This episode is brought to you by The End of Oak Street, in theaters August 14th.
In this special sponsored episode of Curiosity Theory, hosts Justin Shaifer and Dr. Dakotah Tyler break down the real science behind The End of Oak Street, in theaters August 14th.
The discussion moves from favorite dinosaurs and the basic premise of the film to the actual physics of what it would take to travel back in time, including the Kardashev scale, E=mc², and why you would need to convert roughly 50 Jupiters worth of mass into pure energy just to get started. From there they get into what prehistoric Earth actually looked like: a planet running hotter than today, with higher oxygen levels, no grass, and a North American interior that was completely underwater.
The conversation also covers what you would eat if modern food didn't exist, why the cycad plants that dominated the era would not exactly be a meal, why prehistoric insects could grow to the size of your arm, why a giant frog the size of a beach ball was a real animal, and why none of that is actually what would kill you. The biggest threat to any time traveler isn't the T-Rex — it's the bacteria your immune system has never encountered. They close on the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago and what the world might have looked like if it had missed entirely.
Chapters
00:00:00 Intro and the premise of The End Of Oak Street
00:01:00 Favorite dinosaurs and what we actually know about them
00:03:02 North America used to be an ocean
00:04:37 The energy physics of time travel and the Kardashev scale
00:08:19 How long could you actually survive without modern technology
00:09:41 Prehistoric climate: how much hotter was it really
00:12:00 What water sources would even be safe to drink
00:15:22 What food was available and why most of it would starve you
00:21:23 Time travel mechanics in the film: wormholes and causality
00:28:31 Why prehistoric insects were gigantic and how oxygen made it possible
00:32:25 Beelzebufo: the giant frog that was very real
00:33:42 Humans vs. prehistoric predators — we were at the bottom
00:42:49 The bacteria and disease that would actually kill you first
00:46:26 Would prehistoric plants make good bio weapons?
00:49:00 Fire, survival skills, and your best chance of making it
00:55:17 What if the asteroid never hit 66 million years ago?
00:55:28 Birds are dinosaurs and why that matters
00:57:50 Final thoughts and why you should go see The End Of Oak Street
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Sponsored by The End of Oak Street — in theaters August 14th.
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