this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2025
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[–] reboot6675@sopuli.xyz 47 points 4 days ago (13 children)

When I was a kid I encountered this problem when I wondered what would happen if I half-empty a bottle of soda, re-fill it with water, and repeat. Will it eventually become just water or will there always be some soda left? It boggled my mind for a while, then I forgot about it until I reached university calculus haha

[–] ButteryMonkey@piefed.social 52 points 4 days ago (10 children)

You invented homeopathy! Just with more steps (literally).

[–] sxan@midwest.social 23 points 4 days ago (6 children)

You mean less steps. True homeopathy dilutes until there's no measurable amount of the substance left; it's just pure sugar/water/alcohol. You're supposedly getting benefits from "the vibrations."

Of all the pseudo-science quackery, homeopathy is one of the most idiot-prone.

[–] ButteryMonkey@piefed.social 7 points 4 days ago (1 children)

No, I do mean more steps, because homeopathy dilutes a smaller volume of target material, they actually would perform fewer steps than dilution via halving.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Homeopathy often dilutes by taking far less than half of a solution and diluting it in a large amount of fresh solvent. One process repeatability empties the entire container and refills it with solvent.

If you were diluting something by replacing only half with solvent, you'd have to do many more steps to get as pure solvent as homeopathy produces.

Homeopathy is a tremendously wasteful way of washing a container. It's hugely wasteful, and being a homeopathic environmentalist is oxymoronic.

[–] ButteryMonkey@piefed.social 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

That’s exactly what I mean.

The soda dilution by halves would have far more dilution steps to reach pure water than homeopathy.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Ah. I read you backwards, by bad.

[–] ButteryMonkey@piefed.social 4 points 4 days ago

All good, language is freakin hard, man!

All that matters is we got there in the end :)

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