this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 92 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Gravity is caused by the fact that everything in the universe sucks.

[–] Theoriginalthon@lemmy.world 19 points 3 months ago

So what you are saying is micro black holes everywhere, thats genius!

[–] I_am_10_squirrels@beehaw.org 10 points 3 months ago

And here I thought it was just your mom

[–] ODuffer@lemmy.world 61 points 3 months ago

I've been reading a book about anti-gravity. I just can't put this thing down.

[–] Maxxie@lemmy.blahaj.zone 39 points 3 months ago (1 children)

What do you mean no advances in the last 70 years?! In the last decade scientists detected gravity waves and imaged an actual real black hole. Also they've been steadily chipping at quantum gravity, give it a couple decades they'll get there.

unless we cancel all the funding

[–] saimen@feddit.org 3 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Aren't the first two things just experimental proves of Einsteins relativity theory from over 100 years ago?

I don't know about quantum gravity though.

[–] Maxxie@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 3 months ago (3 children)

I wouldn't say "just", experimental proof seems huge.

But if you want theories just go to PBS space time and open anything that isnt string theory or mond.

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[–] PlexSheep 3 points 3 months ago

A theory proven is progress, don't you think?

[–] _AutumnMoon_@lemmy.blahaj.zone 24 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Gravity was invented by Isaac Newton because he was invested in an airline.

[–] PartyAt15thAndSummit@lemmy.zip 6 points 3 months ago

That's the real answer. Always check on whose payroll somebody is.

[–] Almacca@aussie.zone 14 points 3 months ago (3 children)

I find it quite marvellous that the universe contains unexplainable stuff like this, actually.

[–] LemmyFeed@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Everything we know about all space and time is technically just entirely made up by us.

[–] Snowclone@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago (3 children)

It came from the Labratory of The Mind, yes, the work was entirely metaphysical, but here's the wierd part. They used that mental experimentation and applied it to real life action, and it worked. It's like imagining you have a magic carpet for years then you stand on one and it starts flying. It began as imagination of the world around us, then when checked against reality. It works. Someone figured out that if something was passing around a sun. A planet, that it would dim the light at regular intervals. They checked, it did, that's the only reason we know there's planets outside our solar system. Someone checked the lumens of stars and found the data matched the theory. We use the color variations of stars in a similar way to detect more data. It's quite remarkable. A recent discovery in gravity is that while gravity is a ''constant'', it actually fluctuates from place to place, I'm not sure if anyone figured out why yet, but if and when, how they find out, will be their imagining a reason, imagining how to check, checking in real life, and getting the data on if it's right or not.

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[–] saimen@feddit.org 5 points 3 months ago

There is an actual logical proof that there are propositions in mathematics that are neither provable nor refutable.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/goedel-incompleteness/

[–] cows_are_underrated@feddit.org 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Unexplainable yet. We may be able to understand how Gravity works.

But of course you are right, there are absolutely things that can not be explained. It is (very probably) impossible to explain why our nature constants are the way they are or why forces act the way they do. The easiest answer to why they are the way they are is to say "They are this way, because if they would be a little bit different we could not ask this question". This sentence implies, that we live in some form of a multiversum and that there are multiple universes existent (in which form doesn't matter) but it is impossible to detect them.

[–] skisnow@lemmy.ca 11 points 3 months ago (1 children)

While reading this I had a sudden flash of inspiration in which I saw clearly exactly how gravity works, but then when I started typing I forgot again. It's quite frustrating

[–] I_am_10_squirrels@beehaw.org 6 points 3 months ago

Congratulations, here's your PhD

[–] SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 10 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Gravity is what makes my feet hurt when I stand around too long without moving about.

[–] xx3rawr@sh.itjust.works 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] buttnugget@lemmy.world 15 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Gravity is pain receptors. Got it.

[–] Snowclone@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

We're unlearning a lot today.

[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 8 points 3 months ago (6 children)

I mean for 57k a year it doesn't sound too bad tbh.

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[–] Snowclone@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago

The far end might sound smart to you if you've never taken physics classes, but...

[–] nectar45@lemmy.zip 8 points 3 months ago

Daily reminder that physicists contribute nothing to society /j

[–] x00z@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago

Gravity is not what makes your body limp. It would just heavily influence a limp body. PhD my ass.

[–] erotador@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)
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[–] NerdInSuspenders@leminal.space 2 points 3 months ago

Isn’t this half the plot of Interstellar?

[–] webghost0101@sopuli.xyz 2 points 3 months ago (4 children)

Gravity is a fundamental force just like electromagnetism (supposedly)

Fundamental means it cannot be explained by being caused by something else.

But then they say gravity is an effect caused by spacetime curvature and electromagnetism is caused by quantum phenomena.

What is the cause for spacetime or quantummechanics? Idk but somehow they don't make it on the list of fundamental forces.

Classical science, for all the good it did and does, is an unironic joke and if aliens knew about it they’d be laughing at us.

[–] WolfLink@sh.itjust.works 19 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Fundamental means it cannot be explained by being caused by something else.

Fundamental force means we expect a carrier particle to explain it (for gravity that’s the Graviton, although it hasn’t been detected yet).

electromagnetism is caused by quantum phenomena.

Not even remotely true.

What is the cause for spacetime or quantummechanics? Idk but somehow they don't make it on the list of fundamental forces.

Quantum mechanics is mostly that statistics is more complicated than we all thought . Seeking a cause for spacetime is interesting. It might be relevant to mention that there is a fundamental particle that imparts mass, which we call the Higgs Boson. I guess that could make mass and inertia something of a “fundamental force”.

[–] webghost0101@sopuli.xyz 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Maybe i am wording it wrong. I did make the comment half joking but my current understanding of how magnetism really works, which my physics teacher was unable to answer has a chapter on wikipedia called Quantum-mechanical origin of magnetism

I have no degrees in this stuff though, i just think about them recreationally.

The carrier particle thing to describe a fundamental force is new to me, and honestly feels very counterintuitive to how i started to understand things.

[–] cynar@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago

Quantum mechanical particles are very different things to classical ones.

A slightly better way of thinking about them is quantised fields. Particles and waves are simplifications of the underlying effect. There is no classical equivalent to work with to this, so we try and understand it as particle-wave duality etc.

In this case, a carrier particle is a (quantised) disturbance in the underlying field. If it has enough energy, it manifests as a physical particle. The higgs boson is an example of this. Below the required energy, you get virtual particles. These "borrow" energy, and so can never be seen directly, only inferred.

By example. Photons are the carrier particle of electromagnetism. Give the field energy and you get photons (light). Without that energy, the photons are virtual. Existing only between the 2 acting entities.

Different fields have different carrier particles. The photon is quite simple. It's effectiveness decays as 1/r^2 . The strong force carriers are more complex. They can emit more carrier particles, allowing the field to grow with distance rather than decay.

To add more complexity. The various fields look to be aspects of the same field. At sufficient energies, they behave identically. We have figured out how to combine the electric, magnetic and weak fields. We have a handle on the strong field. The higgs field seems to also match into this. Gravity is a pain to study. We assume it should match in, but haven't managed to work out how yet.

As for why the underlying field exists and follows the rules it does? We have no clue right now. The 'why' tends to follow the 'what', and we have yet to get a good handle on the 'what'.

[–] WolfLink@sh.itjust.works 6 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (4 children)

diamagnetism, paramagnetism and ferromagnetism can be fully explained only using quantum theory

The magnetic properties of certain materials (e.g. why an unmagnetized piece of iron sticks to a magnet of either polarization), the way permanent magnets work, is best explained by quantum mechanics.

However, the electromagnetic force itself doesn’t “arise” from quantum mechanics, and you can explain things like electromagnets and a lot of common electric circuits (until you need a transistor) quite well without considering quantum mechanics.

Usually you take the “classical” formula for a force and to inform your quantum mechanical model of particles, and that’s how you can arrive at things like deriving how permanent magnets work with the help of w quantum mechanics.

Generally, a lot of material science and chemistry is inherently quantum mechanical because the way atomic orbitals and molecular bonds work is heavily quantum mechanical.

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[–] marcos@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago

What is the cause for spacetime or quantummechanics? Idk but somehow they don’t make it on the list of fundamental forces.

Well, they are not forces.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 3 points 3 months ago

But then they say gravity is an effect caused by spacetime curvature and electromagnetism is caused by quantum phenomena. What is the cause for spacetime or quantummechanics? Idk but somehow they don't make it on the list of fundamental forces.

I don't think we know enough about quantum mechanics to even make a guess, yet. I do know that the reason we wanted to find the Higgs Boson so much was because we thought it could help explain how things acquire mass, which could lead to figuring out antigravity. But then we found it and it wasn't doing what was originally thought. Or something.

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