this post was submitted on 29 Nov 2024
307 points (95.8% liked)

Science Memes

11426 readers
2256 users here now

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.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 85 points 3 weeks ago (14 children)

This triangle is impossible.

If the distance between B and C is 0, B and C are the same points. If that is the case, the distances between A and B and A and C must be the same.

However, i ≠ 1.

If you want it to be real (hehe) the triangle should be like this:

    C
    | \
|i| |  \ 0
    |   \
    A---B
     |1|

Drawing that on mobile was a pain.

As the other guy said, you cannot have imaginary distances.

Also, you can only use Pythagoras with triangles that have a 90° angle. Nothing in the meme says that there's a 90° angle. As I see it, there are only 0° and 180° angles.

Goodbye, I have to attend other memes to ruin.

[–] planish 2 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

This is clearly meant to be a right triangle. And the distances between the points are the same (because the squares of the coordinate differences are the same), just the directions are different.

If you move 1 unit forward, turn the correct 90 degrees, and then move i units forward, you will end up back where you started.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

You can't have a distance in a "different direction". That's what the |x| is for, which is the modulus. If you rotate a triangle, the length of the sides don't change.

[–] planish 2 points 2 weeks ago

The vector from one point to another in space has both a distance (magnitude) and a direction. Labeling the side with i only really makes sense if you say we're looking at a vector of "i units that way", and not at an assertion that these two points are a directionless i units apart. Then you'd have to break out the complex norms somebody mentioned.

load more comments (11 replies)