on the first day of class my astronomy professor asked us why the night sky was dark. if our universe is infinite, how can there be spaces between the stars? he didn’t answer the question until the last day– because our universe is relatively young, and is still growing. it is finite. not enough stars or galaxies have been formed to fill up the entire night sky.
but what that means to me is that somewhere, in an older universe, the night sky looks like a tapestry of diamonds. somewhere darkness is pale white and glittering. imagine being so surrounded. i haven’t gotten that image out of my head ever since– you could never navigate under such a sky but god it sounds lovely
me trying to get comfortable in my covers at night
thats the kind of thing i would love to just have in a little jar on my shelf so that when people came over they would be really unnerved by the mysterious shifting blob i have in a flask and i would refuse to acknowledge its existence
i took a pic of me watching the pickle rick episode to piss people off but like somehow i managed to take the pic so that the frame on the tv was…. a different frame to the reflection on the desk?
cursed image
this is the most fucked up scenario that accurately depicts that movement of photons through space and time
Einstein would be so upset that you proved his theory in one moment, cause in his day it took fuckin months to setup an eclipse pic to prove relativity n you did it by accident, in ur living room. congrats.
this is actually called the rolling shutter effect!! the camera captures images in a rolling fashion, from the top to the bottom. so objects that are moving fast like a car, or a airplane propeller, or frames on a tv being reflected will always look distorted. the closer to the top of the image you get, the further back in time it represents, just by a few split seconds. all this means is that the frame reflected on the table was probably the one right after the one on the tv, and it changed before the camera’s rolling shutter had time to get to it.
here’s some more pictures with the rolling shutter; remember that the top of the image just represents a fraction of a second earlier in the action
rolling shutters also move side to side in some cameras, leading to more spooky imagery
I’ve always found the best rolling shutter images to be lightning.
The substance the teacher uses in the video is liquid methane. But methane has a really low boiling point. Like, about −160 °C low. So once it touches the comparatively hot floor, the Leidenfrost effect comes into play, and it slides across the floor. The issue is though, methane is colorless, so you can’t normally see it. Thankfully (in this demonstration), methane is also very flammable, so he sets it on fire before dumping it onto the floor so you can see it as it moves.
Definitely a cooler demonstration of the Leidenfrost effect than dropping a little water in a hot pan.
To all those who are wondering, while I don’t speak the language I do understand the science behind this video. Basically what is happening is they’re blowing a bunch of tiny bubbles into the dry sand, what this does is make all the particles move around each other actively making the sand act as a fluid. So while the sand is aerated you can easily move things around in it, but when it’s not, it settles and returns to a more solid mass. It’s the same idea of how real life quick sand works, just substituting water for air.
who was the fool who was tasked with naming the galaxy and the only adjective they could think of was ‘mmmmmmmmmmmmilky…’
scientist: (gazing up at space) scientist: ……….. it sure is a milky boy
NO
YOU DONT UNDERSTAND
ASTRONOMERS ARE THE SHITTIEST EVER AT NAMING THINGS I KID YOU NOT.
When it came time to name the two theoretical particle types that might be dark matter THEY INTENTIONALLY CHOSE THE NAMES SO THAT THE ACRONYMS WOULD SPELL “WIMPS” AND “MACHOS” I SHIT YOU NOT
THEY ARE FUCKING TERRIBLE AT NAMING ANYTHING
I just listened to a talk by Neil deGrasse Tyson himself LAST NIGHT and he went on about this more than once.
“I’m walking down the street and I’m like ‘ooh pretty rock…’ and some Geologist is like ‘actually, that’s anorthosite feldspar’ and I’m like ‘Nevermind, I don’t want it anymore.’ Any biologists in the audience? [some clapping] Yeah, you know what I’m talking about. The most important molecule in the human body, what did you name it? It has NINE SYLLABLES and it’s so long that even YOU GUYS abbreviate it as ‘DNA’!
But astrophysicists and astronomers? No, man, we call it like we see it. Star made of neutrons? NEUTRON STAR. Small white star? WHITE DWARF. You know that big red spot on Jupiter? Know what we called it? JUPITER’S RED SPOT.”
my favourite one is rocks which they mis-identify as meteorites but then turn out to just be regular rocks,
they are called meteor-wrongs
HOW CAN YOU MAKE A POST ABOUT HOW TERRIBLE ASTRONOMERS ARE AT NAMING THINGS AND NOT MENTION THAT URANUS WAS ALMOST NAMED ‘GEORGE’S STAR’ BEFORE IT WAS NAMED URANUS AND MADE THE BUTT OF A MILLION INFANTILE JOKES
Okay, that’s fine! You are actually not alone, I just fumbled through explaining this to some friends! I only just found this today so I may not be 100% accurate, if anyone knows better they can correct as needed!
Basically what the current theory of gravity (the theory of relativity) says is that gravity is a fundamental reaction. Gravity is what happens when spacetime curves around mass/energy- that curving causes two objects to move toward one another in space.
The problem is that the general theory of relativity doesn’t explain quantum physics. It cannot explain why the outside edges of galaxies goes zoom in ways they should not, unless there is an unknown factor. Until now, Science was like okay, what if Dark Matter and Dark Energy are a thing, where Dark Energy is what causes the universe to expand and Dark Matter is matter we can’t see, and actually haven’t even proved exists yet. Like, we’re literally making that shit up because nothing else we had made sense, and assuming that Dark Matter exists and is affected by gravity in ways which would explain the zoom allowed us to move on with theorizing things. Which was fine.
But then this guy, Erik Verlinde, comes along and is like okay but what if we go back and assume that our understanding of gravity is what’s wrong?
What if instead of gravity happening (spacetime moves and that movement causes gravity to happen), gravity emerges (the fabric of the universe has gravity stored inside its structure and spacetime and gravity emerge together from that structure). As its own thing, alongside spacetime (which is also a product of the structure of the universe), with its own behaviors and stuff.
And emergent gravity CAN explain why the edges of galaxies go zoom (I do not understand the math behind it I’m sorry!), without needing to rely on “idk let’s say Dark Matter and move on.” Already it’s allowed Verlinde to accurately predict the movement of stars on the edges of galaxies on its own. (of course, bear in mind that it does not explain EVERYTHING. yet. but it does bring physics and quantum physics closer to being able to work together).
Which makes all of this actually really cool, because it means that this huge assumption we humans have made and based a lot of stuff on for a while (dark matter existing) may be wrong, BUT we may have figured out WHY it was wrong, and that means we may be able to start doing things right, and that always leads to even more fascinating discoveries and advancements in science.
Under current theories, there are four fundamental forces that govern how the universe works. Gravity, electromagnetism, strong nuclear, and weak nuclear. These forces are considered to be the basis of everything- everything else that happens can be traced back to being caused by these forces, but the four forces aren’t caused by anything else, they just are.
Emergent gravity says, no, that’s not right. Emergent gravity says that gravity isn’t a fundamental force. Rather, gravity is the result of something else happening on a more fundamental level.
@quasi-normalcy (sorry ur getting all my physics questions)?
So basically “Gravity, electromagnetism, strong nuclear, and weak nuclear” is the modern version of “fire, earth, water, and air are the only elements”
sparksoffandommagic 