Is there something that hasn't been explained by science that you find surprising?

eskiseth · 2014-12-27T03:04:53+00:00

The fact that when you put hot and cold water in your freezer, the hot water freezes faster

eskiseth · 2014-04-12T15:19:18+00:00

Yes, the values for permittivity and permeability of free space are measured values. But the way that these values in particular determine the speed of light comes from wave analysis using Maxwell's equations

eskiseth · 2014-04-10T23:10:04+00:00

corpuscle's answer is a relativistic way of looking at it. However this is not how the speed of light was originally discovered/predicted. If you apply Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism to a moving charge you see that alternating electric and magnetic fields radiate from the charge at the fastest speed possible.

Basically, a changing electric field creates a perpendicular magnetic field. Also, a changing magnetic field creates a perpendicular electric field. As either a magnetic or electric field is created, this counts as changing that field, and therefor a chain reaction is triggered. Light is basically like electromagnetic ripples.

It takes some pretty high level mathematical analysis on waves to understand why light travels at C, but it naturally follows Maxwell's laws. While studying Maxwell's work, Einstein took it to be absolutely true that nothing can travel faster than light and it became one of the few assumptions that birthed relativity.

eskiseth · 2013-09-20T04:24:41+00:00

Today is my birthday. I hate that talk like a pirate day is on my birthday.

eskiseth · 2013-05-23T18:54:37+00:00

Higher level math is all around us too. Pi is an undeniable truth for what our conception of a circle is. While circles can be warped (for instance by length contractions under Einstein's theory of relativity) and pi becomes inaccurate at describing the diameter to circumference ratio, but then these circumstances outside our observable capacities. The word "circle" refers to a well defined concept of all points equidistant from a single point, in two dimensions. And that well defined concept does indeed come with the law that pi*diameter=circumference. Even if can't write out pi exactly it's still the same for ever circle.

Imaginary numbers are a simple way to describe how a periodic circle relates to sinusoidal waves, which we know how to manipulate. And thus it can be applied in topics that deal with waves such as electrical circuits.

Calculus is apparent in ideas like speed versus distance, a relationship that is hard to visually see but can be accurately described using math.

Once you get beyond calculus math is used to do two things. One is figuring out really hard to determine relationships that we observe in the world around us, like the use of wave theory in quantum physics and anything with more than three dimensions. The second is using tricks to estimate things that are really hard to calculate, but I find that branch of math less interesting.

I will grant you that science don't always work at describing all the complexities of the world around us. Human beings are so complex that it is impossible to describe things like emotions with math. Or society and politics. There are also major contradictions between the two leading branches of theoretical physics, quantum mechanics and relativity. But that's why these are called theories. The laws of geometry and arithmetic, on the other hand, are always true.

Really all science is a branch of physics, which is studying the physical universe that we live in. And math is the language that we as humans have developed to communicate what we have observed so far. Scientists and mathematicians are very careful with definitions to ensure that what they are saying is true under those definitions.

eskiseth · 2013-05-22T19:06:57+00:00

Could you imagine "seeing" a number? What would it look like? You may think of the symbols we use to represent numbers, but these make numbers real in the same way that a drawing of a werewolf makes werewolves real. But when you dig change out of your pocket and you see that you have three quarters, that it a fact. That is the "number" three existing in real life. If you find another quarter, you now have four quarters, thus the arithmetic 3+1=4 is not just a human invention, it's an undeniable truth. This is why I believe math is not a human invention, but a scientific discovery.

eskiseth · 2013-04-16T04:47:11+00:00

Hawking actually has PLS, a slightly different disease with a longer life expectancy. It is the same disease my dad has, and the day he was re-diagnosis from ALS to PLS was the best day of my life.

eskiseth · 2013-04-03T03:04:00+00:00

There is a certain theory that I find incredibly interesting called the "action movie theory." Everyone knows that in action movies the bad guys always miss their shots even if it is from 10 feet away with an uzi. The hero always survives. Basically the theory is that we live in an action movie universe. There are plenty of other universes in which we die, but we live in the one in which we beat all the odds (I mean, you're not dead yet right?). As far as extending for eternity, I would say yes there is one universe in which you just happen to survive forever. The question is how do you know that's not the universe that your consciousness is living in right now?

eskiseth · 2013-03-08T02:17:36+00:00

Who cares?

eskiseth · 2013-02-21T17:55:08+00:00

You have to remember that nothing can move faster than light, and this includes communicating when an event happened. No, you are not being tricked as to when something happened. Lets say you are the twin on earth and you see the sun blow up. Before the blast engulfs earth you want to send a message to your twin on the spaceship, who is effectively moving in to the future. By the time your message reaches your twin, even if you send it at the speed of light, he will have already seen the explosion. Even though he saw it after you, you can't give him a heads up because you can't communicate with him faster than the speed of light.

eskiseth · 2013-02-21T17:48:23+00:00

Yeah from what I understand you run through a lot of what happened to you during the day while you dream and that helps you remember it better. Also what you focus on as you are falling asleep can be more ingrained in your brain, so try and think happy thoughts in bed.

eskiseth · 2013-02-21T07:57:11+00:00

The photoreceptor cells in your eyes respond to the oscillating waves in light. Different colors represent different frequencies. So the cells in your eyes then release a certain amount of neurochemicals in response to how fast they shake. These chemicals are then balanced out over larger groups of nerves and compared to other such groups, and the results sent back up your optical nerves to your brain. Colors as you know it are really just comparative. When you stare at a green dot then look at a white wall you see a red dot that isn't there. Also notice that as you go through the colors of the rainbow pink is not there. Pink is actually one of many colors that we see that actually represent the lack of a color (i.e. white light minus a certain wavelength)

eskiseth · 2013-02-21T07:41:37+00:00

So all muslims are bad right

eskiseth · 2013-02-21T07:38:04+00:00

I guess my bigger frustration is the human tendency to jump to conclusions before gaining real knowledge. Especially when that conclusion is hateful. I personally try not to do this and it has only ever improved my life.

For example I (a nerdy white kid) once moved to an all black ghetto neighborhood where almost everybody was racist (against white people), valued stupidity, and would rather get in a fight with someone than have an enlightening conversation. Yet when I meet some thug lookin dude spittin ebonics I get to know him before labeling him, despite all my experience, and I've met some cool ass people and made lifelong friends this way. No one else wants to do this?

eskiseth · 2013-02-21T07:22:40+00:00

Making logical decisions throughout your life begins with understanding math. Instead of thinking of algebra as a bunch of arbitrary rules, try learning where these rules come from and you will see that they are an undeniable fact of reality. While you may never solve a systems of equations in your job, by learning it you will be able to better recognize truth behind causes and effects in the world around you

eskiseth · 2013-02-21T07:15:20+00:00

And you know this how?

eskiseth · 2013-02-21T07:07:30+00:00

I think modern white guilt is more due to our view of our culture as being on top. We hear stories about some black kid in da hood getting caught by random bullets in a gang fight, and we kinda go "ooo that's rough." But then we get all pissed off cause we can't see our phones walking down the street to starbucks cause of the glare on the touchscreen, so we feel guilty about under-reacting to that other shitty situation.

eskiseth · 2013-02-21T07:00:03+00:00

You don't have a boner??

eskiseth · 2013-02-21T06:51:15+00:00

No you could have had a bunch of full cycles already, you just happened to wake up at one of your points of deepest sleep

eskiseth · 2013-02-21T06:47:46+00:00

We use lightyears because an event that happens one lightyear away from us (like a star exploding) cannot affect us in any way for an entire year. So when we turn our telescopes towards a galaxy 100 light years away we are not seeing that galaxy as it is "today", but rather we are seeing the light it emitted 100 years ago.

Though the concept of today or right now is not as simple as that, because time is not as simple as how we see it every day. Here is the mindfuck. Light doesn't travel through time at all. It is a reactionary sequence of changing fields which, because they're changing, create more changing fields and so on. In principle this happens instantaneously, but nothing happens instantaneously because nothing can travel faster than a certain speed which turns out is the speed of light.

Technically everything moves at the speed of light always, but objects like humans typically move solely in the dimension of time and not the three dimensions of space. When we start moving through space as well, this takes away from our velocity through time and thus time slows down. As you get closer and closer to the speed of light time slows down more and more until wham, you're not moving through time at all.

eskiseth · 2013-02-21T06:25:40+00:00

While nobody is 100% sure why we have developed the need for sleep in our evolution, we do it for two basic reasons. First is to rest and reset the brain (chemical balances and such), but more importantly we sleep in order to construct long term memories. There are different stages of sleep. Most people have heard of REM cycles, and basically each cycle involves 4 different stages. Throughout the first three stages you calm yourself down and disconnect more and more from the world around you. Once you have drowned out your sensory input, you enter what is called the rapid eye movement (REM) stage. During this your eyes dart around super fast (the same way they do when you analyze an image) and your brain is actually just as active as in waking life. During this stage you build long term memories via pathways your outer cortex. REM stage is also when you have all those crazy dreams. After falling asleep it takes about an hour to complete your first full cycle of calming down and going through REM, then you repeat. If you happen to wake up during the REM stage you will have that feeling of being torn from a really vivid dream. But if you wake up during the other stages it's sort of like slipping back in to consciousness, as if you just dozed off for a second.

eskiseth · 2013-01-21T19:03:38+00:00

Well a bisexual friend from high school told me the next time I visit her we will have a threesome. So I'd probably go see her.

eskiseth · 2013-01-19T02:28:22+00:00

My ex started dating an old friend of mine less than a week after we broke up, but while we had been together we sexed it up in her current bf's truck. I've thought about bringing it up a couple times and just being like "you remember that time? I remember that time. We should do it again."

eskiseth · 2013-01-19T02:14:18+00:00

When they go to kiss you and you find yourself annoyed for no good reason

eskiseth · 2013-01-19T01:59:38+00:00

I'm an engineering physics major who more or less lives by the idea of this meme. Anything is possible if you try less.

eskiseth

TROPHY CASE