The label 'homo sapiens' for our species.
this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2025
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When the moon is at its farthest orbit from earth, all of the planets in the solar system can fit in between earth and the moon.
Infinity and Black Hole
That time passes differently in galaxies with different gravities. One of these galaxies is Mormon heaven.
Wait what
Gravitational time dilation is an effect of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. Places with stronger gravity would then have time pass more slowly compared to earth. The opposite is also true.
cum
Biological evolution
For the sake of discussion, let's say on the one hand a magic man intelligently designed life and all that. And on the other hand we have it arise and evolve over the course of billions of years of random atomic interactions and genetic mutations. I honestly find the second one far more amazing, wondrous, amazing, and mind blowing.
the implication of einsteins mass-energy equivalence formula is mind-blowing to me. one gram of mass, if perfectly converted to energy, makes 25 GWh. that means half the powerplants in my country could be replaced with this theoretical "mass converter" going through a gram of fuel an hour. that's under 10 kilograms of fuel a year.
a coal plant goes through tons of fuel a day.
energy researchers, get on it
What do you think fusion research is?
a fun fact: for the most efficient mass energy conversion, you need a huge spin black hole (preferably naked). Then you can get about 42% conversion. (there was a minute physics video about it i think)
No where near perfect mass conversion....
Max theoretical mass-energy conversion efficiency is under 1%
15 years away from a useful result
Just a fancier way to spin turbines with steam
Fancier or more efficient?
The fact that there is no discernable difference between an alive body or a dead body when it comes to chemical makeup.
All the pieces are there. All the atoms and molecules are still in the same places. Yet despite this the body is still dead.
When you say "All the atoms and molecules are still in the same places", I can't say I agree. It is the change of chemical composition that renders our body dead. Or should I say, death is defined to be such a chemical composition.
The size of the universe and the distance between everything in it. It takes about 8 minutes for light from our own sun to reach us. And the observable universe is about 5,859,000,000,000,000,000 times larger than that! That is quite a trip. I would need about 293,283,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 charging stops with my electric car to get to the end. I think Iโll pass.
(Someone smarter than me will probably find out that my math is wrong)
What I find mind blowing about the scale of the universe, is that on a logarithmic scale from the smallest possible thing to the largest possible thing, humans live at almost the exact centre.
There are more hydrogen atoms in a molecule of water than there are stars in the solar system
Not just that, it's twice the amount!
The fact that planes are kept in the air by the shape of their wings, which forces air to go over at a pace when it can't push down on the wing as hard as it can push up from underneath. It's like discovering an exploitable glitch in a videogame and every time I fly I worry that the universe will get patched while I'm at 10,000 feet.
I remember reading a couple years ago that's not actually how plane wings work. The actual way is much more complicated and hard to explain and hard to teach, so they just teach it this way because its an intuitive mental model that is "close enough" and "seems right", and it really doesn't matter unless you're a plane wing designer.
The basic way an airplane works actually is simple and intuitive: it meets the air at an angle and deflects it downward. The equal and opposite reaction to accelerating that mass of air is an upward force on the wing.
There is, of course a whole lot of finesse on top of that with differences in wing design having huge impacts on the performance and handling of aircraft due to various aerodynamic phenomena which are anything but simple or intuitive. A thin, flat wing will fly though, and balsa wood toy airplanes usually use exactly that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lift_(force)#Simplified_physical_explanations_of_lift_on_an_airfoil
"With a big enough engine you can make a barn door fly."
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A Planck length is the smallest length possible, a smaller length simply can't exist.
At least that's what scientists believed until they studied OPs penis, then they found out something smaller does in fact exist.
Dude! I told you in confidence not to share that info.
I guess I have no choice but to share that @spittingimage@lemmy.world has the world's biggest human anus. It's been a scientific mystery about how it got to be so big.
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You can observe the chirality of some molecules from the crystals they form, sometimes they twist clockwise, other times they twist counter clockwise. Which way they twist is dependent on their molecular structure.
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