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Thoughts that make your head explode

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shane.t
Posts: 729 - Karma: 364

Post ideas that absolutely make your head almost explode, i'll start:

What language animals do think in? Like when they need to eat what do they think?

May 19 2012 4:46PM
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chicken
Posts: 6843 - Karma: 2,121
I agree with this. I hated physics in high school. I hated general physics in first year university. If they hand't have had a unit on modern physics and a unit on special relativity I would have never switched into physics.

At least that stuff is easy though. Easy concepts. In my opinion classical thermodynamics was really difficult.
Oct 8 2012 5:39PM
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king.tubby
Posts: 2865 - Karma: 122
yup this.
Oct 9 2012 12:05AM
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JWoods
Posts: 2369 - Karma: 2,635
I haven't been able to re find the article but they found sound waves were able to travel faster than light through a certain medium
Oct 9 2012 1:08AM
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hot.pocket
Posts: 4235 - Karma: 10,717
A physicist is just an atom trying to understand itself.
Oct 9 2012 4:19AM
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chicken
Posts: 6843 - Karma: 2,121
nothing can travel faster than c, the speed of light in a vacuum. Things can travel faster than light in other mediums. For example, electrons can travel faster than light through water. If you have a charged particle moving through a polarizable medium faster than light, there is basically a "sonic boom" and you get something called Cherenkov radiation.

when people say nothing can travel faster than light, they mean nothing can travel faster than c. which as far as we know is a fact.
Oct 9 2012 4:20AM
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Zimmerman
Posts: 6992 - Karma: 1,021
So the speed of an electron in water can be faster than light in a vacuum, but does that mean it is also faster than light in water?
Oct 9 2012 9:08AM
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chicken
Posts: 6843 - Karma: 2,121
I never said that. The speed of an electron in water <b>can not</b> be faster than the speed that light travels in a vacuum. It can however be faster than the speed that light travels in water. So an electron can outrun light in water, but cannot travel faster than "the speed of light".
Oct 9 2012 12:45PM
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chicken
Posts: 6843 - Karma: 2,121
bold fail haha.
Oct 9 2012 12:45PM
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Da_Buddha
Posts: 802 - Karma: 1,182
Oct 9 2012 1:30PM
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JWoods
Posts: 2369 - Karma: 2,635
Here I found this, apparently when I read it 5 years ago I didn't fully grasp the concept
Oct 9 2012 3:29PM
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~bagelz~
Posts: 1105 - Karma: 1,067
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlx2PgESXhs
doesnt really make my head explode but its still interesting
Oct 9 2012 3:39PM
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chicken
Posts: 6843 - Karma: 2,121
haha. that guy is crazy!

cool machine, but not perpetual motion.
Oct 9 2012 4:06PM
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Zimmerman
Posts: 6992 - Karma: 1,021
Ah, thank you.
Oct 10 2012 6:31AM
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Newschool_Pope
Posts: 2473 - Karma: 267
smoke dmt and you will know.
Oct 10 2012 6:40AM
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chicken
Posts: 6843 - Karma: 2,121
ahh, that stuff is crazy but you still aren't sending a signal faster than c.

there are other things that initially seem strange, like how distant galaxies can move away from us faster than c.

they all don't violate special relativity though. as far as we know, that speed limit still exists. A large portion of modern physics is built on these principles and they have been tested to insane accuracies.

If we were to show this to be wrong it would be an INSANE paradigm shift. It would be kind of like biologists discovering that there was no such thing as evolution.
Oct 10 2012 1:02PM
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cbj
Posts: 2114 - Karma: 1,136
Can you link me this article? I would love to read it :) as far as nothing being able to move faster than light, I say who are we to know, the laws of special relativity break down at the speed of light as well. (such as the mass of a photon approaching zero and it's length approaching infinity.) but I'm not gonna say I'm entirely correct, it's not like any of us are experts anyways.
Oct 10 2012 1:15PM
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chicken
Posts: 6843 - Karma: 2,121
I don't think they do. The rest mass of a photon is zero. If you were a photon travelling from a galaxy 5 billion light years away, to an observers eye on earth, your journey would be instantaneous. even though to the observer on earth, the journey took 5 billion years.

but infinity is a crazy fucking thing. In fact if anything in this thread makes your head explode, it should be the notion of infinity. If infinity doesn't seem crazy to you, you probably haven't really thought about it.

I just don't think that special relativity breaks down at the speed of light. as long as you can accept the infinities. which is a hard thing to do.
Oct 10 2012 2:36PM
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cbj
Posts: 2114 - Karma: 1,136
Have to agree with you. The concept of infinity is a mind boggler, that's for sure.

I'm just wondering if the speed of light (c) can be broken. Think about this:
What if we could somehow "pour" energy into a photon already moving at c in a vacuum, say with Gamma rays. Maybe photons are the only particle that can move that fast, but also maybe photons can move faster than c. Just my imagination speaking!


Oct 10 2012 3:06PM
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chicken
Posts: 6843 - Karma: 2,121
It will remain at the same velocity. Gamma rays are just photons anyways. So if you could "pour" energy into a photon, it would just have an increased frequency. It would not speed up.
Oct 10 2012 4:37PM
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Newschool_Pope
Posts: 2473 - Karma: 267
why are pipe gloves called pipe gloves? i mean really... why?
Oct 10 2012 4:53PM
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cbj
Posts: 2114 - Karma: 1,136
Would it though? Because I know photons behave as particles and waves, but wouldn't an increased frequency mean it needs to travel a greater distance to get from point a to b? Like in a sin wave, if you increase the frequency, then the arc length of one period gets larger. My information may be off as I'm writing this based off of gr. 12 calculus and physics knowledge, but do you kind of get my idea? And gamma rays are not photons. A photon is a particle that behaves as a wave, a gamma ray is pure energy that is a wave that behaves as a wave.
Oct 10 2012 5:14PM
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chicken
Posts: 6843 - Karma: 2,121
This makes no sense. what is "pure energy"? Gamma rays are particles (photons). All particles exhibit wave-particle duality.

You can't think of wave particle duality like the particle is a thing that travels along a wave-shaped path. I'm thinking of those toys at the dentist office where you have beads that follow those crazy shaped paths. A photon is not like one of those beads following a sine shaped path.

If you want to learn more just search up the heisenburg uncertainty principle and the Copenhagen interpretation and the harmonic oscillator. Quantum mechanics is crazy. Trying to visualize this stuff is damn near impossible.

It's hard to understand, and I can't pretend I understand all this stuff. I do have a foundation though and kind of know what I am talking about. You need a degree in physics and a bunch of graduate level quantum field theory courses to understand this stuff. So give me a few years haha.
Oct 10 2012 6:53PM
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dirtylion27
Posts: 403 - Karma: 21
Ive always wanted to know the moment when your drunk when you just stop remembering stuff. like its hard to explain but every time im drunk i feel like whats going on is already a memory that im thinking about from the next morning... so at what point do i completely forget what was happening
Oct 10 2012 7:05PM
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Zimmerman
Posts: 6992 - Karma: 1,021
Kindof like the moment you fall asleep
Oct 10 2012 7:11PM
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Snowtorious_BIG
Posts: 659 - Karma: 1,467
How could I possibly be such a great skiier???
Oct 10 2012 7:20PM
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Caspaaa
Posts: 4830 - Karma: 1,466
Four or five times in the past year this has happened to me. I'm sitting on the couch, just chilling with some friends or the girlfriend or my brother. Were watching a show and I remark to either my friend or girlfriend or brother, "yo i love this part, this is hilarious." they respond, "this is a new episode...."

we check the listing, sure enough, it's a new episode. i proceed to recall what happens within the next 5 minutes of the episode, and they do end up happening; however, i don't know how the episode ends.



it's fucking weird. like dejavu but on a future level....?
Oct 10 2012 7:39PM
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cbj
Posts: 2114 - Karma: 1,136
I think what you mean to say is that gamma rays are electromagnetic radiation, and that light is also a form of electromagnetic radiation. Sorry I misunderstood you.

And yeah! It's so exciting! I'm actually a first year at UNBC here in Prince George, studying to get a BSc in physics and maybe then master in nuclear physics. Of course, I'm not really qualified, I have a physics 12 education right now and my Phys 110 class is still doing vector addition... But this realm is so interesting, and I cannot wait for my 3rd and 4th year physics courses.

It's really nice to meet someone who finds physics as interesting as I do. You sound like an intelligent guy, and I've enjoyed our scientific dispute thus far.
Oct 10 2012 7:45PM
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chicken
Posts: 6843 - Karma: 2,121
if by light you mean visible light, then yes they are both different forms of emr. visible light just has a much lower frequency. both are photons

I already said this in the pm, but in case anyone is following this, I just said that EMR is a disturbance in the electromagnetic field that is far enough away from the source (a moving charged particle) , that it does not feel the effects of the source. A photon is the quantum for the electromagnetic interaction.

also that's sweet that you are taking physics. once you finish with the boring billiard ball stuff physics becomes awesome. It also becomes tough. I think it is the only degree that you will basically use every single concept from the calculus classes!

I am also interested in doing research in nuclear physics. Although I am doing a double major in geology just in case I change my mind about grad school.
Oct 10 2012 8:42PM
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dirtylion27
Posts: 403 - Karma: 21
But not really cuz you feel your eyes closing. Theres a drunk point where you go from this is right now in the moment to holy shit i was doing that last night when you think back in the morning
Oct 10 2012 9:04PM
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Malcolm
Posts: 15953 - Karma: 9,497
Some shows can be super predictable
Oct 10 2012 9:06PM
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Zimmerman
Posts: 6992 - Karma: 1,021
That's so fucky.
Oct 10 2012 10:37PM
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.Apex.
Posts: 2097 - Karma: 1,556
Then I'll be the first to fuck one
Oct 11 2012 4:44PM
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DrZoidberg
Posts: 5676 - Karma: 4,297
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2012/advanced-physicsprize2012_02.pdf

Here's a thought, they observed something in a superimposed state. Physics lolwut.

Here's the less sciency version, where ions behave similar to circus animals...
Oct 11 2012 4:50PM
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doyle.
Posts: 1624 - Karma: 596
bump
this shit is crazy

Oct 27 2012 5:29PM
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.Annydrew.
Posts: 749 - Karma: 38
thinking about what happens when we die, and when we die that we may live for eternal, scares the shit out of me.
Oct 27 2012 5:46PM
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Darth.Maul
Posts: 2472 - Karma: 652
Indeed! Never underestimate the power of infinity! I'm bringing out my Gabriels Horn equation again.

For those of you who weren't in the Useful Facts thread:
Gabriels horn is the shape produced by revolving the graph 1/x around the x-axis from 1 to infinity. If you calculate its volume, you get a finite number... BUT if you calculate its surface area, you get infinity. So its can't hold enough paint to even paint its outside a infinitely small amount.

My calculus proof: (click to make bigger)
Click for larger image

Another interesting concept that has been disputed before but pertains to infinite series:
0.99999999999999999...... = 1

Now I'm gonna get bitched at for this but think about it in this way. For two numbers to be 2 different numbers, there has to be a real number inbetween them right? There isn't any number that exists between .9999999... (repeating forever) and 1. So therefore they are the same number.

Another one of my favorite infinity related stories.

Its called Hotel Infinity and its a great read

Oct 27 2012 7:37PM
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shane.t
Posts: 729 - Karma: 364
I'm just gonna bump this because of all the cool shit in here
Mar 20 2013 1:19PM
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ReelTeamSix
Posts: 129 - Karma: 63
I'll start adding some more cool shit...
Give the "Interference of Individual Particles" section a read if you have the time, its a crazy, yet extremely reproducible phenomenon.
Basically, the type of experiment started with light, you have two slits next to each other, a tiny distance apart, and when you shine light through it, an interference pattern is produced, meaning that the light was exhibiting wave properties. It was a pretty big thing. Then someone did the same experiment, but instead of shooting light through the slits, they used electrons. If the electrons are shot one at a time, once enough are shot, theres a clear interference pattern on the other side of the slits (picture in article)- they dont just travel straight once they pass through the slit, but they dont spread randomly either. If theres only one electron being shot at a time, theres nothing else going through that can interfere with it, so it must be interfering with itself. And to do that, the single electron must be traveling through both side by side slits at the same time.
Jun 1 2013 2:33PM
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alex=
Posts: 1738 - Karma: 2,835
the fact that 4 other earth-like planets have been discovered (likely inhabiting O2).
I want NOTHING more than to be the first person to go there and explore it. shit would be so cash
Jun 1 2013 2:40PM
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Logey.
Posts: 2996 - Karma: 456
Read an article a while ago about this person that brought in a car skeleton to be carbon dated. The person, I think it was a lady, knew that the cat died twenty or so years ago but the scientists predicted it was over 100,000,000 years old with the carbon dating method. Kind of makes you think why stuff like this doesn't make the news. And it makes me wonder how they can even take carbon dating as a valid source of dating techniques
Jun 1 2013 3:15PM
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SirFryanator
Posts: 11149 - Karma: 1,416
1 instance of scientists fucking up does not mean the entire technique is invalid...

just saying!
Jun 2 2013 11:40AM
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elinde
Posts: 1477 - Karma: 3,079
you have never taken basic physics
Jun 2 2013 11:50AM
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Miomo
Posts: 4302 - Karma: 14,135
I'm pretty sure carbon dating only works after thousands of years...
Jun 2 2013 12:19PM
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maui
Posts: 5 - Karma: 16
You will never be able to count the number of chameleons in your house
Jun 2 2013 3:20PM
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gudelo.
Posts: 487 - Karma: 669
I just realised this today, our solar system look pretty much alike an atom, so what if we are an atom inside maybe a rock in another solar system or earth. We have spotted other solar systems in our galaxy and other galaxies, maybe those solar systems or atoms are atoms in the same rock, and outside "our" rock there is other rocks with other solar systems inside. Just a tought i had, and i tried to explain as good as i can, English is my 2. language
Jun 2 2013 3:57PM
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ReelTeamSix
Posts: 129 - Karma: 63
I don't know if you're grasping what an atom looks like... the electron cloud is only a probability map, not actual placement, and the planetary model of the atom is incorrect, but I like how you're thinking. Reminds of the marbles or whatever in men in black that are actually galaxies
Jun 2 2013 10:40PM
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MontanaMountains
Posts: 385 - Karma: 699
Click for larger image
Jun 2 2013 11:19PM
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Logey.
Posts: 2996 - Karma: 456
Hasn't been just once.. There was a ton of other examples of them "fucking up". The amount of shit scientists come up with is astounding to me. Everyone believes What they say because they have the title scientist. They could say whatever they wanted and people would feed into that shit
Jun 2 2013 11:32PM
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chicken
Posts: 6843 - Karma: 2,121
radioactive dating is fairly accurate.
Jun 2 2013 11:38PM
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Logey.
Posts: 2996 - Karma: 456
As in radiocarbon dating?
Jun 2 2013 11:55PM
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