this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2024
1488 points (99.3% liked)

Science Memes

10988 readers
2104 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

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. 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

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] troyunrau@lemmy.ca 145 points 7 months ago (6 children)

My third year thermodynamics course opened with a similar quip by the lecturer. Entropy is actually depressing. You can't fight it. You can't not fight it. It just wins.

[–] WbrJr@lemmy.ml 43 points 7 months ago

So.. that's why I never tidy up my room. I'm just too smart!

[–] gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com 25 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Man, you humans are going to be really upset when you find the universal wall....

I mean uh....

Hey, how was the game last night amirite?

[–] Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone 24 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Did you see that ludicrous display last night?

[–] FooBarrington@lemmy.world 13 points 7 months ago (1 children)

What was Wenger thinking sending Walcott on that early?

[–] UlfKirsten@feddit.de 11 points 7 months ago

Thing about Arsenal is they always try and walk it in

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Hupf@feddit.de 12 points 7 months ago

All we have to decide is what to do with the entropy that is given us.

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 7 points 7 months ago

To quote The Star Child, "What, you haven't planned that far ahead?"

[–] oce@jlai.lu 5 points 7 months ago

Life is a temporary win over it, just enjoy it while you can.

[–] Etterra@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago

Well I mean yeah. It wasn't my first existential crisis - you get used to them eventually. Or you do what those guys did I guess.

[–] Dogs_cant_look_up@lemmy.world 113 points 7 months ago

One opening line that's always stuck with me is:

"The doctor said I was a paranoid schizophrenic. Well, he didn't actually say it, but we knew he was thinking it."

[–] gibmiser@lemmy.world 71 points 7 months ago (2 children)

So... is Goldstein still around or did he...?

[–] Maven@lemmy.world 62 points 7 months ago

Don't worry, he's alive: His wiki page

[–] SomeoneSomewhere@lemmy.nz 41 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] Zehzin@lemmy.world 39 points 7 months ago

There's still time

[–] LillyPip@lemmy.ca 50 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

We are all gas with a slightly denser particle distribution.

🔫

[–] hernanca@lemmy.world 23 points 7 months ago

We all are vast collections of harmonic oscillators.

[–] usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca 30 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] toothpaste_sandwich@feddit.nl 6 points 7 months ago

Thank you for this, it was new to me

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 23 points 7 months ago (1 children)

id want to kill myself too. just from the very little i know from computer stuff, imagine doing an entire semester

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 14 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Physics ≠ Computer Science

[–] RGB3x3@lemmy.world 27 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Can't have computer science without physics.

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 7 points 7 months ago (16 children)

I'm not entirely sure of that. You can't have comp sci without algebra and potentially calculus. I could see a society that developed all three fields before they codified Physics

load more comments (16 replies)
[–] theneverfox@pawb.social 2 points 7 months ago

Sure you can. Physics is describing what is, computer science is building what could be

The two things require very little overlap. Even physics systems in video games don't use real physics - it just feels better when you fudge it

[–] Pulptastic@midwest.social 22 points 7 months ago (7 children)

My favorite class in grad school. I absolutely loved deriving the laws of thermodynamics from first principles based the random motion of atoms. It was beautiful.

[–] Avg@lemm.ee 5 points 7 months ago

Is the grad school in the room now? Do you need help?

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] fizix@lemmy.world 20 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I don't know. I like Griffith's Quantum Mechanics which opens saying if you think you're starting to understand this stuff, you really haven't.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] psmgx@lemmy.world 17 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Weed out the riff-raff who can't hack it

[–] tate@lemmy.sdf.org 9 points 7 months ago

Boltzmann is "riff-raff" now?!? I get what you're going for, but c'mon.

[–] Paradachshund@lemmy.today 14 points 7 months ago

To quote twitch chat: "monkaS"

[–] melpomenesclevage@lemm.ee 10 points 7 months ago

This is beautiful and I must study this subject now.

You know; so I have an excuse.

[–] astreus@lemmy.ml 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I dunno, I usually open a textbook by turning over the front cover 🥁

[–] CluckN@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago

Why do we have a 🌫️ emoji instead of a cymbal? It would compliment the drum emoji so well.

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Statistical mechanics is so fucking brutal \m/

[–] ornery_chemist@mander.xyz 13 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

...and then we take the partial derivative of the log of this infinite sum wrt molar volume to find that--

- Why?

Why what?

- helplessly gestures at the whiteboard

Oh, yeah, it's so the math works out later! Anyway, for small Θ, the derivative has a nice closed form that we can Tailor expand in f-

[–] Donkter@lemmy.world 16 points 7 months ago

Yeah lol, lots of physics and math was invented by multidisciplinary geniuses who saw equations that seemed to have no answer and said "oh yeah, this looks like a problem from biology that I've seen solved with this bit of fluid mechanics, and that problem can be solved with this complex trick from differential calculus. And you know, after we do that the whole system is starting to look like a circuit that uses properties from thermodynamics..."

Then your teacher and the textbook throws it on a white board and says "some smart dude figured out this was the way to solve this problem. It looks like this and it boils down to this equation. Don't ask questions."

[–] naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 7 months ago

There's a mechanics textbook called "there once was a classical theory" and it opens with:

There once was a classical theory Of which quantum disciples were leery. They said, “Why spend so long On a theory that’s wrong?” Well, it works for your everyday query!

[–] EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 7 months ago (2 children)

you could always just stop studying that field.

[–] nexguy@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago

So you are just going to live forever?

[–] hglman@lemmy.ml 5 points 7 months ago

Of course, but then the book isn't for you.

load more comments
view more: next ›