this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] LillyPip@lemmy.ca 103 points 2 months ago (14 children)

Everyone who’s dealt with kids knows you have to bisect the giraffe equally from nose to tail so everyone gets 2 legs, or somebody will cry that it’s unfair.

[–] pfwood178@sh.itjust.works 96 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Everyone who deals with scientists knows they assume a perfectly spherical, frictionless, giraffe.

[–] mushroommunk@lemmy.today 46 points 2 months ago (4 children)
[–] jaybone@lemmy.zip 31 points 2 months ago (2 children)

lol a giraffe would never fit in my vacuum.

[–] PaupersSerenade@sh.itjust.works 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You have to remember to take the Elephant out first.

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[–] bulwark@lemmy.world 28 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I let one cut and the other gets to pick first.

[–] zakobjoa@lemmy.world 13 points 2 months ago

This is the way. And from experience, it will result in sub-nanometer size differences.

[–] Pudutr0n@feddit.cl 10 points 2 months ago

Kids are total commies.

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[–] Catoblepas@piefed.blahaj.zone 42 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Even if you think height divided by two, why even describe it that way? Giraffes are tall, but not so unfathomably tall that something half its size is incomprehensible. That’s 7-9ish feet. You couldn’t say the size of Andre the Giant?

[–] Lumidaub@feddit.org 19 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The Youth Today don't know who that is. Then again, do they know how large a giraffe is? We may never know.

[–] logicbomb@lemmy.world 37 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Then again, do they know how large a giraffe is?

Just today, I learned a handy way of visualizing the size of a giraffe. If you took that asteroid that struck off the coast of Iceland, and made a copy of it and put the two of them together, that's about the size of a giraffe.

[–] Lumidaub@feddit.org 16 points 2 months ago

If that doesn't get you some Nobel prize, I don't know what will.

[–] mushroommunk@lemmy.today 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Sorry, I need that in dishwashers or ping pong balls

[–] xylol@leminal.space 6 points 2 months ago

I think you just need to translate everything to bananas then go in from there

[–] Okokimup@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago (5 children)
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[–] marcos@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago (3 children)

People usually measure asteroids by mass (but then, those people are already abnormal, so who knows?), if so, it's something around the size of a cow.

Or maybe they could use metric...

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[–] Kirca@lemmy.world 35 points 2 months ago (1 children)

This is why real scientists use the only reasonable real world measurement - a perfectly spherical cow in a vacuum.

[–] TorJansen@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Hmm. Thought they used bananas.

[–] jaybone@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 months ago

Maybe in a shop vac.

[–] nialv7@lemmy.world 21 points 2 months ago (1 children)

obviously the scientists meant a spherical giraffe in a vacuum

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[–] seraphine@lemmy.blahaj.zone 18 points 2 months ago (6 children)

americans be using anything but the metric system

[–] kalpol@lemmy.ca 9 points 2 months ago (2 children)
[–] LunarLoony@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 2 months ago

But they're the sort of British that yearns for the good old days, when we still had shillings and inches and diphtheria and jumpers for goalposts and no womens' rights and all that great British stuff.

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[–] satanmat@lemmy.world 18 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Dear gods

How far will these Americans go to not use the metric system... ffs

[–] ohulancutash@feddit.uk 19 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Sadly they’re not American. Containment has been breached.

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[–] meme_historian@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

One standard volume giraffe of course, i.e. the volume in m³ an average giraffe would fill (at room temperature and sea level), when passed through a blender. And then half of that

[–] psycho_driver@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago (2 children)

The scientists had to go through many more proportionate animals before discovering that half a giraffe was a near perfect match for the size of the asteroid.

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[–] TheSlad@sh.itjust.works 14 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Also, most people dont even have a good grasp on how big giraffes are anyways!

I once went to a zoo that had an elevated platform extending into the giraffe's habitat so that you could stand face to face with them. Their heads are as big as a normal human, like 5 feet from crown to chin!

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[–] passenger@sopuli.xyz 13 points 2 months ago

Reads Daily Mail clickbait, proceeds to blame "scientists"

[–] MourningDove@lemmy.zip 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I love it when I can understand your memes!

[–] fossilesque@mander.xyz 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Ask questions when you do not. :)

[–] MourningDove@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Oh I wouldn’t begin to know what to even ask. I’m a music major lol. But if I think of something, I’ll pipe up.

[–] fossilesque@mander.xyz 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Start with where you are, others will be there too. :)

[–] MourningDove@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 months ago

Thanks! I’ll do that.

[–] BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works 12 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

And is it half the volume, mass or a dimension? Because I've never tried neither blending or carrying a giraffe before (I never got invited to those parties in uni) so I have no grasp on volume or mass.

[–] BillBurBaggins@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago (6 children)

Surely a giraffe is nearly uniform density making the distinction between volume and mass irrelevant

Assume a spherical giraffe.

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[–] absentbird@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

So like the size of a horse?

The average horse is about half the height and weight of the average giraffe. Giraffes are just a really bad unit of measurement, males weight about 400kg more than females and there is a wide height difference over their global population, they are technically four different species we just all call giraffe 🦒

[–] buttnugget@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I was just going to say, what kind of weird ass size comparison is that. It’s almost as egregious as saying “half the size of two apples”.

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[–] territorial@slrpnk.net 11 points 2 months ago

In other words, a large boulder the size of a small boulder

[–] ohulancutash@feddit.uk 8 points 2 months ago

I’m surprised they didn’t use immigrants as the unit.

[–] oyfrog@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago

The anatomical answer is sagitally down the midline.

[–] BlushedPotatoPlayers@sopuli.xyz 6 points 2 months ago

It's not the scientists, it's a single journalist who is popping out these headlines. Some of those caught attention.

[–] TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 2 months ago (8 children)

I don't get why Americans are doing their best to avoid the metric system. It's always weird discriptions. Like dishwashers, or in this case, half a giraffe. Just use bananas if (cubic) meters are too complex.

[–] morkyporky@suppo.fi 11 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Isn't daily mail in the UK?

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