this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2025
432 points (98.4% liked)

Science Memes

14291 readers
2210 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
[–] LynneOfFlowers@midwest.social 22 points 3 days ago

Come on, this has been a thing for the last 19+12i years

[–] SmoothOperator@lemmy.world 85 points 4 days ago (5 children)

TBF imaginary time is a math trick and not something that actually progresses. It lets us apply results from statistical physics to quantum field theory through a Wick rotation.

[–] yesman@lemmy.world 33 points 4 days ago (4 children)

It lets us apply results from statistical physics to quantum field theory through a Wick rotation.

That sounds like Geordi's plan to save the Enterprise.

[–] Anomalocaris@lemm.ee 3 points 3 days ago

we need a pause, then have them explain it in an easy metaphor.

[–] TexasDrunk@lemmy.world 9 points 4 days ago

You've got to route it through the deflector dish.

[–] Klear@sh.itjust.works 4 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I now want to see a TNG/John Wick crossover.

[–] Anomalocaris@lemm.ee 2 points 3 days ago

the baddies killed his Tribble

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Kellenved@sh.itjust.works 13 points 4 days ago

And you’re trying to tell me that’s not a magic spell you just said? Pfff

[–] Tetragrade@leminal.space 5 points 3 days ago

So true king.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Zerush@lemmy.ml 31 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Imaginary time are used by a lot of companies in form of your unpaid overtimes

[–] Anomalocaris@lemm.ee 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

yhea, but then you get paid in imaginary money

[–] algorithmae@lemmy.sdf.org 18 points 3 days ago (1 children)

You can have as many dimensions as you want, just keep taking the integral

[–] tiddy@sh.itjust.works 15 points 3 days ago (1 children)

You can make as many dimensions as you want as long as you clean them up when youre done

[–] baguettefish@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

You can only build one megastructure at a time

[–] superkret@feddit.org 3 points 2 days ago

You must construct additional pylons.

[–] nialv7@lemmy.world 7 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Regular time is imaginary! That's what's differentiate time from space. Well assuming it was Minkowski spacetime they were talking about.

[–] Maeve@kbin.earth 66 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Plot twist: all time is imaginary time.

[–] tetris11@lemmy.ml 28 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

*stares at clock*
"I know your secrets you little dippo"

[–] toynbee@lemmy.world 16 points 4 days ago (3 children)
[–] MagicShel@lemmy.zip 7 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Ever had a pan-galactic gargleblaster?

[–] toynbee@lemmy.world 8 points 4 days ago (2 children)

I read this book when I was an innocent kid and therefore completely missed the genius of

"What's so bad about being drunk?"
"You ask a glass of water."

(It's been a long time, might be paraphrasing unintentionally)

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] LordGimp@lemm.ee 6 points 3 days ago

Shhhhhh if you're too loud, someone will try to monetize it

[–] Danitos@reddthat.com 26 points 4 days ago (4 children)

Oh, you can interpretate anti-matter as either matter that has negative energy and travels forward in time, or matter with positive energy that travels backwards in time, and both interpretation are valid under Dirac's equation.

[–] rockerface@lemm.ee 36 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I keep running out of regular time already, now you tell me I need to keep track of perpendicular time?

[–] FMT99@lemmy.world 12 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Yeah but it's easy, just take the sine of regular time and you're set.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] RymrgandsDaughter@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 3 days ago (3 children)

I'm still trying to understand perpendicular time

[–] GooberEar@lemmy.wtf 9 points 3 days ago (2 children)

The easiest way I can explain it is like this: All the sci-fi geeks in the world are familiar with parallel timelines, right? The idea that there's another RymrgandsDaughter out there living in a world where apes with goatees are the "people" but otherwise pretty much everything else is very similar to how things are for us here and now. But like in perpendicular time, nearly everything is completely different than this current timeline, and yet somehow there's a point within where I, Gooberear, took the time out of my morning to completely make up this explanation from thin air and which has no basis in actual fact or reality. The end.

[–] AugustWest@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago

Something something nineteen ninety eight

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] WhatsTheHoldup@lemmy.ml 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

A particle is also a wave, a wave moves back and forth between -X and X passing 0 every time.

Now, when you measure this particle and it happens to be at zero, sometimes it moves towards X afterwards and sometimes it moves towards -X.

For the scientists however, all they can measure is that it's at 0 and half the time it randomly goes one way or the other with 50/50 probability.

To explain this, scientists imagine the particle has more than 0, but it has a secret momentum hidden into it telling it to deflect positively or negatively.

Imagine a circle instead of a line. Now instead of crossing zero, you rotate around 0 and hit a Y and -Y axis with X and -X unchanged.

That y axis that contains the hidden momentum of the particle is called "imaginary" because scientists love loaded terms that are unhelpful to understanding lol.

[–] RymrgandsDaughter@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Why are they rotating it? I almost understood until you got there

[–] ComicalMayhem@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

waves are related to circles: if you have a line and anchor it at one end, when you rotate it the other end of the line, it draws a circle, but if the paper you're drawing it on moves to one side at a constant speed, you'll get a wave. Alternatively, if you plot where the other end of the line is as time passes (for example, every second or every minute), you'll get a wave. you can do this in reverse too.

it's helpful to convert to circles. from a regular wave, at 0 you don't know if the wave will go up or down without further information. 0 on a circle will correspond to one of two spots, either the very top or the very bottom, and if you know which direction the circle is rotating, you can tell what the related wave will do next.

at least that's my understanding

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 23 points 4 days ago (1 children)

A huge portion of Americans aren't sure the earth is round and 'idiocracy' is fictional.

I'm okay with the more esoteric things being reserved for those who can comprehend them.

[–] GreatTitEnthusiast@mander.xyz 19 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Can people please realize that saying Idiocracy is a documentary is agreeing with eugenicists

[–] AppleTea@lemmy.zip 15 points 3 days ago

People living in a society that de-prioritizes and under-funds public education:

is-this Is this the result of Undesirables breeding?

[–] ech@lemm.ee 14 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Fallen into several arguments in Lemmy about exactly that. People give it way too much credence to what is functionally a eugenicist's nightmare. I have no hard feelings at Mike Judge or even the movie really, but it's fiction, not a warning from the future. Honestly, people need to stop treating fiction as documentary evidence in general. At best it's interesting thought experiments, not something one should base their world view on.

[–] Lemmisaur@lemmy.zip 24 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I tried to get multiple physicists to help me mine this imaginary time, but they all said that it was "impossible" and that it's "not how time works" or something.

I guess people just really don't want to jump on this money-making bandwagon.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] jdeath@lemm.ee 7 points 4 days ago (2 children)

you can have imaginary anything. just imagine it! i especially like imaginary unicorns

[–] rmuk@feddit.uk 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

For clarity, are you imagining imaginary unicorns or just regular non-imaginary unicorns?

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] webghost0101@sopuli.xyz 7 points 4 days ago

All potential realities of time are happening at once, you are just perceiving one slice of it.

load more comments
view more: next ›