this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 92 points 1 month ago (2 children)

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

[–] Theoriginalthon@lemmy.world 19 points 1 month ago

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

[–] I_am_10_squirrels@beehaw.org 10 points 1 month ago

And here I thought it was just your mom

[–] ODuffer@lemmy.world 61 points 1 month ago

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

[–] Maxxie@lemmy.blahaj.zone 39 points 1 month 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 1 month 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 1 month ago (1 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.

[–] chocosoldier@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

i say do watch the ones about string theory and mond so you can see why/how they're wrong

[–] Maxxie@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

As a layman who's into physics it took me like a decade to understand what is "wrong" with them. No educational string theory video is prefaced with "Hey this is an old unprovable theory that is essentially dead in the water, but it has some cool math tricks and is fun to think about" as they should be.

[–] chocosoldier@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 month ago

PBS Spacetime's approach was a pair of videos titled "Why String Theory is True" and "Why String Theory is False" and between them that pretty much put it to bed for me. cool math, cool worldbuilding, call me when they make a testable prediction. until then it goes on the scrap pile with aether and phlogiston.

[–] PlexSheep 3 points 1 month ago

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

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

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

[–] PartyAt15thAndSummit@lemmy.zip 6 points 1 month ago

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

[–] Almacca@aussie.zone 14 points 1 month ago (3 children)

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

[–] LemmyFeed@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 month ago (2 children)

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

[–] Snowclone@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago (2 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.

[–] cows_are_underrated@feddit.org 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

A recent discovery in gravity is that while gravity is a ''constant'', it actually fluctuates from place to place,

I guess you are referring to the c9ncept of dark matter?

To anyone who does not know what dark matter is:

Dark Matter is the "solution" for differences in the real gravitational force a star has and how much gravity it should have based on calculations. Dark matter basically is matter that does not interact with light in any form (and therefore can not be detected) but still emits gravity.

[–] MotoAsh@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Not "gravity a star has," but the motion of stars around/near galaxies. It is the general motion of groups of massive objects that hints that there is a lot more mass 'around' most (not all) galaxies than what matter we observe could possibly account for.

The 'not all' part is critical, because it points to something actually being there as opposed to the theory of gravity or relativity breaking down at larger scales.

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[–] MotoAsh@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Made up, and then confirmed with experimentation against actual reality.

Let's not pretend science is literature with extra steps. It's a process whos aim is to confirm things in a way that removes all possible alternative explanation or influence. A good experiment completely and fully removes the human element.

[–] saimen@feddit.org 5 points 1 month 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 1 month 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.

[–] MotoAsh@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

No, there actually are explanations for the effects as they exist in mathematical models. The problem is we do not yet have one single model that matches both quantum effects like superposition and cosmic scale effects like gravity and dark matter/energy.

There is almost certainly some truth in those mathematical explanations, simply because it's unlikely that something that is 99.99% provably correct has no truth associated with it.

The problem is, it needs to be 100%, with proven and confirmed experiments, not 99.99% correct, before scientists will call it a "solved" problem.

Also the anthropic principle does not prove or disprove multiverses.

[–] skisnow@lemmy.ca 11 points 1 month 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 1 month ago

Congratulations, here's your PhD

[–] SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 10 points 1 month 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 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] buttnugget@lemmy.world 15 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Gravity is pain receptors. Got it.

[–] Snowclone@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

We're unlearning a lot today.

[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 8 points 1 month ago (6 children)

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

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[–] nectar45@lemmy.zip 8 points 1 month ago

Daily reminder that physicists contribute nothing to society /j

[–] Snowclone@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago

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

[–] x00z@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

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

[–] MotoAsh@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

This is wholly inaccurate. We do know what causes gravity; time dilation near matter (at least for smaller objects like the Earth). What we don't know is why gravity, because we have yet to produce a model that matches both quantum effects and cosmic behaviors like gravity and dark matter/energy.

"Quantum gravity" is the general term for what solution would describe something that ties these two universes of behavior together. The process of decoherence isn't terribly well understood as far as carrying effects clear from particle scale to cosmic scale.

Even then, some of the mathematical explanations from current models are plausible, but unproven.

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

Isn’t this half the plot of Interstellar?

[–] webghost0101@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 month 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 1 month ago (7 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”.

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[–] marcos@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month 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 1 month 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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[–] AmbientDread@midwest.social 1 points 1 month ago

Gravity is the opposite of comedy.

[–] danc4498@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

I’d wait got the demonstration.

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