this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2025
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A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment

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[–] Underwaterbob@sh.itjust.works 10 points 2 days ago

Yeah, "spin" was a stupid thing to call it. We have a nice, hard definition of what "spin" is on a macro scale. Why take a complex property of matter that we don't have a name for, and give it the same name as a fairly common, easy-to-understand phenomenon? Extraordinarily smart people being idiots, honestly.

[–] GraniteM@lemmy.world 54 points 3 days ago (4 children)

I recall a Richard Feynman video where the interviewer asks him to explain how magnets work.

His answer amounts to "I can't explain that to you because if I gave you an accurate answer it would be too technical for it to make sense to you, and if I simplified it to the extent that you could understand, it would no longer be a meaningful answer."

[–] slackassassin@sh.itjust.works 12 points 3 days ago

His point was that we don't understand the interaction between fundamental forces enough to say, if we were to try and answer the question accurately enough.

So, in one sense ICP was right that we don't know how magnets work. But also they were wrong that scientists be lying. They shouldn't have been pissed.

[–] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 8 points 3 days ago (9 children)

That interview answer always seemed like a cop-out to me. You could make a comparison to gravity to explain how magnetism "just is".

[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 3 points 2 days ago

https://xkcd.com/1489

Title-Text: "Of these four forces, there's one we don't really understand." "Is it the weak force or the strong--" "It's gravity."

[–] dgdft@lemmy.world 18 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

I expect Feynman’s answer, if he had a whiteboard and unlimited time, would’ve been to dive into Maxwell’s equations.

With that in mind, his answer makes complete sense. Good luck explaining coupled PDEs to people who aren’t mathy in a few sentences without visual aid. The analogy to the gravitational force isn’t on point; there’s a lot more to be said about how magnets tie to into E&M more broadly, compared to gravity.

Though you’re absolutely right that once you get deep enough into any topic in physics that the answer to “why?” inevitably becomes “it just be like that”.

[–] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

The analogy to the gravitational force isn’t on point; there’s a lot more to be said about how magnets tie to into E&M more broadly, compared to gravity.

Yeah, a proper answer would need to dive into how it relates to electricity for sure

[–] skisnow@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 days ago

I think OP's meme illustrates Feynman's point very well; there comes a stage where if the number of incorrect statements in your explanation outnumber the the correct ones, it's no longer a meaningful explanation.

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[–] dustyData@lemmy.world 125 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (7 children)

Whenever any of this comes up I remember that physics professor's speech on first day of quantum mechanics that got viral:

“Nobody understands quantum mechanics. The people who came up with it don't understand it. I will do my best so that by the end of this course you don't understand it either, and so you can got out to the world and spread our ignorance.”

Or something to that effect.

[–] blandfordforever@lemm.ee 42 points 4 days ago

I'm so good at not understanding stuff. My time has come.

[–] LordCrom@lemmy.world 27 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Quantum mechanics is illogical and stuff that happens makes no sense but can be recrcreated through experimentation....as long as you don't look at it.

The end

[–] SmoothOperator@lemmy.world 63 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Quantum mechanics is extremely logical - we understand the math extremely well, and the math describes reality better than any other theory.

It is, however, not intuitive.

[–] LordCrom@lemmy.world 7 points 3 days ago

I was just being cheeky

[–] BrainInABox@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 days ago (4 children)

It's perfectly logical, what happens makes sense, we just don't know key facts about what is actually happening.

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[–] SmoothOperator@lemmy.world 13 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I'd say we understand quantum mechanics better than most things.

We know more about the behaviour of an electron than we know about the oceans, the Earth, the sun, the weather, the stock market, the human body, prime numbers, and so on.

[–] Soggy@lemmy.world 16 points 4 days ago (9 children)

We generally have a grasp of "why" for that stuff though, even if the whole picture is currently hidden or too complex.

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[–] ewigkaiwelo@lemmy.world 8 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Whenever this picture comes up I remember that it's wrong - both electrons on it have the same spin, one is just rotated 180°, but it says +½ for one and -½ for the other, is like a part of the joke?

[–] Womble@lemmy.world 31 points 4 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

All electrons have spin 1/2, that's a property of it being an electron. They have a spin vector (the arrow shown) and whether it is in the same direction or opposite direction to the magnetic field it's in determines where it is plus or minus.

Now you might think "but what if it is not entirely aligned with the field, then it wouldn't be 1/2", which is true, on aggregate for large numbers of electrons, but if you ever look at a single electron its spin will either be "up" or "down" never any other orientation.

This is the kind of thing people are referring to when they say "no one understands QM", we know it is the case, we can measure it and predict it, but it makes no fucking sense.

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[–] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 10 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Imagine a woman in hot pants with thighs like a Robert Crumb dream woman.

I don't know if it helps with this problem though.

[–] P00ptart@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

NoU Imagine a cactus eating a deer.

[–] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 2 points 21 hours ago

That's a challenging wank.

(RIP Sean Lock)

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 11 points 3 days ago (1 children)

imagines a static cube

Ahhh....

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[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 71 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Imagine a mathematical concept that approximates a particle across a spherical plane. Now imagine a force emitted from this sphere in a field. Okay, we're ready to talk about why this is wrong, too.

[–] TomMasz@lemmy.world 16 points 4 days ago (1 children)

There's no analogy for any of this that doesn't have some flaw.

[–] Isoprenoid@programming.dev 32 points 4 days ago (4 children)

All analogies have flaws. If they didn't, they wouldn't be an analogy, they would be describing the very thing itself.

[–] AnarchistArtificer@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

One of my favourite things is the one-paragraph short story "On Exactitude in Science":

On Exactitude in Science Jorge Luis Borges, Collected Fictions, translated by Andrew Hurley.

" …In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it. The following Generations, who were not so fond of the Study of Cartography as their Forebears had been, saw that that vast Map was Useless, and not without some Pitilessness was it, that they delivered it up to the Inclemencies of Sun and Winters. In the Deserts of the West, still today, there are Tattered Ruins of that Map, inhabited by Animals and Beggars; in all the Land there is no other Relic of the Disciplines of Geography."

Source: https://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/08/bblonder/phys120/docs/borges.pdf

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

Imagine trying to maintain a map of any size complexity physically! Yet another underrated way digitize technology has been a paradigm change

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[–] SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 8 points 4 days ago (5 children)

You lost me at 'spherical plane'

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[–] Hupf@feddit.org 22 points 4 days ago
[–] Chocrates@lemmy.world 28 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Sounds like a class with an attribute called spin.

[–] chortle_tortle@mander.xyz 13 points 4 days ago (4 children)

It does however also have repercussions that are inline with it being a sphere that is spinning.

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[–] underwire212@lemm.ee 10 points 4 days ago (7 children)

The universe is a digital simulation confirmed

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[–] AlDente@sh.itjust.works 13 points 4 days ago

Right-hand rule bitches!

[–] BlackLaZoR@fedia.io 23 points 4 days ago

There was great episode on PBS space time about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWlk1gLkF2Y

In short it doesn't rotate, it just has magnetic field that behaves as if the source was spinning charge

[–] capuccino@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)
[–] LiamMayfair@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

electrons be vibin

[–] bleistift2@sopuli.xyz 20 points 4 days ago (2 children)

The electron is rotating in the sense that it resists a tilting force.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdN1mweN2ds

Disclaimer: My knowledge of physics ends at the high school level.

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[–] Deestan@lemmy.world 17 points 4 days ago
  • Ok, so is it correct to say it has some rotation properties?
  • Hahaha, oh no. Nonononono. No. Not at all correct no. However, it's the best we've got so yeah that's what we're going with.
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