A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
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This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
From what I've seen Feyman was more than a little pedantic and he liked to emphasize that science doesn't answer "why" it answers "how". So if ICP asked that question Feyman would say "take an undergrad physics course because its not easy to explain in a soundbite"
He was fully conscious that science models behaviour but doesn't - maybe never will - give the purpose behind it.
(Feynman does not, in fact, rule)
That line was actually Trump being his narcissistic self. In context he's saying, "Nobody knows how important magnets are but me." And then he mumble fucks around about magnets being in everything.
Somebody whispered in his ear that China halting rare earth exports is going to fuck up a broad range of industries. His dementia locked onto, "Magnets good. China has magnets. China no give magnets." He then goes to mumbling how he's threatening and begging Xi.
That also explains his idiot rant to our Navy in Japan week before last. He's explaining that we need to get away from magnetic aircraft and ordnance lifting systems and go back to steam.
He's trying to explain all this without admitting that he poked the tiger and the tiger poked back.
Insert that clip of him from years ago saying that you drop magnets in water, they stop working...
What's funny is I think he was thinking of electronics (remember the shark vs electric boats dementia babble he did?) but if he had said fire instead of water it would be correct wrt magnets.
I like how the guy who was elected because he says what he thinks always has to have his comments put into context. He didn't literally mean that nobody knows what a magnet is (despite literally saying "nobody knows what a magnet is"), he meant something totally different!
Someone better give him a new sound byte before he tries carving up the Gerald Ford for maga fridge magnets
To everyone saying "Feynman did explain it" you're missing the point - his answer is that there isn't really an answer to why magnets attract; he never says in that interview that there is, other than that is how the universe works.
He can explain the precise way in which they attract each other, can explain what properties of materials give rise to magnetism, and so on, but this is all ultimately a description. The only way science can answer a "why" question is with a description of general behaviour that encompasses what is asked about, so: why do magnets attract, because of spins and magnetic fields and so on. But why do spins and magnetic fields cause the attraction? There is no known general behaviour that encompasses that behaviour, and if there were, it would be subject to the same questioning. Ultimately, all "why" questions reach an end.
ICP runs deep.
Ultimately, all "why" questions reach an and.
I see you have not recently interacted with a toddler in the "why" phase.
The secret to this, which works on all children, mine included, is to turn it and ask them what they think. Leads to more fun answers as well. Not right, but fun.
Never discourage that phase, imagine if our population never grew out of questioning the world. Just don't be afraid to say "I don't know, maybe you will figure out why and can teach me someday."
I work with kids, including a bright little boy who told me that "Why?" is his favorite question. I explicitly tell him that I hope he never stops asking it. His questions challenge the depths of my knowledge and compel me to look up questions I never thought of before. I love it.
I call him my "little scientist." He's only 4 and he teaches my coworkers new things all the time. I feel so lucky to get to work with a little knowledge-sponge that's as curious as I am!
I think they actually don't reach an end. The only thing possibly ending is the scope and tolerances of our measurements and descriptions.
This means, first of all, that there will always be a practical end to good answers to "why" questions.
But if you think that there is truly no end, it also means that the workings of the universe are infinite in a very strange sense: if there's an infinite succession of explanation, what does that mean? An explanation is a description of something that implies the characteristics of what you're explaining, right? And it can't just describe all the details of the thing being explained, it must be simpler on some level.
I don't really see how you get this infinite succession of simplifications. Maybe it makes sense if the universe is infinitely complex, so that for example, the behaviour of atoms is explained by the behaviour of protons, neutrons and electrons, which are explained by quarks and still smaller sub-electron particles, and this sequence of subdivision goes ever smaller. I don't see any good reason to believe that though.
"The map is not the terrain" - Alfred Korzybski
This is what I mean, I believe our limitations, biologically, chemically, or otherwise, are not sufficient to express reality as is to the full extent of the definition- in fact I think that all observation is negation or division, meaning, it is polar, our language is Hegelian in nature, by positing things against one another as a means to progress in understanding, it fundamentally defines by dividing or subtracting, because how could you posit two opposing things without excluding all other things that they do not represent?
Classical philosophy of science- we can say what is not a lot easier than we can say what is, and thereby narrow down the scope of what [likely] is. But due to the very nature of nature, we can never be certain, because we function under imperative of space-time, and time progresses forward, into a deep unknown, nobody knows the future, right? It is my contention that even fundamental laws of nature deteriorate, evolve, mutate, or change over time. At the end of the Universe, at the point of total entropy, not even laws of nature would exist. How could they? What would it mean for them to exist? What would the word "exist" even mean?
I am saying that a map can never 1:1 perfectly capture the nature of reality. So, every time we ask "why", we take one step closer to approximating truth, and we can get infinitely close to it, but we can never reach or attain it, due to the limitations of how our own minds work.
It is my contention that even fundamental laws of nature deteriorate, evolve, mutate, or change over time. At the end of the Universe, at the point of total entropy, not even laws of nature would exist. How could they? What would it mean for them to exist? What would the word “exist” even mean?
Why do you think the laws of nature - what we know of them - change? We don't have any reason to believe it. The "point of total entropy" sounds like the heat death of the universe, which certainly we do and can discuss and make predictions about.
I am saying that a map can never 1:1 perfectly capture the nature of reality. So, every time we ask “why”, we take one step closer to approximating truth, and we can get infinitely close to it, but we can never reach or attain it, due to the limitations of how our own minds work.
This is somewhat different to what I'm talking about.
Feynman actually did try to explain it, and could do the math and other work to show why magnets attract one another. Having watched the Todd in the Shadows video about Miracles, I kind of find the question wholesome - he's not asking out of willful ignorance, but rather that it's something he knows is beyond his grasp but amazes him (and wants to share that joy in the world with his kids and family).
Trump is just willfully ignorant and small-minded.
ICP is an ode to ignorance, fuck anyone trying to rehab that shit.
Fucking magnets, how do they work?
And I don't wanna talk to a scientist
Y'all motherfuckers lying, and getting me pissed
Those are not lyrics promoting wonder to children. They’re anti-intellectualism.
It's a lot harder to make that argument in the context of the rest of the lyrics
Music is a lot like love, it's all a feeling And it fills the room, from the floor to the ceiling I see miracles all around me Stop and look around, it's all astounding Water, fire, air and dirt Fucking magnets, how do they work? And I don't talk to a scientist Y'all motherfuckers lying, and getting me pissed Solar eclipse, and vicious weather Fifteen thousand Juggalos together And I love my mom for giving me this Time on this planet, taking nothing for granted
It's not anti-science, it's frustration at the world for being the complicated, messy place it is, and a longing to go back to the simple innocence of childhood where even basic physical processes are magical. It's not a rant that nobody should do science, it's his own disillusionment, and a plea for people to allow a little bit more wonder into their world.
It's a powerful lyric because even in a song about how magical the world is, it still slips in and ruins it, the pebble in your shoe that doesn't allow you to ever truly experience that pure feeling again, always gnawing at you in the background no matter what you do.
It's one dumb fucking lyric, but I forgive them, because apparently Juggalos are a cool bunch and are nice to each other, and that's the only thing that matters to me, song be damned.
Can't dress up the scientists lying lyric in a way that isn't blatantly anti science, but the rest tracks.
I think anti-intellectualism is the Revenge of the Idiots, they too want to be able to claim things about the world, it's just that they can't, because they don't know science, and science is hard, but they still want to have opinions, so all they do is just make up their minds that the Earth is flat, and fuck you science, I can believe what I want kind of deal.
It's like someone sitting in their house saying, "modern art is shit, I can do better", and proceed to take a shit on the floor just to prove a point to themselves, that they will not be "held back by the man".
haha little spinny balls go brrr
Magnets aren't even real. Have you ever actually SEEN one? Of course not.
Birds are magnets
To drop my reply from a similar post:
To be fair: "A magnet works because negatively charged electrons repel each other. "
"Why do negatively charged electrons repel each other? "
"..... Well .. Ok, so hear me out. You're going to need to understand quantum mechanics and then the fermion principal. Then you'll know that the electrons aren't allowed to occupy the same space, and the easiest way to avoid being in the same space is to not touch each other. The electrons know they aren't allowed to touch because they've studied fermions."
"Look man, shit just be doing what it does because it is what it is. If weren't that way everything would be soup or darkness."
Physics at any point when you ask "why" enough.
To be fair: "A magnet works because negatively charged electrons repel each other. "
This is the Coloumbic (electrostatic) force, which is related to magnetism but this explanation would be insufficient to explain magnetism.
"..... Well .. Ok, so hear me out. You're going to need to understand quantum mechanics and then the fermion principal. Then you'll know that the electrons aren't allowed to occupy the same space, and the easiest way to avoid being in the same space is to not touch each other. The electrons know they aren't allowed to touch because they've studied fermions."
This is the Pauli exclusion principle, which does act like a force, but is not the same as the electrostatic force or magnetism.
Magnetism is moving electrons repel/attract/affect each other depending on the direction they are moving.
The simplest explanation for that I know of is that force needs to exist alongside the electrostatic force for the motion of electrons to be consistent with relativistic time and space dilation effects.
And no, that’s not a simple explanation, and it requires explaining relativity, and at the end of the day the best explanation we’ve got for the electrostatic force is more or less “electrons repel each other because they do”.
All models are wrong, some models are useful. A model that is 100% correct is just reality. Science and physics boils down to observation followed by explanation which comes in the form of modeling.
New physics started when plank discovered quantization while integration raleigh-jean and weins laws for blackbody radiation. Schrodinger proposed a model among several proposed models and his fit the best.
Anyone who is surprised by science not knowing all the answers had fundamentally misunderstood science.
Finally, five fields: electromagnetic, gravity, strong, weak, and higgs. Magnetism is just an effect of leptons interacting with the electric field. That's the model, one day when we can explain more with another model there will be more questions.
Bonus points for anyone who knows the quote "who ordered that?"
To clarify: Feynman could explain it, but can't dumb it down enough for us mortals.
Magnetism is complex and difficult to reduce down succinctly, but the real issue is that at the very base level, "why does magnetism exist" is no more explainable than "why do particles have spin?"
They didn't know it, but ICP were asking an epistemological question.
I looked for a non-yt source, but the best explainer for how magnetism in everyday objects is built up from quantum mechanics that I could find easily was this by minute physics: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hFAOXdXZ5TM
I tried a game that came free with my GOG account years ago, MagRunner.
Overpopulation, huge zaibatsu that is into digitizing people and they develop an incredible new technology in space: MagTech! Magnetic technology!
I guess the devs were being tongue-in-cheek at the time, but now it's not funny anymore.
Terrible Portal wanna-be, by the way.
Feynman. Invents modern plastic. Contributes to the atom bomb. Thanks Feynman
Except Feynman did answer in the end, or at least gave us an idea of what's going on without diving into the hard physics. The journey there was to teach us that asking questions doesn't always lead to a simple answer, and can lead to more questions.
Trump probably got two of those very strong neodymium magnets together and can't get them apart, so now he's confused and pissed at China because that's where they were bought.
