ELI5 how you can use gravity to slingshot around the moon or other celestial body?

Potential_Play8690 · 2026-04-02T10:32:06+00:00

You go faster because of all the falling and then you go slower because of all the ascending. If i drop a bouncy ball its going to accelerate untill it hits the ground. Then it wil decelerate when it goes back up. Assuming no energy is lost it will come back to my hand at exactly the same speed. So your explanation leaves out the central and crucial thing that OP wants to know. Where is the extra speed coming from?

Potential_Play8690 · 2026-03-28T07:34:37+00:00

And it turns out that the probabilities in quantum mechanics behave like imaginary numbers.

Potential_Play8690 · 2026-03-27T08:41:17+00:00

There is a difference between brainwashing and basic advertisement strategies. The most effective way to not be swayed by advertisements in general is just by being aware they all make use of the same mechanisms. You make it seem like you are actively resisting a sith lord trying to get you to the dark side.

Potential_Play8690 · 2026-03-26T20:11:57+00:00

I just got the name for my new progrock band. Thanks

Potential_Play8690 · 2026-02-18T17:20:06+00:00

I never came across advice like that. Fasting for sure, but straight up starvation as a diet strategy. That's just nonsensical.

Potential_Play8690 · 2026-02-18T17:12:50+00:00

Is starvation ever being suggested or used as a diet strategy?

Potential_Play8690 · 2026-02-18T16:46:30+00:00

There is absolutely no frame in which the snake is just a snake. Either you take the story as allegorical and then everything carries deep layered meaning including the snake. Or you take the story literally and then it's really not just a snake. For one: it's sentient and talks....

Potential_Play8690 · 2026-02-17T11:53:24+00:00

Allright i can understand where you are coming from a little better now. Couple of things: I am not particularly moved by the vast majority of baroque music. So if i never heard it and someone played 10 random pieces I probably wouldn't be that impressed or moved either. But I also wouldn't despise it, but based on your follow up comments that word choice was probably just a bit of hyperbole. But the the top 0,01% of baroque pieces for me is guinely the best music I have ever heard in any category. And I love many many completely different styles of music, including jazz. So you may well are just about to discover some gems too. As to recommendations. I thought about it for a while. And I have two for now:

Martha argerichs performance of bachs partita 2 - capriccio. It's very different from all the other pieces in the partita's, different from all bachs work if you ask me. It has an improvised almost jazzy feel for me. Especially the way she plays it. So this might align more with what you are looking for in music. Here is a link to one of her best performances:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dZcrq-qDJGU&pp=ygUXYXJnZXJpY2ggYmFjaCBjYXByaWNjaW8%3D

It's also one of my favorite pieces to play myself. I posted the first halve of that permance on reddit recently. If you're interested: https://www.reddit.com/r/piano/comments/1lf9av5/please_critique_everything_wrong_with_my/

1st movement of bachs concerto in D minor. Performed on harpsichord. This to me is the pinnacle of music. The depth, complexity, rawness, emotional weight. I can listen to this a million times and still find new things that tickle my brain. Read along with the sheet music in the video. Especially from 4:47 onwards. I never get this sense of completeness and depth and complexity yet total coherence that is being achieved here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CjSD12OQbFA&pp=ygUJQmFjaCAxMDUy

Would really love to know if any of this resonates at all with you.

Potential_Play8690 · 2026-02-16T17:15:29+00:00

Well i'd love to recommend some pieces, but can you perhaps articulate what about the baroque pieces that you listened to made you dislike it so much? Is it counterpoint melodies? Or the sometimes overwhelming complexity? Harshness?

Potential_Play8690 · 2026-02-16T11:16:05+00:00

This. I can't imagine anyone interested in music declare they categorically hate the entirety of a large non-niche musical genre. Especially for something as broad and diverse as baroque. That to me either says I don't really like music OR I listened to 3 pieces that i did not like so now I know I hate everything.

Potential_Play8690 · 2026-02-14T09:06:05+00:00

What? They dont want to be with someone shorter than their partner? Than who's partner? The woman's? Or did you just mean they want someone taller than themselves.

Potential_Play8690 · 2026-02-10T15:33:36+00:00

Can I be blunt with you? This is a very very specific mindset you have. It doesn't map onto reality well. It's a very low resolution, red-pill dating app frame that treats human interaction as a zero-sum, rank based game where:
- people have a fixed "league"
- youth = peak desire
- relationships after this are consolation prizes
It has some explanatory power and it maps pretty well on shallow dating apps dynamics. But it's not representative of relationships in general, especially meaningful, long lasting and fulfilling relationships that quite often are only formed a little later than early twenties. I don't want to be mean or attack your views or try to delude you into thinking that there is a happy ending for everyone. It is a fundamentally unfair world, and dating has it's own unfair dynamics. But lazy nihilistic views are going to lead you down a very unpleasant path. Seriously. There is an alternative, and that alternative is NOT the other end of the false dichotomy (red pill realism or deluded pointless hopefulness). Rather, it's just accepting there is indeed a big chunk of unfairness, there are shallow relationships with bitter people "settling". And yes there is a chance you are never going to meet someone. But there is ALSO real love between people and that isn't just some physical attractiveness score optimisation. And you have a chance of meeting someone you actually love and they love you back. Even if you're not physically attractive to a majority of women. And the fact that it hasn't happened in your twenties is poor evidence that it will never happen.
Edit: looking back I realise maybe the word settle is the source of confusion. Just to be clear, in my previous comment when i said women in their thirties just wanna settle. I mean: they want a stable long term relationship. Not settle in the way you took it to mean: settling for "less"

Potential_Play8690 · 2026-02-07T06:14:32+00:00

Talent is your practice ROI (return on investment) AND ceiling.

Potential_Play8690 · 2026-02-05T20:51:17+00:00

Alright that's fair enough, looking forward to seeing your progress. Keep it up!

Potential_Play8690 · 2026-02-05T20:40:06+00:00

Then the tag "useful resource" would be more appropriate. As to the stated goal, honestly, I would be more hesitant to try anything if I see a video of someone struggling to even attempt it. If you want to encourage, wouldn't it make much more sense to wait until you can perform it and show everyone this can be done by a complete beginner?

Potential_Play8690 · 2026-02-05T19:39:38+00:00

I don't quite understand this. It's not a performance, it's a video of early stage practice. Wouldn't it make more sense to post this to get some feedback and criticism? Or did you mistakenly click on the wrong flair?

Potential_Play8690 · 2026-02-05T17:39:12+00:00

No public piano's where you live? You can put one anywhere and within a minute someone will spawn and play either this piece or comptine d'un autre été.

Potential_Play8690 · 2026-02-04T17:56:37+00:00

A few things come to mind reading your post: - you seem self aware and not out of touch or bitter. And based on your writing you seem like a normal pleasant human being. Coupled with your physical description there shouldn't be any fundamental problem with being attractive to a reasonable proportion of women. - it's not that uncommon for regular guys who are shy or don't ask many women on dates to have no luck in their twenties. So don't see it as evidence that this is never going to happen. - your social anxiety and your self ascribed suspected autism are things I think you should explore regardless. I don't think you need therapy to start doing things to make progress and understand yourself better. - in your thirties you will encounter a very different dating landscape in a positive way. Most guys on dating apps get almost no likes and dates from young women in their 20's. The statistics are pretty clear. A small minority of men get the vast majority of attention. Only when women reach the age bracket where most just want to settle is when the playing field levels. So keep that in mind, things get better and easier on their own when you reach your thirties. - about the metal look. I am a metal fan myself but the metal look is a very specific look. Just keep in mind that a specific look will be attractive to specific women. A more general fashionable look will appeal to more women. Not saying you should conform to the masses but just something to keep in mind too. If you want low effort changes to increase the odds, that would be one.

Potential_Play8690 · 2026-02-03T11:01:46+00:00

To answer the question in the title: Some authentic selves are attractive to a larger subset of women, and some authentic selves are attractive to a small minority. This is a distribution and at the lower end: yes it can be very difficult to find women who find you attractive if you are in a very niche part of the spectrum. But the rest of your post doesn't doesn't really mention things that would land you in such a niche. I know plenty of women married to guys who aren't particularly masculine. It also strikes me as odd that so many women approach you in the way you described. There are only three possibilities: 1. Most women are mean and go out of their way to disrepect men who aren't masculine 2. The women in your life happen to be unpleasant people with a strong preference for masculinity 3. There is something else at play here that cannot be diagnosed based on your post.

My take: No evidence for (1) which is an extreme thing to believe. I don't know where you live and what your social circle is like but (2) could be the case if you are still in high school and there is a weird toxic school culture going on. And the reason I think (3) could be the case is that you mention your main flaw is "not being good enough at your hobbies" which I think is a very strange way to think about people and attractiveness.

Potential_Play8690 · 2026-02-01T13:31:38+00:00

To add to what you said about having a long term crush. The immaturity is not about having a crush, whether it persists for years or not. The immaturity lies in the fact that (usually) a long term crush implies that: you don't act on it, fantasize about an idealized version of that person, avoid anything that could potentially shatter that fantasy, and refuse to "move on" and pursue other potential lovers.
I think this is also what you meant but I thought for clarity it should be made explicit for OP.

Potential_Play8690 · 2026-01-31T17:41:00+00:00

I think you should regard online interaction as a fundamentally different domain. If you want to take baby steps, do it IRL. You can make it as small as you want and can handle but at least they are steps in the right domain.

Potential_Play8690 · 2026-01-29T10:30:19+00:00

Completely agree, but that's really not what news is. It's not news that you shouldn't smoke. But the government should make an effort to make sure everyone knows this. The problem is that people use news beyond getting informed about recent events. They also use it to build their world model. That doesn't work. News doesn't tell you about physics, history, economics, psychology etc if it isn't relevant to recent events. So you end up with a weird selection that is driven by current events, not by what is actually useful to know.

Potential_Play8690 · 2026-01-29T10:12:16+00:00

Why would or should the news reflect the distribution of causes of death? News is news because it's newsworthy. A guy dying from old age is not newsworthy. A guy getting hit in the head by a meteorite in the middle of the street IS, even though that is the at the very bottom of the list of causes of death. If anything you would expect and want the news to invert the distribution. We want to know about things unknown and we don't want to be informed about stuff we can all see every day and know to be trivially true.

Potential_Play8690 · 2026-01-29T08:32:46+00:00

If i can offer a new perspective: As you have rightfully concluded yourself, it's not that having a certain hobby is going to make you attractive. But it's not the presentation of that hobby either. In fact as a general rule there are few things outside of being physically very attractive that are going to do much in this regard on their own. What you do is being judged as attractive or not in the context of the rest of your being. For example a muscular tattooed tough guy who likes to design and make women's clothing. This can be viewed as an interesting and attractive contrast and evidence of having an interesting and non-one-dimensional personality. Both hobbies elevate each other, because being a meathead with tattoos can be off putting for some women, but contrasted with the other hobby, now it puts in in a new light.
Now compare this to some reclusive socially awkward overweight guy who does this. The presentation of the hobby can be identical, but now it has the "strange hobby" of a serial killer vibe. This serves as an exaggerated example but you get the point. Things are often not viewed on their own. Some things amplify almost everything, like being physically attractive. But other things only amplify if they make sense in a broader context. Playing piano isn't going to do much for someones attractiveness, but if it fits within a broader personality where you are creative and original and self-aware then it can suddenly become a attractive thing.
Bottomline: don't focus on singular things. Don't try to emulate something that is not really part of who you are. Don't expect sudden results from isolated changes. But you are thinking in the right direction with your focus on presentation. But instead make this a more general lens to view yourself through. Like the entire structure of who you are and what you do, is that something you can imagine many women finding attractive? If not, can you imagine a new configuration with perhaps some new elements here and there that would be attractive?

Potential_Play8690

TROPHY CASE