Weird Physics Facts
telegraph.co.uk
Weird Physics Facts
1–10 of 26 posts
Re: Weird Physics Facts
#2One more weird fact: scientists conduct experiment that show that reality doesn't exist!
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=937329
Basically they found out that properties do not exist until after they are observed.
Re: Weird Physics Facts
#3"All the matter that makes up the human race could fit in a sugar cube"
That makes me think: what is the size of an atom (or whatever kind of particle we are talking about)? What does it even consist of? It seems easy to think about "nothing" and "stuff", because we perceive solid things all the time - but I can't make sense of the solid things.
Re: Weird Physics Facts
#4"All the matter that makes up the human race could fit in a sugar cube" That makes me think: what is the size of an atom (or whatever kind of particle we are talking about)? What does it even consist of? It seems easy to think about "nothing" and "stuff", because we perceive solid things all the time - but I can't make sense of the solid things.
Well the perception of "solid" actually just comes from the repelling of like charges. The nucleus in the center is condensed positive charge and neutrons. When protons collide really what's happening is that they start repelling each other.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=933534 You can see the carbon atom relative to 12 point font if you zoom in.
Re: Weird Physics Facts
#5"All the matter that makes up the human race could fit in a sugar cube" That makes me think: what is the size of an atom (or whatever kind of particle we are talking about)? What does it even consist of? It seems easy to think about "nothing" and "stuff", because we perceive solid things all the time - but I can't make sense of the solid things.
The bits they're talking about are atomic nuclei, in which the vast majority of an atom's mass is concentrated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geiger%E2%80%93Marsden_experime...
As to feeling 'solid things', Feynman has an engaging popular explanation:
Re: Weird Physics Facts
#6Another weird phenomenon is the Unhruh effect, one interpretation of which states that an accelerated observer will disagree with an unaccelerated observer as to the number of particles in a system. You get some weird stuff when you combine QFT and GR.
Re: Weird Physics Facts
#7One more weird fact: scientists conduct experiment that show that reality doesn't exist! http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=937329 Basically they found out that properties do not exist until after they are observed.
It seems that, just like Haskell, the universe operates according to lazy evaluation.
Re: Weird Physics Facts
#8One more weird fact: scientists conduct experiment that show that reality doesn't exist! http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=937329 Basically they found out that properties do not exist until after they are observed.
Physics has been a recent interest for me, for all its weirdness. I was thinking about this issue in particular yesterday. Made me think of Thirteenth Floor - the simulation doesn't need to happen until someone observes it Maybe we were written in a functional language with Lazy Evaluation.
Maybe the issue isn't if it the tree makes a sound - does it fall at all if there's no one around?
Re: Weird Physics Facts
#9[The sun] is hot because its enormous weight – about a billion billion billion tons – creates vast gravity, putting its core under colossal pressure.
But, isn't it hot because the confinement permits nuclear fusion? Just sitting there and having gravity is totally related to being hot or not; it's not like you can create energy out of nothing. If the sun were made of bananas, wouldn't it just become a very compact, cold sphere of crushed bananas?
Re: Weird Physics Facts
#10One more weird fact: scientists conduct experiment that show that reality doesn't exist! http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=937329 Basically they found out that properties do not exist until after they are observed.
The results are still debated though.