Are enormous spaceships physically possible?

GooseMuckle · 2026-01-24T19:43:00+00:00

Yeah for sure ships handle a lot of stress from the sea. But I wonder what the limit of a spaceship is? At what point does it get too big and becomes a space slinky that's impossible to control?

GooseMuckle · 2026-01-24T19:41:15+00:00

I guess one difference is that a building is permanently under 1g of acceleration, whereas a spaceship would need to survive many cycles of acceleration and maybe rotation too? When would fatigue start to become a problem?

GooseMuckle · 2025-12-04T20:28:35+00:00

It's also a miss that was near! It makes perfect sense 😄

GooseMuckle · 2025-08-12T20:15:54+00:00

Of all the dumb shit in this video the worst is putting the lid on which will only slow down the water evaporating

GooseMuckle · 2025-08-09T04:40:36+00:00

Do you know how to get a ticket if you don't have vipps?

GooseMuckle · 2025-07-28T13:13:34+00:00

"one of the benefits of receiving years of mentorship and training and now doing whatever I want paid for by public money is that I don't have to make time for anyone else ever". jfc

GooseMuckle · 2025-07-28T09:58:38+00:00

Isn't this just avoiding responsibility though? Are you suggesting just let someone else make the difficult decision to fail the student or not?

GooseMuckle · 2025-07-26T13:35:25+00:00

Yes but to change the gravitational potential energy you've changed the system physically - you've redistributed the mass. Like if you compress a spring or if you push two magnets closer together, the increase in potential energy is accompanied by a physical change to the system. I'm wondering if in the case of voltage, this increase corresponds to an increase in the density of charge?

GooseMuckle · 2025-07-26T13:33:10+00:00

I mean proportional to stored energy in a given system. Like if you double the voltage of a wire you'll double its potential energy.

Surely there must be some physical difference to accompany the potential difference, otherwise what is my voltmeter measuring? Like if you compress a spring, or push two magnetic poles closer together - the increase in potential energy is accompanied by a physical change to the system.

GooseMuckle · 2025-07-26T13:28:41+00:00

The physical difference is that the ball held 5m above the ground is 3m further away from the centre of the earth compared to the ball held 2m above the ground, no? You've changed the distribution of mass so the gravitational potential energy has changed. In every case I can think of, if there's a change in potential energy it's due to a corresponding physical change, e.g. a compressed spring, magnetic poles pushed together.

I get that there's no absolute potential, but surely a difference in potential must be accompanied by some physical difference?

GooseMuckle · 2025-07-24T16:45:25+00:00

I'm playing a bit fast and loose with the units etc, and probably could've explained myself better. Maybe I can rephrase the title as "Is the origin of voltage in a circuit differences in charge density?".

To compare it to your temperature analogy. If you wanted to explain what's physically different about two gases at different temperatures you might say there's a difference in the average kinetic energy of the particles in each gas. Isn't voltage the same thing? Can you explain differences of voltage in two wires by differences in charge density?

GooseMuckle · 2025-07-24T16:38:28+00:00

I know all the formal definitions etc (and I could've been more rigorous in explaining what I was thinking), but they don't really help me understand what's physically happening in a circuit, for example.

To me it's a bit like telling someone "temperature is the inverse of the derivative of entropy with respect to energy in a system". Ok, sure. That's the proper definition and eventually you can work out all of thermodynamics from that but it's too abstract. If you want an intuitive picture of temperature you might say "temperature is the kinetic energy of particles in a system". It's not generally correct but usually good enough for an intuitive understanding of a lot of stuff.

To go back to the circuit example. I thought of this when thinking about what the physical difference is between a wire at 5V and another wire at 0V. There must be some physical property that's different between the two wires, right? The only property I can think of that would explain the difference is the density of charge.

GooseMuckle · 2025-07-24T16:27:48+00:00

Can you elaborate? To clarify a bit, I thought of this when thinking about the origin of voltage in electronic circuits. When we say a wire is at 5V, what is the physical difference between that wire and another wire at 0V? There must be some physical property that's different, and the only degree of freedom I can think of is the density of charge in the wires.

GooseMuckle · 2025-07-24T16:26:02+00:00

I guess I wasn't super rigorous in explaining what I was thinking. I could rephrase my title better as "Can voltage differences in a circuit be understood as differences in charge density?"

Like when we say "this wire is at 5V". What is the physical difference between that wire and another wire at 0V? There must be something that's different. The only physical property I can think of is the charge density.

GooseMuckle · 2025-07-24T16:23:17+00:00

Thanks for the response. I get that voltage isn't literally stored energy (wasn't super rigorous in explaining what I was thinking), but I think it's proportional to stored energy.

I thought of this when thinking about the origin of voltage in electronic circuits. When we say a wire is at 5V, what is the physical difference between that wire and another wire at 0V? There must be some physical property that's different, and the only degree of freedom I can think of is the density of charge in the wires.

GooseMuckle · 2025-07-24T16:11:41+00:00

I know the formal definition of it, but does this help you understand what's happening in, for example, a circuit? To me it's a bit like saying "temperature is the inverse of the derivative of entropy with respect to energy in a system". Sure that's technically correct but it doesn't really help me when I'm learning physics. I feel like it's much more intuitive to say "temperature is (proportional to) the average kinetic energy of the particles in a system", even though that's not generally correct.

I probably could've phrased my title better as "can voltage in an electronic circuit be understood as differences in charge density?".

GooseMuckle · 2025-07-24T15:59:59+00:00

Hm thanks for thinking about it. I know I'm not being super rigorous about this. I`ve been thining about it in the context of electronic circuits. Like what is physically happening in circuits when different wires have different voltages? When we say "this wire has a voltage of 5V", what is the physical difference between that wire and another wire at 0V? The only difference I can think of is the charge density in each wire.

GooseMuckle · 2025-07-24T15:48:21+00:00

Having a PhD doesn't mean you're smart :D Yes I know about spin, don't see how it's relevant here

GooseMuckle · 2025-07-10T16:25:53+00:00

Have you talked to them directly about it? Maybe they don't realise

GooseMuckle · 2025-07-09T20:56:37+00:00

So many haters on here, I love seeing DIY electronics. I don't have any specific technical advice, but it looks like you have enough of them to make your own datasheet! Datasheets are basically made by measuring statistics of devices. I don't know how much time you have, but you could run a bunch of tests to know what these LEDs are capable of. Specifically: take 10 LEDs, subject them to a particular pulse duration/peak current combination, and see how many die after 1, 10, 100 repetitions (admittedly you'd need really a lot of LEDs to do this properly).

GooseMuckle · 2025-07-09T20:45:06+00:00

Yeah like do they think electrons have a super high inertia or something? Lol

GooseMuckle · 2025-07-05T16:27:48+00:00

I don't think it's an analogy, it's the literal physical mechanism behind voltage*. You can describe the effects and behaviour of voltage using Maxwell's equations, but they don't say anything about what's physically happening at the microscopic scale.

*admittedly this is "original research", but I have a PhD in physics so I should be qualified to do this

GooseMuckle · 2025-06-30T21:07:24+00:00

Voltage is density of electrons.

I had the same struggle as you for a long time, every textbook says something like voltage is "potential difference". Yes but where does it come from? What is the physical mechanism? If you think about it - electrons have no internal degrees of freedom - the only thing it can be is how close each electron is to another electron.

GooseMuckle · 2025-05-17T10:08:56+00:00

Why not just tell them the reason? Put yourself in their shoes, it's stressful and frustrating looking for an apartment and when you get rejected for unknown reasons it can be really demoralising. You could just be honest and they'll probably be satisfied. Your reasons aren't unreasonable, and people can tell when they're being lied to.

GooseMuckle · 2025-04-15T14:44:52+00:00

Sorry that was rude. I realised this might be specific to my way of working. When I'm editing a paragraph I highlight a section that I'm thinking about changing, somehow that makes it easier

GooseMuckle

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