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Ask HN: What is a science fact that blew your mind when you learned it?

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Re: Ask HN: What is a science fact that blew your mind when you learned it?

#151

Post by giantg2 »

moistly wrote: post #121
m463 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one driving your car too. :)

Not if your mirrors are set correctly. Lean your head to the side window, set the mirror so that it just misses the tail end of your car. Position your head over the centre console, set the mirror. There is now approximately no blind spot. You can fine-tune by careful observation on a multi-lane highway as people pass/you pass others. Done correctly, there is no blind spot.

Upvoted but wanted to add that this also requires the right mirrors. If you try to tow some trailers with a vehicle that doesn't have tow mirrors, then you could have a blind spot, especially behind the trailer if it blocks your regular rear view mirror.

Re: Ask HN: What is a science fact that blew your mind when you learned it?

#152

Post by hprotagonist »

_nalply wrote: post #140
hprotagonist wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, of course, Popperian falsifiability is itself unfalsafiable, and therefore does not meet its own definition as a member of itself. Popper knew this, by the way. So the inverse to the trap you point out here is the claims that "if not falsifiable, then unable to be true/useful", which is just as specious.

Aha! Now that's why some people say that science is a religion, too.

for much more, https://philpapers.org/rec/HAASSO

but at this point i would say that "religion" is a very squirmy thing to define meaningfully without a lot of "well, but except when ..." clauses tacked onto the end.

Re: Ask HN: What is a science fact that blew your mind when you learned it?

#154

Post by bjourne »

JohnDeHope wrote: post #94

I absolutely cannot psychologically deal with the Monty Haul paradox. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem I've coded it multiple times in multiple programming languages as a cathartic exercise. Despite seeing the results obviously printed out in a console in front of me, I just can't handle it. I lose SAN just thinking about it.

If it makes you feel better, famous Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdös didn't understand it either. One of his colleagues had to write a computer program simulating it before he accepted it to be true.

Re: Ask HN: What is a science fact that blew your mind when you learned it?

#155

Post by atmosx »

Not a science fact per se: Until recently I haven't realised the amount of damage inflicted by religion or in the name of religion if you will, to our species. Take Heliocentrism[^1] for example, it was alluded in the 5th century BC that the Earth revolves around the sun and that stars are other "suns". Then religion came along. Galileo nearly died for re-iterating a theory that was accepted by part of the scientific community nearly 2000 years before him.

In similar fashion, years ago while studying the circulatory system for the anatomy class I came across a wikipedia article. This particular part of the circulatory system was documented in detail by Egyptians in 200 BC. Knowledge came from the mummification process. The next breakthrough in this area was made in the 19th century.

Looks like our species could have a colony in Mars by now, if science were allowed to breakthrough linearly.

[^1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliocentrism

Re: Ask HN: What is a science fact that blew your mind when you learned it?

#156

Post by shaftway »

perk wrote: post #32
cbsks wrote: post #23

I think "mind blown" is an accurate description when I first saw the Hubble Deep Field image: https://hubblesite.org/contents/articles/hubble-deep-fields I already knew that "the universe is incomprehensibly large", but seeing how many entire galaxies there were in a random dark patch of sky was eye opening to me.

Don't know exactly why, but thinking about the vastness of the universe always cheers me up. Thanks for sharing :)

It makes me sad.

Born too late to explore the world; born too early to live forever and explore the entire universe; born just in time to make dank memes.

Re: Ask HN: What is a science fact that blew your mind when you learned it?

#157

Post by shaftway »

moistly wrote: post #121
m463 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one driving your car too. :)

Not if your mirrors are set correctly. Lean your head to the side window, set the mirror so that it just misses the tail end of your car. Position your head over the centre console, set the mirror. There is now approximately no blind spot. You can fine-tune by careful observation on a multi-lane highway as people pass/you pass others. Done correctly, there is no blind spot.

There are always blind spots. You covered a blind spot, but not all of them. Some of them are surprising.

https://www.wthr.com/article/news/investigations/13-investig...

Re: Ask HN: What is a science fact that blew your mind when you learned it?

#158

Post by DevX101 »

atmosx wrote: post #155

Not a science fact per se: Until recently I haven't realised the amount of damage inflicted by religion or in the name of religion if you will, to our species. Take Heliocentrism[^1] for example, it was alluded in the 5th century BC that the Earth revolves around the sun and that stars are other "suns". Then religion came along. Galileo nearly died for re-iterating a theory that was accepted by part of the scientific…

I'm not personally religious but I'd be very careful before assuming religion, an institution that's been with humans for thousands of years, was a net negative.

I think humans probably have some innate desire for institutions with religious-like properties. And as we've become more secular over the past 60 years, there's been an increase in people that seem to be making politics the replacement, which may end up being more destructive than theistic religion ever was.

Re: Ask HN: What is a science fact that blew your mind when you learned it?

#159

Post by shaftway »

JohnDeHope wrote: post #94

I absolutely cannot psychologically deal with the Monty Haul paradox. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem I've coded it multiple times in multiple programming languages as a cathartic exercise. Despite seeing the results obviously printed out in a console in front of me, I just can't handle it. I lose SAN just thinking about it.

The explanation that makes it more visceral for me is to increase the number of doors:

  - You pick a door (let's say 17)
  - I open 98 doors (let's say 1 - 16, 18 - 78, and 80 - 100)
  - Only doors 17 and 79 are still closed
Does that help make it more intuitive?

Re: Ask HN: What is a science fact that blew your mind when you learned it?

#160

Post by mrfusion »

Stratoscope wrote: post #38

Electrons in a copper wire do not travel at the speed of electricity. Not even close. Electricity travels at nearly the speed of light. Electrons themselves travel like molasses: "In the case of a 12 gauge copper wire carrying 10 amperes of current (typical of home wiring), the individual electrons only move about 0.02 cm per sec or 1.2 inches per minute (in science this is called the drift velocity of the electrons.…

Now what if a wire was moving backwards in the opposite direction faster than the drift velocity? Could current still flow?
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