Science stuff that blew your mind when you first heard of it
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Daystar Clarion said:
depends where you are in space
space near a sun is a bit toasty. but "normal" deep space is close to absolute zero much colder than anywhere on earth its the lack of atmosphere that makes it more survivable than you would expect, there have been several accidents at extreme altitude in balloons and other near space craft which gave resulted in people being exposed to space in all practical senses and they have survived surprisingly well.For me it was the idea that the universe is actually expanding and at an increasing rate , there will come a time when thanks to the relative speeds you will look up into the night sky and see no stars, the light simply wont ever reach us.
Incorrect. Thanks to radiation (a form of heat transfer, along with convection and conduction), your body naturally gives off Infrared radiation (we call it heat). It's the reason that if you put a bunch of people in a small room, it will heat up rather fast. It's also the reason why space is extremely cold. However, you can survive a vacuum without dying, so long as you don't try to breathe in, lest your diaphragm tear your lungs apart. There was an incident at NASA a while back where a technician was exposed to a vacuum for something like 30 seconds and was just fine afterwards. He didn't freeze because even in a vacuum (on Earth) there is still... heat radiation. Physics never cease to blow my mind.*Daystar Clarion said:
OT: Quantum entanglement. Heard it used in Half-Life 2, thought it was bollocks. So I looked it up and what do you know, it's a real, proven, observed phenomenon. The universe is straight up weird at times.
*I'll freely admit that I'm not a physicist, or even a degreed engineer, not yet at least, but this was talked about this repeatedly in both my high school and college physics courses during the thermodynamics sections.
From what I understand of paleontologists, that question may not be much of a stretchaxlryder said:
If they ever managed to find one with the squishy bits preserved I wouldn't be completely shocked if the article about the discovery included the line "and then the researcher licked it". Scientists are pretty crazy as a rule, and the dirt diggers take it as a challenge 
The neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran's work. He's basically deobfuscating the workings of the brain and using it to cure disorders caused by head trauma and other injuries. Listen to one of his lectures, he's easy to find on YouTube. Holy Crap moments abound.
Thermodynamics. The notions of heat exchange within/between systems, entropy, and conservation of a fixed amount of matter/energy are so beautiful and link everything in the universe together in such an elegant way. That's what got me into physics in the first place. Quantum mechanics and relativity are interesting and enlightening, but they're very alien to everyday life and take a lot of mental training to understand. Thermodynamics makes instant, intuitive sense, and knowing the subject makes it easy to intuit how random things in everyday life work. From understanding how ethanol fuel can't provide more energy than is used to produce it, to immediately getting why body temperature can be used to determine a person's time of death, to explaining to my mother why coffee can't get hotter than the hot plate the carafe sits on, it's a really useful and logical system that makes the world make more sense.
Action potentials.
Our cells have a membrane with an electric current caused by potassium ions leaking over the membrane and constantly pumps them back in and pumps sodium ions outside. This causes a negative membrane potential. When sodium ions enter the membrane will depolarize and when it reaches a certain point several sodium channels will open and the potential will spike before it quickly plummets to a value below normal. That is an action potential.
Why is this so mind blowing? Because this is what triggers every neuron or muscle fiber in our body. Every muscle movement is caused by action potentials originating in our brain then sending signals to motoric units with lots of action potentials doing this and a lot of them causing us to sense things which in turn sends signals back to the brain.
I wont go into the complexities here, but that is the most amazing thing I know. Mainly because of the knowledge that it happens constantly and we don't even have to think about the mechanics.
Our cells have a membrane with an electric current caused by potassium ions leaking over the membrane and constantly pumps them back in and pumps sodium ions outside. This causes a negative membrane potential. When sodium ions enter the membrane will depolarize and when it reaches a certain point several sodium channels will open and the potential will spike before it quickly plummets to a value below normal. That is an action potential.
Why is this so mind blowing? Because this is what triggers every neuron or muscle fiber in our body. Every muscle movement is caused by action potentials originating in our brain then sending signals to motoric units with lots of action potentials doing this and a lot of them causing us to sense things which in turn sends signals back to the brain.
I wont go into the complexities here, but that is the most amazing thing I know. Mainly because of the knowledge that it happens constantly and we don't even have to think about the mechanics.
One thing that really blew me away was something Bill Bryson mentioned in his book A Short History Of Nearly Everything:
?It is a slightly arresting notion that if you were to pick yourself apart with tweezers, one atom at a time, you would produce a mound of fine atomic dust, none of which had ever been alive but all of which had once been you.?
Had to go lie down after that! (cant recommend that book enough tho!)
?It is a slightly arresting notion that if you were to pick yourself apart with tweezers, one atom at a time, you would produce a mound of fine atomic dust, none of which had ever been alive but all of which had once been you.?
Had to go lie down after that! (cant recommend that book enough tho!)
When I learned that non-dairy creamer + road flare + air pressure machine =
Also, when methane + dish soap + H2O =
And when sulfur hexaflouride + human vocal cords =
Also, when methane + dish soap + H2O =
And when sulfur hexaflouride + human vocal cords =
In "black" space, around orbit altitude it reads 4 Kelvin (ie Four degrees kelvin = -269 Celsius = -452 Fahrenheit)Daystar Clarion said:
oh yeah wise guy, well if pikachu's evolved from pichu's why are there still pichu's huh? Yeah, your fancy pokedexy science can't explain that now can it!TizzytheTormentor said:
Satan just put those thunderstones in the ground as a test of faith! To make people stray from the path of poke-righteousness
My mind was blown when I realized there is very likely an infinite number of me in alternate dimensions. It means that nothing I do matters and free will is merely a mathematical expression of every possibility occurring. Also, there is either an infinite number of Gods or only one and she must have very little control over my life. If every possibility is its own reality, God can't really do anything. Still waiting for someone to update the God myth to account for this.
Quantum Levitation, It's been known about for a long time (since the 40's I think) but seeing in action is pretty amazing.
Also when I found out the technology behind light guns we use for computer games was invented in the 1920's and was used in fairgrounds at first.
Also when I found out the technology behind light guns we use for computer games was invented in the 1920's and was used in fairgrounds at first.
The Sun converts four million tons of matter into energy each second. Four. Million. Tons. Each and every second.
The Earth receives only four and a half pounds worth of that energy. Nevertheless, if we could fully capture only .01 percent of that energy (not 1 percent, .01 percent), we could completely meet all our current energy needs.
The Earth receives only four and a half pounds worth of that energy. Nevertheless, if we could fully capture only .01 percent of that energy (not 1 percent, .01 percent), we could completely meet all our current energy needs.
Yep, uncertainty and the effects of observation fried my brain pretty good. However I would say the realization that we are in fact star dust that all of the heavier elements that make us and the world around us was created through the life and death of stars. I mean that's just mind bending, we are a physical part of this universe. Knowing this, does that mean we are the universe trying to understand itself?
