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just_another_day_f…

Science thread Anonymous 115805

Since there's too much talk about moids in our boards, I decided that I should do my part and contribute something non-moid related. So I'm making this thread about science, maths are included as well of course. I personally think that the soft sciences are actually closer to the humanities than to the hard sciences, but in the spirit of avoiding a flame war, I'll try to avoid this point as much as I can from now on.

You can ask questions and discuss stuff about science here, I'll try to answer whatever I can and perhaps attempt to guide posters in the right direction if I'm not familiar with the topic. I'm a physicist by training but I have a basic understanding of general chemistry, geology and biology as well. I know the most about astrophysics and meteorology/climate stuff, I'm OK at mechanics, thermodynamics and quantum physics and not so great at electromagnetism, relativity and maths in general (as in, compared to a mathematician, for a physicist I'm average at maths). Sorry if that came off as a bit pedantic, I just wanted to let you know the kind of stuff I'm more likely to give good answers to.

So yeah, ask away!

Anonymous 115813

fetch.php.png

>>115805
Did you study much about crystal structures, science anon? They were my favourite thing in chemistry. I guess there is some cross over if you do physics?

Anonymous 115815

3097.jpg

Do you know how fusion power is coming along? I always thought nuclear physics was cool, but was never particularly good at it. Also, what are your thoughts on the current renewable energy scene in general?

Anonymous 115839

>>115813
>Did you study much about crystal structures, science anon?
Not much, but I had a course dedicated exclusively to solid state physics and as you can imagine crystals were everywhere there. It was cool but I remember that as the chapters progressed the difficulty increased a lot.

>>115815
>Do you know how fusion power is coming along?
I'm pretty sure that the ITER project has been advancing steadily recently, which is very good. Hopefully they will manage to have a working plant prototype that actually produces usable energy for consumption by the middle of the century. Inertial confinement has also had some developments as of lately, I remember watching an interesting video on youtube about a paper on some small breakthrough in the field.

>I always thought nuclear physics was cool, but was never particularly good at it.

Did you study physics in university?

>Also, what are your thoughts on the current renewable energy scene in general?

Storage is one of the two biggest issues in my opinion, especially when it comes to scalability and EROIE, the other one being the availability of some raw materials and how to make sure that we can recycle them effectively to ensure that they have a mostly circular life with many "iterations" before inefficiencies simply take them away from us. There are endangered elements on earth after all, unfortunately. I'm really hoping that perovskite solar cells, concentrating stirling engines and high altitude wind power show their true potential in the short/mid-term future.

Anonymous 116092

>>115805
tell me about super hurricanes

Anonymous 116097

1628354061273.jpg

>>115839
Thanks anon, here's to fusion power one day transcending its meme status. I was pretty into the environmental stuff as a kid, and I figured that research into renewables was the most meaningful use of science in the modern day. Did a couple paper review assignments on LCAs for different renewables. Side note, I also did one on on radiative-convective climate modelling. I was so pumped when they announced Manabe as one of the nobel prize laureates this year.

I took physics (and chem) in high school, just graduated lol. I got great grades but since I'm immensely skeptical of abstract concepts (maths included) I figured I'd do biology at uni instead. Last year I got interested in stem cell meat and its potential in disrupting current animal farming processes, which are not great. Any thoughts on this anon? I didn't do biology in school, so I'm taking a gap year to cram.

PS: how did you get into physics? And how was uni?

Anonymous 116112

>>116092
Do you mean hypercanes?

>>116097
> I'm immensely skeptical of abstract concepts (maths included)
Why?

>Any thoughts on this anon?

It's quite interesting, but I think it won't be a super important factor in the future.

>how did you get into physics? And how was uni?

I always liked science and in middle school when the lessons started getting more serious I started to really enjoy what little maths and physics we got, so I decided that I'd study one of those in university. It was hard, but not because the professors were trying to make it hard for us, most of the time the exams were not even that difficult compared to what they could have chosen if they really wanted to utterly destroy us.

>>116098

>What do you consider soft sciences? Things like psychology and sociology?
Yes, that's pretty much the definition.

>I ask because boards like /sci/ sometimes consider anything that is not pure math, like biology, a "soft science"

/sci/ is notorious for being full of either people that know their stuff or complete idiots/trolls. There's almost nothing in between in my experience. Considering that we are talking about 4chan, it would make sense to find something like that.

>I think many softer sciences are making a turn to "harder" methodology thanks to new computational possibilities like ML.

This will help but won't be enough I think.

>>116104

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/030631200030001003
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3694152/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2850928/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2518107/
>(From the last link.) Among the cases presented, the social science paradigms showed the stronger patterns of random copying with invention, including constant turnover in the keywords of highest frequency, and the stochastic ups-and-downs of individual word frequencies over time. In contrast, the physical science paradigms showed a rejection of the neutral model, particularly in the cessation of turnover in the top keywords over time.
>Here is where one naturally seeks an explanation of why the physical science paradigms demonstrated the greater degree of keyword selection. Some physical scientists might like to argue that social scientists invent meaningless jargon, whereas social scientists might claim that they are more creative and free with their language, and their rivals have no imagination.

Anonymous 116140

>>115805
where does this diagram come anon?

Anonymous 116142

>>116140
I don't remember the source, I saved it because I thought it looked cool. I'm pretty sure it's about teleportation in quantum field theory.

Anonymous 116153

lagrangian_density…

>>116149
>>116150
>>116151
>>116152
Everything except gravity is explained by this basically.

Anonymous 116154

>>116153
wew lad

Anonymous 116155

>>116154
Believe it or not, all of that can be very succinctly written in a single line, here's an in-depth comparison between the expanded and contracted forms: https://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/the-deconstructed-standard-model-equation

Anonymous 116158

>>116157
>Everything?
Not really everything and anything, that's why I said "basically". There are still things we don't understand.

>It makes me wonder how far we are from the real deal

Quite far away I'd say, if we can even get there in the first place. Nothing guarantees that. Or it might just be around the corner, who knows…

>how a real equation that sufficiently explains brain function would look.

I can guarantee you that it would be a multitude of potentially-quite-complex equations instead of just one.

Anonymous 116160

>>116159
>there could be one equation to sufficiently explain brain computation on broad terms
Well, I guess I took the word seriously too seriously in this case. Still, it might not be nearly enough. Even super simple systems like the Vicsek model require more than one equation to be properly described.

Anonymous 116179

I really love science and I used to love the idea of being a researcher but I got burnt out on it after doing it for a few months and realizing that my field was gonna be 50% manual labor and 50% writing boring papers, all under shitty wages and the retarded academic system. Now I'm working a low paying but comfy job in my field and hope I can find better paying work eventually without needing to grab a masters.
Anyways do you guys have any science channels you like? I've been really into astronomy/physics channels lately since I'm not very familiar with them, but they're very cool and awe inspiring. I also really like stuff about biology. Here are some vids I really liked recently:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4mc-alL92U&t=1s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8KpuydjfJI

Anonymous 116198

>>116179
What's your field if you don't mind me asking? And if you are interested in physics and astrophysics you need to check out PBS Space Time if you haven't already. The best youtube channel about science by far in my opinion.

Anonymous 116211

>>116198
Microbiology. I really like watching PBS spacetime! Though I can't say I understand everything in it, I feel like I'm slowly getting a better and better understanding of stuff that confused me in highschool like all the wierd quantum stuff.

Anonymous 116212

>>116202
I'm not a big fan of podcasts, I feel like the visual element of a piece of paper, a blackboard, a pdf file or a video is very important.

>>116211
You had lessons about quantum stuff in high school?

Anonymous 116222

1200px-Double-slit…

>>116212
Yeah, we learned the very basics of it, like the double slit experiment. It's not like we ever went in-depth but it all flew over my head nonetheless.

Anonymous 116226

>>116222
Something tells me that you probably heard a few quite inaccurate things, was your teacher a physicist?

Anonymous 116843

Does anyone have any interest in math here? I really love set theory and computation theory. I also know a good amount about machine learning algorithms and have been learning about optimization and stochastic processes for my job recently.

>>116202

>>116157
It's cool to see an anon into computational neuroscience here! I'm hoping to do a master's in computational linguistics soon and neuroscience is a big component of the coursework. I'm definitely going to check those podcasts out.

Anonymous 116850

if anyone has any good anatomy mnemonics please share, college is fucking me raw

Anonymous 116851

>>116850
Just finished my anatomy final myself, Idk if you might be above this class though. These ones helped me
On On On, They Traveled And Found Voldemort Guarding Very Secret Horcruxes (Cranial nerves, olfactory optic oculomotor trochlear trigeminal abducens facial vestibulocochlear glossopharyngeal vagus spinal acccessory hypoglossal)
Some Say Money Matters But My Brother Says Big Brains Matter More (Cranial nerve function, S = Sensory, M = Motor, B = Both)
Sporcle, quizlet, and write your way to that A queen

Anonymous 116865

5B976ED7-272C-43C6…

>>116152
>>116149
can we turn this into a thread where we come up with explanations for what these images mean

Anonymous 116866

>>116865
I'm going to say that this doesn't really have much to do with maths. Could it be related to genetics perhaps?

Anonymous 116869

>>116866
i looked up quantum physics pictures and this was one of the results

Anonymous 116870

>>116869
Where did you find it? I'm pretty sure I'll be able to provide an explanation if I can see some context.

Anonymous 116872

geometry.png

>>116153
Id start solving Yang–Mills existence and mass gap problem instead of throwing around bold statements like that.

Anonymous 116873

>>116872
Yes, I know there are holes in our understanding of nature, I didn't mean it literally.

Anonymous 117139

Do you use a website to discuss science? If so, which one? /sci/ on 4chan doesn't lead to very deep discussion most of the time, and Reddit has all the Reddit problems. I have a Twitter account but I hate that I can't really speak my mind on it. Or maybe there are non-normie bubbles on these websites? I only know of the bay area rationalist/Yudkowsky-esque crowd. There can be some interesting discussion there, but I don't like how Dunning-Kruger it all is when the topic drifts away from compsci/tech.

Anonymous 117159

>>117139
>Do you use a website to discuss science?
Not really. If you need suggestions maybe try the relevant stackexchanges.

Anonymous 117688

>>115805
is the gas that comes out of a kettle steam? or just water vapor?
Does the gas form of water need to be under pressure or within a pressurized vessel to make it steam?

Anonymous 117689

>>117688
>is the gas that comes out of a kettle steam? or just water vapor?
Mostly steam since it's going to be very hot. There will also be more water vapour in that air, even if we ignore all the steam, than in the rest of the air of the room, i.e., it will be more humid.

>Does the gas form of water need to be under pressure or within a pressurized vessel to make it steam?

No, I imagine that you only need to saturate the air with enough hot water vapour to get steam. Think about clouds, they are basically "cold" steam in a sense and they are not pressurised at all.

Anonymous 117985

navier stokes equa…

>fluid mechanics

just fuck my shit up

Anonymous 117987

>>117985
Try to really get an intuitive understanding of what each term represents, it helps a lot and allows you to piece together the meaning of the equations in your mind. I'm afraid I can't help you much there because I don't remember almost anything, but doing that was super useful back when I had my exam years ago.

Anonymous 118053

I just got my biology BS. I’m still undecided about grad school though.

Anonymous 118072

feels-bad-man-pepe…

>>117985
felt that picture

Anonymous 119619

>>118053
That’s epic. Good job on the hard work my queen

Anonymous 119641

>>117139
Sci leads to pretty deep discussions imo

Anonymous 126138

Insect_on_a_torus_…

>>117987
just set shit equal to zero and see what else goes to zero or remains. that's a trick i always use.

>>117985
use better notation and everything looks so much cleaner to work with

>>119641
Nah. The people who know things don't have time to make long posts. Most of the discussion is made by people who don't really know what they're on about, (highschoolers and freshmen ugrads), but the knowers stick only to certain threads. A strange board indeed. You never know who you're talking to so you might as well not spend to much time there.

Anonymous 126139

Wavepacket-a2k4-en…


Anonymous 126141

Tautochrone_curve.…


Anonymous 126267

>>126138
Nice animation. Doing this in some circumstances can lead to mirroring. If you did this in a certain way on a Möbius strip your heart would end up on the right side of your chest.

Anonymous 127357

cyclic adenosine m…

mmm phosphates, i want to add phosphates to every single serine/threonine residue.

Anonymous 127404

im in grad school now and i feel like i dont remember anything important i learned in undergrad. it feels so bad. 4 years ago i could recite the steps of t cell activation, the complement cascade and the inflammasome pathway and now i can barely explain why steroid cream works. it makes me feel like i have an itch i cant scratch no matter how far back i reach

Anonymous 127767

1616716333561.jpg


Anonymous 127919

>>127767
Me when I explain my quantum physics class to my friend.

Thank fuck I decided to be an engineer. I was originally going to do physics, but stopped myself after my first physics lab class. Physics is really interesting, but I cannot imagine having the patience to carefully conduct physics experiments and calculate complex solutions using non numerical methods.

At least now I have an internship lined up, and likely a job after I graduate.

I'm still taking a shit ton of physics classes outside my major lol.

Anonymous 128662

What are your thoughts on the emerging field of quantum biology?

Anonymous 128689

>>128662
I don't really think anything in particular about it, sometimes you just need quantum stuff to work out how some small things function because classical physics don't cut it. I guess it's not exactly the answer you were hoping for… As for applications, I don't expect anything particularly revolutionary but I'm sure we will learn about some important phenomena, probably ones related to proteins.



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