Science Memes

11243 readers

3547 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

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

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

Research Committee

[email protected]

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

[email protected]

782

School is just one simplification after the other (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 9 months ago by illectrility to c/[email protected]

131 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Did the same thing to a science teacher when they said, "light only travels in a straight line" thing. It DOES only travel in straight lines, but refraction is a thing, and geodesics are never perfectly straight.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Bonus, it only travels through a straight line through curved space, so to an outside observer the light did curve.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Why does light get to be so special? It makes the rest of us feel bad.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

You can also move in a straight line but still go on a curve to an outside observer, just make the outside observer something off earth and walk a significant portion of the circumference of the earth.

[–] Grandwolf319 2 points 9 months ago

Ooo I guess planes are a good example

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

That's less light being special and more space thinking it's funny to fuck with physicists by not being euclidean

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

When talking about normal refractions, it can be argued that thoose are still two peices of straight lines just like reflections.

But there was some experiment which light bends in curved path in a solution of varying concentration from top to bottom. So there was a gradient of optical density(higher at bottom) and caused smooth curving of light

Edit: Oh it was just sugar solution http://physicsed.buffalostate.edu/pubs/StudentIndepStudy/EURP09/Sugar/sugar.html

Edit 2: Found this too which is much better demo https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rnNjV3fh-4M