Science is about empiricism, so i would expect scientists to try out the occult from time to time.
Pascal's wager with respect to machinery, maybe the toys don't help, but what if they do?
this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2024
782 points (98.5% liked)
Science Memes
10928 readers
2405 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
Other Mander Communities
Science and Research
Biology and Life Sciences
- !abiogenesis@mander.xyz
- !animal-behavior@mander.xyz
- !anthropology@mander.xyz
- !arachnology@mander.xyz
- !balconygardening@slrpnk.net
- !biodiversity@mander.xyz
- !biology@mander.xyz
- !biophysics@mander.xyz
- !botany@mander.xyz
- !ecology@mander.xyz
- !entomology@mander.xyz
- !fermentation@mander.xyz
- !herpetology@mander.xyz
- !houseplants@mander.xyz
- !medicine@mander.xyz
- !microscopy@mander.xyz
- !mycology@mander.xyz
- !nudibranchs@mander.xyz
- !nutrition@mander.xyz
- !palaeoecology@mander.xyz
- !palaeontology@mander.xyz
- !photosynthesis@mander.xyz
- !plantid@mander.xyz
- !plants@mander.xyz
- !reptiles and amphibians@mander.xyz
Physical Sciences
- !astronomy@mander.xyz
- !chemistry@mander.xyz
- !earthscience@mander.xyz
- !geography@mander.xyz
- !geospatial@mander.xyz
- !nuclear@mander.xyz
- !physics@mander.xyz
- !quantum-computing@mander.xyz
- !spectroscopy@mander.xyz
Humanities and Social Sciences
Practical and Applied Sciences
- !exercise-and sports-science@mander.xyz
- !gardening@mander.xyz
- !self sufficiency@mander.xyz
- !soilscience@slrpnk.net
- !terrariums@mander.xyz
- !timelapse@mander.xyz
Memes
Miscellaneous
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Either that or the lab equipment is infused with the souls of children.
load more comments
(1 replies)
i was in a group call with 6 mathematicians, and it came time to order our names in the paper we were writing. in math papers, the names are always ordered alphabetically. we had to pull up a picture of the alphabet because none of us could remember which way the letters are ordered.
memorizing the order of the alphabet would take precious real estate that could instead hold a couple more digits of pi
load more comments
(1 replies)
You guys are mathematicians not letterematicians.
Also, I'm doing engineering shit and I still need to count using my fingers when calculating something on a multiplication table
As a math guy, obviously the order of the letters is: x, y, z, a, b, c, then the rest of them in whatever order I currently feel like.
As a CS guy, obviously the order is sort( [ set of all letters ] ).
You forgot i, j, k
It's actually x, y, z, a, b, c, i, j, k, e, and then whatever, they don't matter.
You forgot p, q
They can be handy and come before e
I do trig for a living. I don't remember how to do long division at all.
What set of poor life choices led you to that??
(Kidding)
exactly!
and i am always in favor of counting with fingers. we were given them for a reason, might as well make the most of them. counting is hard enough as it is
No, counting with fingers is bad. Count with phalanges instead. It's more efficient
Just be sure to do it in binary. You gotta squeeze all of the value out of those phalanges.
That's impossible, because it would require tracking each digit at once. Counting in binary is kind of possible with fingers, but not with phalanges.
Counting in binary is kind of possible with fingers
Kind of? It's quite possible and easy. I spent an afternoon counting syllables to create shitty poetry, and my fingers started counting on their own. Now I can count to 31 on 1 hand and it's surprisingly useful.
Drag is in pain when drag tries to fully extend the middle or ring finger with all others clasped.
Drag has issues giving the 🖕?
Yeah, it kinda hurts
Damn dude, start doing some stretches unless it's some condition. Overtightened tendons can do that.
Counting cohomology has done to me a numbers x_x
yeah cohomology can be particularly rough. look on the bright side though, at least you now have the tools to answer this question:
load more comments
(1 replies)
See also, the Pauli effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauli_effect
The Pauli effect or Pauli's device corollary is the supposed tendency of technical equipment to encounter critical failure in the presence of certain people. The term was coined after mysterious anecdotal stories involving Austrian theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli, describing numerous instances in which demonstrations involving equipment suffered technical problems only when he was present.
An incident occurred in the physics laboratory at the University of Göttingen. An expensive measuring device, for no apparent reason, suddenly stopped working, although Pauli was in fact absent. James Franck, the director of the institute, reported the incident to his colleague Pauli in Zürich with the humorous remark that at least this time Pauli was innocent. However, it turned out that Pauli had been on a railway journey to Zürich and had switched trains in the Göttingen rail station at about the time of the failure.
R. Peierls describes a case when at one reception this effect was to be parodied by deliberately crashing a chandelier upon Pauli's entrance. The chandelier was suspended on a rope to be released, but it stuck instead, thus becoming a real example of the Pauli effect
I've wondered if mental state actually affects reality around us. Like some people who see paranormal shit are just more open to it or something while the presence of a skeptic prevents it from happening
And people who just don't have confidence that tech will work can cause random issues just by being present, but sometimes when a tech confident person comes to assist them, their confidence gets it to work properly.
Maybe it has to do with particle/wave duality and the observer effect, and the simulation approximates things more when people aren't paying as much attention or won't likely investigate an issue closely after the fact, so the simulation gets sloppy because it's approximating. But then when someone who will pay closer attention comes (or will come), the waves collapse into particles and it behaves as expected.
Maybe those cases where a user claims something usually works when they do it a way that is clearly wrong to the more experienced observer, the approximation works out in their favour, but the collapse to particles makes it break like it was supposed to the whole time.
Maybe Pauli understood some things about the technical equipment (and ropes?) that the others didn't or was better at calibration and collapsed the wave more than usual.
Though my guess for the chandelier is that someone first thought of the dropping it when he entered joke but then realized that saying they tried to do that and it failed would be even funnier plus save them a chandelier and be much easier and safer to pull off.
Particle don't have anything todo with a person observing it, it collapses if you try to observe it because the only way to observe a particle is launching another particle to it, and that changes the particle state
load more comments
(5 replies)
Anyone who builds their own PC kit knows about the Blood Sacrifice
That's why there is always that one sharp edge on the housing.
It's not just PC building. Was a known tradition when I did industrial controls.
Also: magic smoke
Well it's better than the tradition of walling in live humans to appease the spirit of the collapsing building/bridge.
load more comments
(1 replies)
magic smoke a bad bad sign, it's the magic escaping
Khorn really stepped up his game once we started rounding the edges on our PC cases.
I have some low-level projects where I am responsible for every byte of code running on very simple hardware.
There's still problems where I throw my hands up and say "Nope, haunted. I'll try again later."
Oh no, the orks became smart enough to he scientists, the green tide is too big to stop now
load more comments
(3 replies)
Well now I gotta build a shrine in my lab. The COF tester, GC, and our UPC tester are all behaving badly.
You need to treat them nicely and maybe show a bit of romance. Poems, flowers, even a printed picture of flowers, something nice that will last is all it takes and your instruments will work perfectly for you. Each person may need to contribute individually to the shrine.
I swear, some damned tech came in on a PM and removed my poem from my favorite HPLC and now it's been acting up for me nonstop.
load more comments
(2 replies)
view more: next ›