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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?

#161

Post by atmosx »

DevX101 wrote: post #158
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 bei…

> I think humans probably have some innate desire for institutions with religious-like properties.

Hm, but we grow in a religious setting, the larger part of the population. So, is it an innate desire or a designed reality for population control?

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

#162

Post by hprotagonist »

sameerds wrote: post #144
_nalply wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I always allow for the possibility that science is a faith (not religion) simply because there is no way to prove that the universe actually obeys laws that we can discover. Just because an apple fell down in the same way in each of a million experiments, it's not necessary that the relationship we discovered is a "law" that defines the universe. It could just as well be that the next time we try it, the apple falls…

it helps to translate “faith” as “trust in something, in which we can ground actions taken”, instead of “[intellectually] believing what we know ain’t so” and in that framing, yes, any endeavor requires an act of faith.

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

#163

Post by Viliam1234 »

JohnDeHope wrote: post #97
drran wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's false information. It's debunked multiple times. "Watching" means "placing or turning on an additional detector", which ruins interference pattern. To develop intuition, look at double slit experiment made at macro scale using walking droplet.

I'd really appreciate a few links to this. I am on a youtube binge lately watching quantum dynamics lectures for lay people. The constant talk about "watching" and "observers" drives me crazy. I refuse to believe anything has anything to do with whether or not anybody is "watching" anything. Bouncing photons off of it? Sure I can see how that would affect all sorts of things. But if the bouncing photons alter what's…

You make a good point. The problem is interacting with the particles, e.g. the photons bouncing off them. Don't poke the particle -- it only interferes with itself. Poke the particle -- now it is entangled with your measurement device, that means zillions of other particles, which changes the interference patterns.

But it is more complicated that this. Consider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elitzur%E2%80%93Vaidman_bomb_t... -- if you only poke the particle in a "parallel universe", that also changes its pattern in this one.

At the end, quantum physics says there are multiple "versions" of how the particles move, and those versions interfere with each other. By interacting with each other, particles become entangled, which means that the "versions" of their states are no longer calculated independently, but together.

There are disagreements of what exactly this means: some people believe that reality only has multiple "versions" on a microscopic level, but when the entangled configuration becomes large enough (how large? no one knows), the parallel computation collapses, one of these "versions" is randomly selected to become the actual reality and the remaining ones disappear. Other people believe that multiple "versions" is the whole story; that observing the outcome means that you (being composed of particles that follow the laws of physics) also become entangled with the particles in the experiment, and now there are multiple "versions" of you, each observing a different outcome.

So, I'd say you got it half-right. Yes, it is about "observation = interaction"; and "observer" is just a shortcut for "the thing that poked the experimental particle, optionally also a display connected to that thing, optionally also a person observing the display". (That is, you could also have a completely impersonal "observer", e.g. a machine that measures the particle but no one is looking at its display.) But quantum physics is a different thing than mere classical physics where you correct for photons being actual things that hit the measured particle. It means there actually are multiple outcomes, which then interfere with each other, at least on the microscopic level.

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

#164

Post by pks016 »

ffpip wrote: post #6

Not science, but Mathematics - That there are more ways to arrange a deck of 52 cards than seconds that have elapsed since the big bang took place. Thousands of similar questions on reddit for anyone interested- https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=science+fact+site%3Areddit....

From last few days I have been watching cards videos from numberphile. It's so fun and interesting.

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

#165

Post by Fragoel2 »

RhysU wrote: post #102
lazyjones wrote: post #15

A 2016 poll of 1,500 scientists reported that 70% of them had failed to reproduce at least one other scientist's experiment (50% had failed to reproduce one of their own experiments).

I would love to see this number for computational scientists.

I don't have a clear reference to point you to but in many CS research fields these number are equally bad. Often code is not even published and is a complete mess when it is.

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

#166

Post by bruce511 »

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…

Religion is an ambiguous term, which can be why arguments of this sort can get out of hand.

To some, religion = faith. And I think you'll find that most faith has little to say about science (and in the case of your example says nothing about the earth/sun relationship).

More commonly though, when referencing Religion you are really talking about Politics. Heliocentrasim, the crusades, Muslim terrorism, are all about politics, not faith.

When you make an argument using the word Religion in a political sense, but others read it as attacking their faith, then things get very ugly.

In other words you can be a devout Christian, and still consider the crusades to be awful. And you can be a good Muslim and consider 9/11 to be an act of war.

Most anytime someone talks about religion as being the cause of war and conflict, the root cause is politics, not faith.

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

#167

Post by Gibbon1 »

rootbear wrote: post #24
dilippkumar wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dual slit experiment produces different results? I must be thinking of something else - I thought that electrons passing through a dual slit always produce an interference pattern. Anyone got a link?

There is a long Wikipedia article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment The most mind boggling aspect of this for me is the single photon version, which is under the "Interference of individual particles" section of the above article. The point is that you get an interference pattern even when only a single photon at a time is sent through the slits!

Yeah this is the point where you stare down into the rabbit hole.

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

#170

Post by atmosx »

bruce511 wrote: post #166
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…

Religion is an ambiguous term, which can be why arguments of this sort can get out of hand. To some, religion = faith. And I think you'll find that most faith has little to say about science (and in the case of your example says nothing about the earth/sun relationship). More commonly though, when referencing Religion you are really talking about Politics. Heliocentrasim, the crusades, Muslim terrorism, are all about…

I'm sorry if I offended you, that was not my intention. Other than that, your reply doesn't make any sense, at all.
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