this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 100 points 1 week ago (2 children)

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

[–] Theoriginalthon@lemmy.world 20 points 1 week ago

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

[–] I_am_10_squirrels@beehaw.org 9 points 1 week ago

And here I thought it was just your mom

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

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

[–] tetris11@lemmy.ml 49 points 1 week ago (7 children)

57k a year is a decent salary if you live in the UK.

A seasoned postdoc could expect to make 55K max. A professor a bit more.

[–] Damage@feddit.it 29 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

57k€/year is a professional's salary in Italy.

Average is 32k€

With 57k€ you can afford to live comfortably, even get yourself a roomy flat, which is unusual for single individuals.

*Exceptions may apply, see Milan or other big cities

[–] resting_parrot@sh.itjust.works 16 points 1 week ago (1 children)

57k usd is a little less than 42k gbp

[–] porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 week ago

Which is roughly the pay for a staff scientist or lecturer

[–] dwindling7373@feddit.it 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Well then I guess they don't mean UK do they?

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[–] Steve@startrek.website 8 points 1 week ago (2 children)

55k dollars in the US gets you a crappy apartment and a 7 year car loan.

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[–] porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 week ago

Postdocs are definitely not getting 55k in the UK except maybe if something like medicine is special? The range is like 36-45ish.

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[–] Maxxie@lemmy.blahaj.zone 41 points 1 week ago (2 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

[–] anotherspinelessdem@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 days ago

unless we cancel all the funding

Just had to fucking jinx it didn't you

[–] saimen@feddit.org 3 points 1 week 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 week ago (3 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.

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[–] AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml 32 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Gravity is just a side effect of the fundamental laziness of all things. Causality moves slower near mass, so it's kind of relaxing to move towards it. That's why everyone does it.

PS: There is actually a SciShow Spacetime video about gravity being an emergent property instead of a fundamental force. And no I didn't get this from ChatGPT, I'm just that dumb when it comes to advanced physics haha.

[–] dil@hexbear.net 2 points 5 days ago

Oh hell yeah I love an emergent property. That's my new favorite theory

[–] _AutumnMoon_@lemmy.blahaj.zone 22 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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

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

[–] Zerush@lemmy.ml 17 points 1 week ago (2 children)

It is what make it risky to jump from the Burj Kalifa, at least on the last meter.

[–] match@pawb.social 16 points 1 week ago (2 children)

And yet, jumping from the Burj Khalifa at 1m off the ground is not very dangerous, so it's not the Burj Khalifa that's doing it

[–] dave@feddit.uk 6 points 1 week ago

And even if you jump from higher up, it's the ground that does it, still not the Burj Khalifa.

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[–] nomecks@lemmy.wtf 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Wouldn't the electromagnetic force be what makes jumping from the Burj Khalifa risky? It's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop.

[–] GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 week ago

Mass go brrrr

[–] Almacca@aussie.zone 14 points 1 week ago (4 children)

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

[–] LemmyFeed@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 week 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 week ago (3 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.

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[–] saimen@feddit.org 4 points 1 week 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/

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[–] skisnow@lemmy.ca 11 points 1 week 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 5 points 1 week ago

Congratulations, here's your PhD

[–] Snowclone@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago

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

[–] SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 10 points 1 week 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 week ago (1 children)
[–] buttnugget@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Gravity is pain receptors. Got it.

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

Daily reminder that physicists contribute nothing to society /j

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

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

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[–] x00z@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week 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 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

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.

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[–] webghost0101@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 week 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 21 points 1 week ago (8 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 week 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 week 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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