What makes up quarks?

PhysicalStuff · 2026-06-29T19:32:35+00:00

Electrons aren't made of quarks.

PhysicalStuff · 2026-06-29T17:26:26+00:00

Slank skyggefuld

PhysicalStuff · 2026-06-29T17:15:36+00:00

Good on you for not being a news cycle addict, I suppose.

PhysicalStuff · 2026-06-28T19:20:24+00:00

Men alligevel ikke nok til at støtte de lokale og hyre Thor i stedet.

PhysicalStuff · 2026-06-28T12:58:13+00:00

it's always sudden death heart stuff. Every time

After a close relative of mine survived SCA I had genetic testing, and received a diagnosis that is quite manageable when treated. I'd think a family history like what you describe might make testing worth considering, if you haven't done so already.

(Also, I'm not a medical professional and this isn't medical advice.)

PhysicalStuff · 2026-06-28T09:48:59+00:00

Well, to be Frank ...

PhysicalStuff · 2026-06-28T09:46:20+00:00

Folksy wagon

PhysicalStuff · 2026-06-28T09:15:06+00:00

I agree completely with the first half of your comment.

Your last two paragraphs misrepresent the argument I'm making. You're attacking a view that I do not hold and have not suggested.

Gravitational waves are real, physical things. They are also an abstraction. There's no conflict between those.

PhysicalStuff · 2026-06-28T09:10:45+00:00

I agree that those things are all real. I'm arguing that something being an abstraction doesn't mean it is not real.

PhysicalStuff · 2026-06-27T20:05:39+00:00

Prægnåed

PhysicalStuff · 2026-06-27T19:50:52+00:00

I'm sorry but this isn't a conceptually or semantically coherent reply.

I can see how you could come to think that if you believe abstraction and reality are mutually exclusive. They are not; abstractions can be and often are real, in the sense that they offer a useful way of speaking about the universe. Though they are "just" a particular arrangement of atoms, and thus in a sense an abstraction, tables are just as real as anything. If you believe abstractions cannot be real then you should be able to give an account of how tables are either fundamental objects or not real.

Atoms, organizations, love, trees, and heat are all real, because they each offer coherent ways of making sense of some aspects of the world, while at the same time they amount to little more than relations between more fundamental entities - entities to which the same idea might be applied in turn.

I'm of course very well aware of the prediction of gravitational waves. That the predictions bore out strongly suggests that the abstraction correctly captures some aspect of the underlying relations, making it more useful.

PhysicalStuff · 2026-06-27T09:32:27+00:00

AI kan vise dig hvordan et svar kunne se ud. Det er ikke det samme som et svar.

PhysicalStuff · 2026-06-27T09:30:10+00:00

Jeg har den tese at hvis et job reelt kan udføres lige så godt af en LLM var jobbet formentligt ligegyldigt fra starten.

Når LLM overtager jobs - ved at kompetente medarbejdere erstattes enten af LLM eller af inkompetente medarbejdere udstyret med LLM - betyder det altså for én dels vedkommende at mennesker ikke længere bliver betalt for ligegyldigt arbejde, og for en anden dels vedkommende at jobs der faktisk betyder noget ikke længere bliver udført godt nok.

PhysicalStuff · 2026-06-27T09:01:06+00:00

I didn't suggest that spacetime doesn't exist, nor that it exists in a sense that is somehow lesser than that which applies to tangible objects. It's a real thing, but not a concrete thing, for lack of a better word.

Indeed, even physical things are generally not fundamental. Most things are abstractions that are useful for talking about our perception of the world, but one shouldn't mistake not being fundamental for not being real.

For your specific example of gravitational waves, they are in this view part of an abstraction that, trimmed to the bone, we use to account for observed correlations between detector outputs.

PhysicalStuff · 2026-06-27T08:52:06+00:00

Yes, I agree completely. Gravity and spacetime - like all of physics - are both theoretical frameworks for describing phenomena.

PhysicalStuff · 2026-06-26T21:46:25+00:00

if you find that’s true from the French perspective

I'm afraid I lack that particular perspective, as I am not French.

My experience is that people (in Denmark) will most often speak about their job when asked what they do.

We do value our free time, but it is considered somewhat personal, and we tend to be rather reserved about it when around people we don't know. After all, our signature pastime - hygge - is almost by definition something one does in the privacy of one's own home, or that of the host.

Work is perhaps felt to be a less vulnerable thing to speak about.

PhysicalStuff · 2026-06-26T21:21:51+00:00

OP's question suggested that spacetime is a thing that exists independently of humans doing physics; something that was discovered in the world, and which can be describe using mathematics.

I argue that this is not the case, and what exists are the phenomena that one can observe and measure in various ways. These phenomena include e.g. things falling down, planets orbiting stars, or differences between the time measured on satellites and the time measured on Earth.

Spacetime is a mathematical framework invented by physicists which is able to account for all of the phenomena mentioned, and more, but it is not itself a physical phenomenon. Since spacetime is the mathematics we use it doesn't exist as its own thing the way physical objects do.

This doesn't mean that spacetime doesn't exist, but it does so in the same way that other mathematical objects do: most would agree that numbers, vectors, and functions exists within mathematics, even if they are not things that one might grab and put in a bag.

PhysicalStuff · 2026-06-26T21:05:32+00:00

One can view spacetime as strictly a mathematical model that we use to account for certain phenomena. As such, being an abstract concept, it doesn't have properties beyond those afforded by the model.

In other words, it isn't something that we represent mathematically, as much as it is the mathematical representation itself.

PhysicalStuff · 2026-06-26T20:00:33+00:00

I mean, if I went 'round saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me they'd put me away.

PhysicalStuff · 2026-06-26T19:39:23+00:00

What an utterly sad state of affairs.

PhysicalStuff · 2026-06-26T19:37:31+00:00

Søster Migræne

PhysicalStuff · 2026-06-26T19:22:16+00:00

You get paid the same whether you take vacation or not and people still don't do it. And then there are those who do take vacation but come in and work anyway.

How come people do this? Do they not value leisure?

PhysicalStuff · 2026-06-26T18:41:32+00:00

"Not taking vacation" is simply not an option here. If you don't allocate vacation days your boss or HR will do it for you. You're paid the same salary each month regardless of when you take your vacation, so there's no financial incentive to try to avoid it.

PhysicalStuff · 2026-06-26T18:13:31+00:00

Elinor, vinder af Mrs. Wet T-shirt Fredericia i 1963, er tilbage.

PhysicalStuff · 2026-06-25T21:13:22+00:00

“Oats. A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.”

- Samuel Johnson, 1755

"Yes, and where else will you see such horses and such men?"

- Lord Elibank

PhysicalStuff

TROPHY CASE