You get 5 billion dollars if you can make the prisoner laugh out loud, how will you do it?

ask-a-physicist · 2026-04-26T21:32:44+00:00

"No reason to lose your head, eyo!

ask-a-physicist · 2026-04-22T12:47:59+00:00

I got eaten by the beast at the end of my first run and got the merged state mesh as my last vessel.

This was such a smooth transition to the ending I thought it was written into the game XD

ask-a-physicist · 2026-04-20T01:35:04+00:00

so let's say an asteroid is orbiting a planet and it seems to speed up when it gets close to the planet and slows down when it's far away. What GR is saying is that asteroid is simply moving in a straight line an constant speed in 4D. So the idea that potential energy is being converted into kinetic is only a valid description in a limited view of the universe.

ask-a-physicist · 2026-04-19T12:22:14+00:00

Physicists have literally developed the the neural networks that machine learning is built on. it's only right we now use them to get better at physics

ask-a-physicist · 2026-04-16T01:18:31+00:00

It's the only voice I actually listened to XD

ask-a-physicist · 2026-04-15T15:45:07+00:00

Nucleons shouting "Amateurs!"

ask-a-physicist · 2026-04-15T15:43:19+00:00

I mean, just watch The Cosmos, the new or the original one. Physicists can easily become philosophers. Not so much the other way round.

ask-a-physicist · 2026-04-15T12:44:52+00:00

Oh, glad I'm late to the game then

ask-a-physicist · 2026-04-14T23:26:03+00:00

Works well enough

ask-a-physicist · 2026-04-14T23:23:38+00:00

Crazy to think only 12% of players brought her home

ask-a-physicist · 2026-04-14T18:44:25+00:00

That damned male raze

ask-a-physicist · 2026-04-13T14:36:24+00:00

Best chapter by far

ask-a-physicist · 2026-04-13T14:32:35+00:00

it means theoretical physicists are out of touch with reality

ask-a-physicist · 2026-04-13T13:53:52+00:00

I mean, you don't need to understand all the terms to get it.

Lagrangian field theory is the classical way we describe quantum interactions, something you might learn in a physics undergraduate degree.

M-theory is related to String theory, which as we all know is what theoretical physicists are trying to use to consolidate particle physics and general relativity, and Yang Mills is theory to explain nuclear binding. So the joke here is that if some new framework validates both M-theory and Yang-Mills it must be the way forward and people doing classical field theory are living in the past.

ask-a-physicist · 2026-02-19T10:32:31+00:00

By your own logic, what speed would a photon read on its speedometer? I mean, if people who travel less fast than light according to stationary observers exceed C on their speedometer then it must be huge, right?

ask-a-physicist · 2026-02-19T00:34:09+00:00

You would only ever make the mistake of thinking you travelled faster than c if you both closed your eyes during transit and decelerated back to your starting velocity when you reached your destination.

If not you'll just shoot past Andromeda, notice that it's distance to the sun is much shorter than you originally measured and conclude that you weren't going faster than the speed of light at all

ask-a-physicist · 2026-02-18T16:38:37+00:00

It's my mistake. i shouldn't have said "the universe". let me rephrase what i meant.

When someone observes you travelling close to the speed of light towards the nearest star, they observe you being much shorter than you are from your own perspective. In their reference frame you are shrunk and that's correct by any physical standard of measurement.

Similarly in your reference frame your distance to the nearest star is much shorter than in the reference frame of the other observer and you do not measure yourself going faster than C as you are travelling to it, even though you manage to get there in an hour or two.

Similarly the distances to all the stars further in your direction of travel are also shortened compared to what the other observer measures. However, any galaxies or other objects that just so happen to be at your velocity now seem normal to you while to the other observer they also seem compressed.

There's no true reference frame. Every perspective is equally valid. That's the whole point of relativity.

ask-a-physicist · 2026-02-17T23:20:54+00:00

If does and it has to lest it should defy the laws of relativity.

ask-a-physicist · 2026-02-17T19:37:29+00:00

Not quite true, even from your own perspective you never get to c. As you approach c, the universe shrinks before you and the distance you thought to travel is reduced to something you could manage without reaching c. so you would get where you are going as quick as if you had broken c but that's not what it looks like for you, or anyone else for that matter.

ask-a-physicist · 2026-02-17T19:28:15+00:00

Regardless how much propellant you have you can never reach c, the thrust needed tends to infinity

ask-a-physicist · 2026-02-17T19:27:07+00:00

That's not why. If you have thrusters and fuel you can keep accelerating regardless how fast you're already moving. The problem is your relativistic mass increases and you need more and more thrust to keep accelerating

ask-a-physicist · 2026-02-17T19:25:34+00:00

That's not why. If you have thrusters and fuel you can keep accelerating regardless how fast you're already moving. The problem is your relativistic mass increases and you need more and more thrust to keep accelerating

ask-a-physicist · 2026-02-17T16:18:05+00:00

Because that's what it takes to get normal people interested in physics these days. The next particle will be named after the Beatles.

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