this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2024
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Science Memes

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Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



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  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
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  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.


If you are here asking: "Is this a science meme?"

Probably, yes. We use the Dawkins definition of meme: a replicating idea, not just an image macro with a fact on it. A good post here doesn't need to teach you something. It needs to make you ask something: who, what, where, when, and especially why or how.

Science isn't a filing cabinet of facts, it's a conversation. For example, a photo of an eel or other localized wildlife counts because most people never see one, and wonder is the first step of inquiry. A car meme counts if it makes you curious about what's under the bonnet. If you want to talk about something you noticed in the world, chances are someone else wants to talk about it too.

We moderate for vibe, not category. Pruning is light, especially where a post creates interesting discussion. Experimenting is encouraged.

See the pinned paper on Shitposting as Public Pedagogy if you want the academic case for why this works.



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[–] itslilith@lemmy.blahaj.zone 16 points 2 years ago

It is an interesting theory, for sure. Instead of countless 3-dimensional particles, you have a single (or very few) 4-dimensional objects. You can imagine it like a sheet of fabric that is our present, with everything above the sheet being the future, everything below the past. When you want to sew a thread (our electron) through the sheet, you need to pierce the fabric, but to do it again, you first need to piece it the other way, giving you a positron. You can create or destroy arbitrary many of these, but you need create or destroy one of each every time. More interestingly, it is exactly determined which two will annihilate each other, as the allegorical loop of thread gets pulled tighter and tighter until it gets pulled though the sheet. The universe would be deterministic.

I'm sure there's a myriad of contradictions to modern QM and particle physics, but it's fun to think about nonetheless