Science Memes

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Electrons are easy (mander.xyz)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago (2 children)

they don't actually spin but they're little bar magnets as if they do. if you charge a sphere and spin it, you'll generate exactly the same kind of bar magnet, but they don't actually spin. and just like bar magnets, like repels like. but they're neither bar magnets nor spinning. why don't they spin? because they're point masses, which don't have any extent. but actually, you can't really observe them as point masses because they're waves.

^^ this was the exact point at which I said quantum mechanics wasn't for me and I'm done with physics, after completing most of a degree. it sort of all makes sense but at the same time it completely doesn't. it all makes sense as pure math but the second you try to make sense of the math, sense goes out the window.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It is a good demonstration of the limitations of our own thought. We understand new concepts in terms of familiar concepts. If there is no direct analogy to something familiar, the human mind is utterly lost and has to trust in rigorous analysis while only half believing what it proves.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

The universe is under no obligation to be understandable to the bits of it that can think. In many ways it's a wonder we've got as far as we have.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It all makes sense and the more you dig deeper the more it makes sense, but then you zoom out a little and then realize it actually doesn't make any sense in any sort of palatable way.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago

yeah, I was lucky to have already taken Classical Mechanics prior to Quantum Mechanics (it wasn't a prereq so most of my classmates jumped straight into QM), so the math was all perfectly sensible. but the second any prof started trying to use English to interpret the math, I started having these moments where I'd have to sit back and think about the words coming out of their mouths, and sitting with how it was all actually gibberish. Feynman's "shut up and calculate" started to feel incredibly valid really fast, whereas prior to QM, I was under the impression that physics was natural philosophy. it's not and QM was the breaking point, at least for me, personally.