this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] owenfromcanada@lemmy.ca 47 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I mean, sure, we kinda imbued rocks with lightning and now they can think but it's not magic

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 14 points 3 days ago (1 children)

And then we taught those rocks to think in ways we don't really understand, and dedicated cities worth of electrical energy to allow them to think harder and faster, and gave them the means to improve themselves.

[–] owenfromcanada@lemmy.ca 9 points 3 days ago (1 children)

It's called computer science and it's not magic and why are you making a pyre

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 8 points 3 days ago (1 children)

If it's memory bleeds, we can kill it.

[–] owenfromcanada@lemmy.ca 5 points 3 days ago

It's less bleeding and more leaking, computers don't normally have liquids except for heat mitigation and what's with the stake and rope?

[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 22 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

On this note, one of the best Cosmic Horror shows of all time was Chernobyl on HBO.

A story of a small town affected by forces outside anyone's understanding. Terrible, primal, cosmic power unleashed and uncontained threatening the entire world. It kills indiscriminately in the most horrible ways, melting people alive and contaminating all it touches after escaping a high-security confinement.

A plucky team of brave souls work tirelessly to find some way to stop the monster from burrowing into the Earth and gaining even more power in a race against time.

And what's most amazing is no part of it is exaggerated or sensationalized, it's so accurate to reality that even the actors look like their real-life counterparts. The showrunners went on to work on The Last of Us.

[–] kadu@scribe.disroot.org 16 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

And what’s most amazing is no part of it is exaggerated or sensationalized

That's not true. The show is incredibly accurate for a TV show, but it's still a dramatization and adaptation to western's entertainment. It's not a documentary, and there are many pointed innacuracies.

[–] gbzm@piefed.social 27 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Why is the mercury arc rectifier getting a "what the fuck"? I don't know much about them, are they more magic than glowing rocks, runes, levitation and demon cores?

[–] CountVlad47@feddit.org 23 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Just piggy backing this comment to save people a click. A mercury-arc valve is used to convert alternating current (AC) to direct current (DC). It probably got a WTF for how weird it looks and how it looks like a crystal ball when it's working.

[–] redsand@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 3 days ago

Are you telling me that's a full bridge rectifier made of glass, liquid metal and plasma?🧙‍♂️

[–] fullsquare@awful.systems 21 points 4 days ago (1 children)

no, but they will also kill you (but not by magic)

[–] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

How so? Can I touch it? Lick it?

[–] fullsquare@awful.systems 5 points 3 days ago

These things are under high voltage, so no. And then there's several kg of mercury inside

[–] Spacehooks@reddthat.com 20 points 3 days ago (2 children)

No black magic here!

From The dudes using candles, incense, and chanting something about the machine spirit while using this:

[–] ThePyroPython@lemmy.world 12 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Let's not forget they're fiddling strange multi pronged metal sticks, muttering about impedance matching, in a giant spiky room with large metal doors.

[–] Spacehooks@reddthat.com 7 points 3 days ago

Lol I totally forgot about those! now that you mention it it does seem like some demonic room that was converted to some sort of spirit communication chamber that I expect in the Department of Control.

[–] sunoc@sh.itjust.works 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Indeed high-frequency electronics only works if the machine spirit is apeased

THEY HAVE STOLEN THE MAGIC SMOKE GET IT BACK

[–] ZkhqrD5o@lemmy.world 12 points 3 days ago (1 children)

If physics are not magic, then how do you explain magnets? Checkmate.

[–] niktemadur@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

I picture someone like Grand Mage & Dervish Paul Dirac cracking his Special Relativity knuckles as he takes the challenge, "right then...!"

[–] tallricefarmer@sopuli.xyz 2 points 2 days ago

You might enjoy watching Richard Feynman getting asked how magnets work. It is on youtube.

[–] peoplebeproblems@midwest.social 14 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

But you want to know what is magic about physics?

Forces. Forces are definitely observable. But they are fictitious. A photon (force mediator of the electromagnetic force) is a packet of energy on the electromagnetic field that creates a curvature in the electromagnetic field such that two particles with opposing charges (intrinsic charge) has that field curved together, resulting in what an observer would see as a force.

Gravity? The thing keeping everything on the ground? Not real. Just a result of the spacetime field being curved by the presence of energy in it. In order to escape the curve, you have to exchange energy, which is to be a force.

[–] anton@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The fact that you knew exactly what I was talking about enough to pull up the relevant XKCD is impressive good sir/ma'am/(actually I don't know what the non binary term would be there. I know military it's "Sir" regardless).

[–] mattyroses@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 3 days ago

Also gravitons exist, unless you're looking for them, then they don't. Also they move in curved space time but also don't.

Yes, this is totally real, not just stuff we made up stoned.

[–] Reality_Suit@lemmy.world 15 points 3 days ago (1 children)

There are universal truths that span time and all eternity. One of those such truths is "The Scooby Doo." That truth states that it is never spirits, demons, apparitions, or anything unearthly that is the cause of the unexplained, but rather It's always someone you know. Usually, the person closest to you.

[–] Kellenved@sh.itjust.works 7 points 3 days ago

Frequently some breed of capitalist trying to scam someone

[–] nialv7@lemmy.world 12 points 3 days ago (1 children)
[–] Chakravanti@monero.town 2 points 3 days ago

They don't. If they do, it's a union and they have the strongest untouchable force with their own kind.

[–] saltnotsugar@lemmy.world 9 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Invisible forces controlling literally everything!? Nerd magic.

No no no, there are no forces. It's energy controlling invisible fields literally everywhere.

Physics, is it's own terror

[–] syaochan@feddit.it 3 points 3 days ago

Mercury rectifiers are one of the coolest thing I've ever seen (not in person unfortunately)

[–] luciole@beehaw.org 8 points 4 days ago (1 children)
[–] marcos@lemmy.world 7 points 3 days ago

You will spend a week wishing for an eternity of damnation instead.

[–] Nomecks@lemmy.ca 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Full bridge rectifiers, not even once.

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

Oh boy, just wait until you hear about zero-crossings and phase-lock loops.

[–] Zerush@lemmy.ml 5 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Anyway it's still not clearly solved, several hypotheses, the Mpemba effect, a almost daily phenomen in which hot water freeze faster than cold one. Excluded evaporation as cause, because the effect is also observed in a closed container.

[–] Fleur_@aussie.zone 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Faster moving molecules will randomly arrange themselves into a lattice quicker than slower moving ones?

[–] stevedice@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago

It took me longer that I'd like to admit to realize that the magic glowing rocks below Paradis in Attack on Titan were just nuclear fuel all along.

[–] ryedaft@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 days ago

Quarks literally named magic, charm, top, bottom, vers.

[–] mattyroses@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Me in 2012 - hahahaha stupid Juggalos, asking how magnets work

Me a month later - wait, I was a physics major for a year, and I can't really say how magnets work? Woop Woop.

[–] jankforlife@lemmy.ml 0 points 3 days ago

Ill take one Glowing death aura please