that you think make no Miss sense, do end up making sense when you kind of think about it from the perspective of all kinds of different people like we do ultimately, kind of get down to a reason why we do things, and maybe it doesn't make any sense, but then you just need to consider it from a different perspective, and then it might make sense from there. Like, man, what a waste of money putting ramps on all these curbs is. Well, yeah, but you're not in a wheelchair. And then all of a sudden that really makes sense. So like, I think that when you look at different policies that are governmental in origin, they do kind of make sense. You're just not thinking of it from that aspect. You're thinking of it from you, not from the aspect of an entire group of people.
John Shull 38:34
Well, I mean, I think we're, we're a individually based problem society. If it doesn't affect us. Why care about it? Right? Oh, yeah,
Nick VinZant 38:44
people are very aware of their own problems. I would agree with that. And you're not aware of other people's issues. But, I mean, that's why I think that when somebody comes in proposing sweeping changes, there's never really going to be sweeping changes, because, like, ultimately, there's a reason that we didn't do that in the first place.
John Shull 39:01
All right, I have nothing else to say. You said that very well. You always put on like your Mr. PR hat. I have no I have no idea how to how to respond. So chopsticks, apparently, there's a push to eliminate chopsticks in this country. Why?
Nick VinZant 39:16
Because they come from, because they come from people that don't look like they just eat food, no,
John Shull 39:22
their hands, no, apparently, because they are made from certain kinds of woods and bamboo, and this organization wants to save all those plants, so they say that we should not be using chopsticks.
Nick VinZant 39:37
I mean, if we're not going to be using chopsticks because we want to cut down on waste, then I'm okay with that, if we're not going to be using chocolate sticks, because we need to, you know, get this back to the Gulf of America and freedom fries. That's a whole different kind of thing, right? Like, let, uh,
John Shull 39:52
like, that's, I'm sorry, that's, I that's a bad idea. Yeah, you just had it. I mean, that is the. One thing so far with this administration out of the hundreds, if not 1000s of issues, but let's make sure that we rename the Gulf of Mexico into the Gulf of America.
Nick VinZant 40:11
But that's why I think that those things can sometimes resonate so much with people, is because the big things really kind of stay the way that they are because they're too big to really manipulate, or they're too big to really have quick changes for. But you can do the kind of slap some lipstick on the pig, and then people can say, like, Yeah, well, look with this,
John Shull 40:31
yeah. I mean, well, I guess that is kind of all politics. But
Nick VinZant 40:35
yes, um, everybody does it. Okay. Can we, uh, let's see,
John Shull 40:39
do you want to talk for a brief second about your near pooping catastrophe
Nick VinZant 40:44
from the weekend. Yeah, I'll talk about this. I'm not ashamed of it. So I've been going snowboarding with my two sons, and I'm trying to keep up with them, and they like to do the terrain park. And something that I did not realize is that if you land on your butt or the butt area hard enough you will poop yourself. And so there's been two times when I have a snowboarding where I've crashed really hard and thought that I was going to poop my pants. I didn't. I haven't pooped my pants yet, but I have come incredibly close. So if you ever like decide that you're going to go snowboarding or do something like that, you need to be aware that you need to kind of maybe clear the system, so to speak, before you go, because if you crash hard, you will poop yourself. It's like a natural reaction. You
John Shull 41:33
do not have to worry about me going snowboarding or skiing. So I did the jumps. That's all I have to say. I
Nick VinZant 41:41
didn't do it very well, but I did. I did it the
John Shull 41:44
jumps, huh? That's, that's pretty interesting. I did.
Nick VinZant 41:46
I actually got some air, like I cleared one of them. It's anyway, it's a whole thing. Let's just move on. Nobody cares. Alright. Well,
John Shull 41:52
that's all I got. Let's we should go, go talk game shows. Now, games. Okay, okay,
Nick VinZant 41:57
okay. So our top five is something that John has been wanting to talk about for basically ever since he was born. He constantly brings up Pat Sajak. He constantly brings up game shows. I have no idea what his obsession with game shows is, or why he seems to have a poster of Pat shade Jack and at one time had a cardboard cut out of him. So our top five is top five game shows of all time, tier number five, just
John Shull 42:20
for the record. Nick made some of that up. I was always a Alex Trebek guy, not necessarily a pass a jack person. The
Nick VinZant 42:30
fact that you even have to kind of make that stipulation and make that disclaimer shows that you're way too into game shows like nobody else would ever even have to say that they're an Alex Trebek person. Everybody knows that you're an Alex Trebek person, right? That's like saying I like cheeseburgers. Everybody knows it.
John Shull 42:49
I mean, I don't know. I feel like they're both. I mean, obviously one is deceased now, but I feel like they're they are both on the same level. No, they're
Nick VinZant 42:57
not popular. Ridiculous statement. No, not at all, not in any way. Never have been, not at all. That's like saying two plus two is 27
John Shull 43:06
fine. I'm going way back here with though not way back. I'm going to the 90s with my number five, a homer pick, but Legends of the Hidden Temple.
Nick VinZant 43:16
But does that really okay? I agree. Legends of the Hidden Temple is a great, probably the second best kids game show.
John Shull 43:31
I don't really have any others on there, so, all right, well, then I won't say the other one I'm thinking of. If you don't say it, I'll say it at the end. What's your number five? My
Nick VinZant 43:40
number five is, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire that that was, I think you could make an argument, the biggest game show of an era, because that was the only game show that they took and put on like prime time. That was on prime time television, not that kind of like six to seven hour.
John Shull 44:03
I mean, I actually have it a little further up on my list. So, okay, I'm going to come back to I have nothing but fantastic things to say about So my number four, the price is right. Okay,
Nick VinZant 44:17
I would have gone, personally, a little bit higher with prices, right, but I can I agree it should be on the top five.
John Shull 44:24
It's okay. I don't know. It's too This makes no sense what I'm about to say, and I can't convey it in a way that makes sense. It's just, it seems it's like too fabricated to me. It seems too stagey. I've never really liked Drew Carey, just, I don't know, just seems all meant to me,
Nick VinZant 44:41
he's somebody that you forgot was famous, like, oh yeah, he was famous like, oh yeah. Who cares? He's still around doing something. See,
John Shull 44:49
I really to me, he is just a, like, That guy's he's still here. Like, I thought he fell off the map years ago, but, well, he's just
Nick VinZant 44:57
been hosting prices, right, for like, the last 20 years. I think my number four is double dash.
John Shull 45:04
Okay, alright, not a big double dash fan. I think I've maybe seen in one or two episodes. I
Nick VinZant 45:09
think the double dash is the best kids game show, better than Legends of the Hidden Temple.
John Shull 45:14
Okay, so, so my, my, the other kid show that I really liked was with the aggro crag on Nickelodeon. I can't remember guts. Do do you have it? Guts? Oh,
Nick VinZant 45:28
okay, I remember it in theory, but not. I can't picture anything about it like I remember that it existed, and I've heard the name before, but I can't think of a thing, single thing about it, two, number three. My number
John Shull 45:39
three is probably my favorite show on my list, but it doesn't deserve a top two, but my number three is Fear Factor.
Nick VinZant 45:48
Oh, I wouldn't consider that a That, to me, is more of a reality show, but maybe splitting hairs a little bit, because then you could say, like, American Idol is a game show. The Bachelor is a game show. I
John Shull 46:01
mean, I think it's hard to argue that, that that they aren't really one within the same. I mean, you're still trying to win something at the end of the day. Yeah,
Nick VinZant 46:10
I guess
John Shull 46:12
like, like, uh, American
Nick VinZant 46:14
Idol is more reality to me than fear factor. Kind of crosses the line a little bit like, big
John Shull 46:21
brother to me, is reality TV. The Osbornes is reality TV. Yeah,
Nick VinZant 46:26
I guess you're, you're right. Like, I don't feel like you're 100% right, but you're closer to being right than I am.
John Shull 46:34
Well, that's, I think that's the only one I think that. I think that's the only one that kind of treads the line for me, my
Nick VinZant 46:41
number three. My number three is the price is right.
John Shull 46:45
Okay, that's, I mean, I did four. It's probably where it should be, right around there, three or four. Three or four. Okay, it's your number two. So my number two is, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
Nick VinZant 46:56
Oh, okay, that's pretty high for who. I'll agree that it's a big show, I'll agree that it's a big show. But I
John Shull 47:05
had two written down at number two, and I was like, I can only put one of these on the list because they're kind of the same show. So, but not really. It was either that or Deal or No Deal, but Howie Mandel ruins it for me, and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is like a question and answer game, and I love that. So, okay,
Nick VinZant 47:22
okay, my number two is Family Feud. Surprised that you don't have family feud on the
John Shull 47:27
list. Yeah, I don't have that. And I don't have what's the one that Steve Harvey hosts now,
Nick VinZant 47:33
Family Feud?
John Shull 47:37
Okay, yeah, okay, so that's the one. That's the one where they give you a category or a question, you have to, like, guess the answers, right? Yeah, yeah. I've, I've never seen it, really, ever.
Nick VinZant 47:49
I've obviously, what's the one that Steve Harvey's on Family Feud?
John Shull 47:54
Yeah? Well, I mean, that should tell you, right there. I guess
Nick VinZant 47:57
number one is obvious, correct?
John Shull 47:59
It has, it has to be right. Go for it, Wheel of Fortune.
Nick VinZant 48:08
Did you really put wheel of fortune as number one? No, I got jeopardy as my number Yeah, Jeopardy is number one. Jeopardy is the best game show of all time.
John Shull 48:18
It is, it's, it is, it's and I hear, I think it proves that, for a couple of reasons, was it a couple of years before the pandemic, when that James guy from Las Vegas took the whole show by storm and it became, it was, like, the number one show again across any network. Do you remember that? No,
Nick VinZant 48:38
it's a guy who hosts it now, when I didn't like, what saw when he went on a big run? Yeah,
John Shull 48:43
Ken Jennings, he's actually the reason why I wouldn't want to continue watching it. Oh, but, but appropriate
Nick VinZant 48:49
time, that's that I still
John Shull 48:51
watch it. So,
Nick VinZant 48:52
okay, okay. Um yeah, my number one is Jeopardy, okay, but which of the game shows that you put in your top five? Which one do you think that you would do the best at
John Shull 49:04
Legends of the Hidden Temple? Because I'd be racing against a bunch of fucking kids. No, you're
Nick VinZant 49:10
still the same age.
John Shull 49:12
Poof. I mean Jeopardy. I try to keep up with Jeopardy. There's no way I'd be good at that fear factor. I feel like you have to kind of be an athlete, so I'm not doing that, even though I'm not afraid of things. I guess the price is right, because you don't have to do much.
Nick VinZant 49:31
I think I would do the best at Family Feud. I would say that, let's say I don't know how many questions are in a Jeopardy round. If there's 20, I can maybe get five to 10 right. 10 being a really good day, and it's got to be the easier ones. I can maybe five to 10.
John Shull 49:50
I'd kick ass when any sports question comes up, usually, but when they start going and everything else is when I'm like, Oh, I'm going to sit this one out. Yeah.
Nick VinZant 49:59
I think I would do the best at Family Feud only by guessing what other people would say. What's in your honorable mention? I mean, there's,
John Shull 50:09
let's see. So Whose Line Is It Anyway?
Nick VinZant 50:11
Love that show.
John Shull 50:15
Sure it is. They bring people on and they run skits and like, play games. That's fair, that's fair. But I
Nick VinZant 50:23
still think show, bro, what?
John Shull 50:27
What does it fall under? Then, improv
Nick VinZant 50:29
comedy. It's an improv comedy. I don't think anybody would say it's a game show. Is it hosted by Steve Harvey?
John Shull 50:39
Maybe? Dealer, no deal. Like I said, I do have will of fortune on on the list. That's, that's kind of it. Cash Cab back in the day. Oh,
Nick VinZant 50:52
I don't know that way. I never liked any of those. Like sitting in the car always made me feel slightly nauseous. It's like, don't you just do this in a place where nobody's moving around. So, yeah, it was too much for me. Oh, okay, that's gonna go ahead and do it for this episode of Profoundly Pointless. I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, leave us a quick review. We really appreciate it really helps out the show and let us know what you think are the best game shows. I think the best thing for me, personally about this top five is, by doing it, we've finally gotten John to stop talking about it. The man has, like, a ridiculous obsession with game shows. I have no idea why I.
