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Ask HN: What scientific phenomenon do you wish someone would explain better?

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Re: Ask HN: What scientific phenomenon do you wish someone would explain better?

#21

Post by qqqqquinnnnn »

bobosha wrote: post #20
autonomousErwin wrote: post #8

Protein Folding

Isn't protein folding considered one of the biggest problems ever?

sure is.. but somehow biology manages it with few issues. It seems like it has a lot to do with the presence of chaperone proteins that babysit the protein as it's coming off the ribosome, preventing pieces of it from sticking together that shouldn't touch, etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein#/media/File:Chaperonin...

I'm working on making a model of this chaperone complex relative to a folded protein to get a sense of how it might be interacting with the amino acid chain before it becomes globular

Re: Ask HN: What scientific phenomenon do you wish someone would explain better?

#22

Post by davidmanheim »

Non-interactive zero knowledge proofs.

ZK proofs have a number of good explainers, mostly using graph colorings. Non-interactive versions, however, require quite a bit more than that explanation allows - and despite asking experts, I still haven't found a good, basic explanation.

Re: Ask HN: What scientific phenomenon do you wish someone would explain better?

#23

Post by airstrike »

The one-electron universe is always a personal favorite. Though more a far-fetched theory than a proper "scientific phenomena", I'd be eager to learn more about it in layman's terms

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dqtW9MslFk

Re: Ask HN: What scientific phenomenon do you wish someone would explain better?

#25

Post by anton_tarasenko »

Subreddit /r/askscience does a good job at explaining science in plain words. I usually google "site:reddit.com/r/askscience/ __QUESTION__".

The StackExchange sites have less coverage and answers tend to be more technical.

University websites return reliable answers, but often neither short nor accessible.

Re: Ask HN: What scientific phenomenon do you wish someone would explain better?

#28

Post by rantwasp »

crazypython wrote: post #3

Quantum Mechanics, and why we need interpretations of it.

the problem with quantum mechanics is that we cannot directly observe what is going on (and the instruments we use to do the observations are also subject to quantum mechanics effects), so to explain certain phenomena we have come up with different theories that approximate what is going on. These theories work for certain cases but nobody has come up with a comprehensive theory that can be experimentally tested and works for all cases.

Here is a few books you can read on the subject. They do a pretty good job on describing what the issue is and what the interpretations mean:

Max Tegmark - Our Mathematical Universe

Sean M. Carroll - Something Deeply Hidden

Adam Becker - What is real?

Here are some things you can google if you want to just skim the subject: Wave–particle duality, The Measurement Problem, Quantum decoherence, Copenhagen interpretation, Bell's theorem, Superdeterminism, Many-worlds interpretation, Ghirardi–Rimini–Weber theory (GRW).

Last but not least, look at the Wolfram Physics Project. (https://wolframphysics.org). The take on quantum mechanics if you go along with the idea of hyper-graph is fascinating (to me)

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