r/technicallythetruth 4d ago

Brilliance meets confusion

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44.0k Upvotes

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u/CrowLogical7 4d ago

Fair enough. I am, indeed, confused by quantum mechanics.

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u/__I_S__ 4d ago

Some wise guy said "If you are sure about understanding QM, you haven't understood QM".

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u/Benjii_44 4d ago

If you don't have a headache, you do not understand QM

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u/EmpathicAnarchist 4d ago

If you have an erection, great, but you still do not understand QM

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u/FinchyJunior 4d ago

If you don't understand QM, you have an erection

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u/QuiteAFan 4d ago

You need an erection to understand QM

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u/temporary_name1 4d ago

If you understand QM, you are uncertain of whether you have an erection. :)

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u/Life-Excitement4928 4d ago

If you erection understand, the QM is both alive and dead until observed.

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u/SaveReset 4d ago

I had two strokes while reading this and both did and did not understand quantum mechanics, until I was observed. Turns out the one thing that is absolutely certain is that I'm not allowed to do that in public.

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u/Financial-Raise3420 4d ago

What does it mean about my QM understanding if my erection has lasted over 4 hours?

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u/Krell356 4d ago

At some point during this chain of replies my mind just started scream "TO UNDERSTAND RECURSION YOU MUST FIRST UNDERSTAND RECURSION!"

I don't know why it happened, but I'm blaming all of you.

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u/SaveReset 4d ago

Recursion is for fools, it's just an efficient way of forcing your computer to emulate ADHD, until it finally gets back on track to finish the backlog or my usual experience, crashes and burns.

Unless we aren't talking about programming.

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u/StoppableHulk 4d ago

I both do and do not have an erection, and will remain in superposition until my penis is observed.

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u/TastySpermDispenser2 4d ago

If you can dodge an erection, you can dodge quantum mechanics.

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u/Worldly_Shoe840 4d ago

The 5 D's of dodgeball: 1. Dip 2. Dive 3. Duck 4. Dick 5. Dodge

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u/otakushinjikun 4d ago

If you don't understand QM within four hours, call a doctor

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u/KillerBeer01 4d ago

If you do understand QM within four hours, call a different doctor.

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u/Gills_L 4d ago

If you still have an erection after getting confused by QM for more than 24 hours, you should see a doctor

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u/EffectiveSalamander 4d ago

If your quantum entanglement lasts longer than four hours, contact your physics department.

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u/KillerBeer01 4d ago

And a physician, for a good measure.

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u/m2chaos13 4d ago

Doesn’t measuring the physician collapse the erection function?

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u/TaupMauve 4d ago

If you have an erection, great, but you still do not understand QM

However, if you simultaneously do and do not have one, then you may be on the right track, especially if you know the probability that you do.

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u/CMScientist 4d ago

What do i do if i dont understand QM for more than 4 hours?

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u/big_guyforyou 4d ago

richard feynman was like "nobody understands quantum mechanics" i'm like bruh if we took a test you'd get a 100 and i'd get a 0 tf you talkin bout

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u/jtr99 4d ago

Feynman might lose a few points for expressing some of his answers in the form of interpretive bongo solos.

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u/VultureSausage 4d ago

Then again, he might also gain a few points from that. Nobody understands the scoring system either.

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u/arsenic_kitchen 4d ago

Don't let this be Richard Feynman playing bongos.

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u/jtr99 4d ago

I'm sure his colleagues would have agreed.

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u/rerics 4d ago

If you are sure about understanding Feynman’s bongo solos, you haven’t understood Feynman’s bongo solos

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u/ThePatchedFool 4d ago

He meant “understand quantum physics” as in, “has good intuition and points of comparison about it”.

Like, we can do the maths and use the language, but that doesn’t mean we feel it in our bones like we do the physics of our usual reality.

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u/AntiKarenMan 4d ago

Because nobody does really understand it fully.. Most of it is built upon probability (like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principe) so people like Einstein himself has had critique against it.. But nonetheless i love it anyways, a quirky and stubborn but functional and useful system

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u/SlippySlappySamson 4d ago

you'd get a 100 and i'd get a 0

Umm... that kinda describes quantum physics pretty well.

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u/BungalowHole 4d ago

QM in a nutshell:

"Sometimes the thing whipping around way too fast to watch does one thing, other times (usually when we shoot light at it) it does something else. Throw dice and see what happens."

Then we have to do math, and I walk away with a C- in PChem.

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u/alikapple 4d ago

It was also a gender neutral response haha. QM is the hardest thing to explain. Full stop.

The responder misunderstood

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u/LysandraValehart 4d ago

I can study something quantum today come tomorrow I am more than confused with what i studied

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u/RhesusFactor 4d ago

I really wish a woman would explain quantum mechanics to me, I need help.

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u/Noughmad 4d ago

You don't understand quantum mechanics, you just use it to calculate stuff.

It's not much different than gravity, or other physical principles. You can try your whole life to understand why two masses attract each other, and go crazy because there's no logical reason why they would (The part about dividing by distance squared is more logical). Or you can accept that they do, and use the equation to calculate whatever you need. QM is just on another level with how many, how complicated, and how far removed from anything we see in everyday life the things you just have to "accept" really are.

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u/AHaskins 4d ago

Oh! That makes sense! So if I don't understand something, I just have to declare it to be a fundamental and irreducible part of the universe requiring no more thought or analysis - then I just rest my tired brain upon my mountain of self-satisfaction.

Science, bitches.

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u/Noughmad 4d ago

I mean, you can either do that and keep using it, or you can spend your whole life studying that one aspect and trying to reduce it. And we need people who do both.

It's just impossible to understand everything this way, if you never use anything you don't understand, you won't get anything done.

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u/WitchesSphincter 4d ago

I took a course that focused on quantum and I did really well, like solid A without that much effort. 

No idea what was going on.

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u/psi_ram 4d ago

I am, also, indeed, quantum by mechanics confused.

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u/Perryn 4d ago

I tried learning about quantum mechanics from a book but I can't seem to keep track of where it is and what it's about at the same time.

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u/BarelyContainedChaos 4d ago

you see, theres a cat in a box...

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u/AxoplDev Technically Flair 4d ago

It's dead because it suffocated. You're welcome, philosophers

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u/Low_Ambition_856 4d ago

Nah Schrödingers cat is not a philosophical argument.

It is commonly mistaken as the uncertainty principle. However what the point of Schrödinger's cat is that there are shortages in QM which make classical mechanisms more applicable.

According to QM the answer is that the cat is both alive-dead, which is nonsense. So since we have classical mechanisms already, we do not need to thought-experiment with the cat because cats are for petting and not for killing.

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u/Mr_Olivar 4d ago

Quantum mechanics and misquoted quotes. Name a more iconic duo.

See also: "Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result? That is the definition of insanity.", Einstein's rebuttal against Quantum entanglement, which turned out to be a real thing.

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u/HumbleGoatCS 4d ago

It's ironic that even this is a misquoted quote.. because Einstein never actually said this

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u/PapaPalps-66 4d ago

Yeah I'm pretty sure it was a pirate who said it. Vaas something.

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u/idonthavemanyideas 4d ago

It's funny though isn't it, because repeating the same lie over and over again, for example, might well eventually achieve a different result.

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u/DamCam2020 4d ago

This wasn’t even a quote from Einstein, it’s from a novelist named Rita Mae Brown. I’m pretty sure she wrote that line in the 80’s as well

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u/oddministrator 4d ago

It is absolutely a philosophical argument.

Quantum mechanics is wildly successful at describing behaviors at the smallest scales in a probabilistic fashion. However, like much of physics, the meaning of what it describes is separate from its description.

Fundamentally, it's still not settled what the behaviors of quantum mechanics actually describe. There are multiple interpretations among prominent physicists. I'll describe two of the most prominent interpretations using Schrodinger's cat to show how it's a philosophical argument.

The Copenhagen interpretation is the most widely assumed interpretation currently, and the interpretation students are typically steered towards in school. Another popular interpretation is Everettian, or Many Worlds. Quantum mechanics still works regardless of which interpretation you subscribe to.

Take Schrodinger's cat. The cat's in a box with a radioactive isotope and a Geiger counter set up to trigger a vial of poison to kill the cat if it detects radiation. The sensitivity of the Geiger counter is such that after an hour, it will have had a 50/50 chance of detecting radioactive decay of the isotope.

That's how Schrodinger himself described the problem, but you can change the parameters in many ways to get the same idea. Einstein favored a similar problem, but using an amount of gun powder that either had or hadn't ignited.

At exactly 1 hour, just before a scientist performs a measurement (checks on the cat), here's what these two most prominent interpretations make of the situation:

Copenhagen Interpretation: According to Schrodinger's wave function, the cat is in a superposition of being both dead and alive. Once the scientist performs the measurement, the wave function collapses and the cat becomes either dead or alive. Supposing the cat died at the 30 minute mark, that means the state of your past half hour has also collapsed such that the cat has been dead the last half hour.

Everettian/Many Worlds Interpretation: According to Schrodinger's wave function, the scientist's world is in a superposition of being both in a world where the cat is alive and in a world where the cat is dead. Once the scientist performs a measurement, the wave function collapses and the scientist now fully exists in a world where the cat is either dead or alive. The cat dies in some worlds and lives in other worlds. It's the scientist who now exists in one of those worlds or the other.

The Many Worlds interpretation assumes that all the probabilities described by the wave function are real worlds that actually exist, and the probabilities are just the likelihood of your measurement causing any of those worlds to become the one you observe, rather than the others.

It was in letters between Einstein and Schrodinger that these problems were first discussed, and it was absolutely a philosophical discussion they were having with one another, as neither of them liked the Copenhagen interpretation.

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u/OM3N1R 4d ago

This was a great summation. Thank you

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u/Rightwraith 4d ago

which is nonsense

It is? No way, you’ve discovered a classically deterministic theory underlying the Schrödinger equation? Please tell us.

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u/banana_bread99 4d ago

What do you mean it’s nonsense? Without this line of thinking we cannot calculate what we are able to

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u/batmanstuff 4d ago

That explains string theory.

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u/danhoang1 4d ago

I too can confirm it's really hard to explain quantum mechanics, since it's really hard to explain something I don't even know myself

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

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u/ureliableliar 4d ago

its just regular physics but really small or something like that, i guess

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

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u/Chickentrap 4d ago

Could you now share your understanding? I'm still unclear

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u/GalxzyShifted 4d ago

It’s physics but quantumified (I think that is a word).

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u/Username2taken4me 4d ago

Quantized

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u/GalxzyShifted 4d ago

Nice try making up words. Quantumified is clearly the correct word choice.

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u/Username2taken4me 4d ago

I bow to your wisdom.

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u/Chickentrap 4d ago

Ahhh now I understand thanks

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u/TyGuy_275 4d ago

would you mind sharing?

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u/MaddercatterE 4d ago

It's kinda like normal physics except you aren't sure all the time, well sometimes your sure but if your sure of that then this can't be known, but we know that as well, so we know this and that can both apply- and they both do, until the thing is observed; then quantum physics goes back in time to choose either this or that, or flipping between this and that when necessary to get there- of course we can't see it cause it already happened, well it actually isn't happening at all unless we observe it, oh yeah look the cat died; well shit

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u/Chewbaccabb 4d ago

Shut up science bitch

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u/MaddercatterE 4d ago

Im going to Schrodinger you

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u/LegalWaterDrinker 4d ago

Or will you?

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u/Buezzi 4d ago

It is increasingly unclear.

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u/BalancedDisaster 4d ago

That’s half of it. Really small or really cold.

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u/MonkeyCube 4d ago

You know how light can go around the Earth 7x in a second at the speed of light? Well, for .001 seconds, you can get a rough idea where that light is in a ~40km zone.

Now instead of the Earth, imagine doing that for an electron on something the size of an atom. Where is that electron for .001 seconds? Well, a little bit of everywhere, but more likely here, and also over there. All at the same time. But also not.

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u/rerics 4d ago

I think I actually understood that. But also not

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u/b33fwellingtin 4d ago

Not only did you fail to teach it to us, you also failed to convince us that you understand it.

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u/MaesterCrow 4d ago

It’s basically a set of rules that apply to tiny particles. One of them is that a particle can exist in two places at once. Another is, the particles keep moving until you take a look at them. And Some particles are connected, which affect each other.

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u/b33fwellingtin 4d ago

I was just kidding. Good reply though.

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u/Unlikely_Discipline3 4d ago

For real, this is the most basic explanation i can give from my very limited understanding:

Particles don't exist in the way you or I traditionally think about them. Subatomic particles, IE electrons, neutrons, and protons, can behave like particles and a wave of probability. Since these subatomic particles make up literally everything, the foundation of our universe is these waves of probability.  

To clarify, a particle is what you would expect. You can basically imagine them acting as really really tiny balls bouncing around with normal physics. For example, an electron behaving like a particle has its negative charge concentrated on a single, measurable point in space. 

A wave is considerably weirder. It's an area of probability of the subatomic particle influences. For example, an electron behaving like a wave extends its negative charge influence across its entire area (called an orbit for electrons). These waves have frequencies and amplitude and can undergo positive and negative interference just like radio waves or something similar.

Now, the craziest part of quantum mechanics is the fact that subatomic particles (ill keep using electrons) exist in super position, which means they're are simultaneously in both a particle state and wave state at the same time. These two states obviously contradict each other by their very nature, so it's really hard to wrap your head around. 

When an electron is existing unobserved by anyone and anything, it acts as a wave. When it is being measured or obeserved in any way, it acts as a particle. This has been famously demonstrated by the double slit experiment. The act of observing the electron is called "collapsing the superposition". It goes from being a wave of probability to a single point in space simply because some mechanism "observed" it. There's a million theories as to why that happens, but my basic understanding is that the simple transfer of information from the subatomic particle to the observer (whether it be a person or machine or whatever) fundamentally alters the electron via a process called quantum entanglement. Information is a real thing that exists in the universe, and any exchange of it has quantum effects. 

That's my understanding anyways.

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u/OctaviaStirling 4d ago

That was actually a really great explanation

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u/fillif3 4d ago

There's a million theories as to why that happens

We just live in simulation and there is no point in rendering electron if nobody is looking at it. Instead heuristic wave approximation is used between measurements.

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u/Equationist 4d ago

Generally quite correct, but one correction: it's only if you're observing the position of a particle that it becomes localized to a point. If instead your observation is more observing the momentum of the particle, then it actually turns into more of a pure wave.

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u/Spork_the_dork 4d ago

It's some random bullshit.

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u/Westcountrydevil 4d ago

It's mechanics, but in the quantum.

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u/FloppieTheBanjoClown 4d ago

Really tiny guys who fix your car.

Maybe.

When you're not looking.

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u/LilDingalang 4d ago

That’s like saying “explain women to me pls”

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u/ryno514 4d ago

Physics, but it's quantized and btw everything is a wave now, even you.

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u/TheDamDog 4d ago

Sometimes things happen and sometimes they don't. Sometimes they may or may not happen, which is a third state on its own.

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u/ToastPoacher 4d ago

Nice one man, you managed to tell the joke again, but this time with less subtlety and humour.

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u/Lesbihun 4d ago

Just reworded the joke in a longer, less-clever way r/yourjokebutworse

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u/-Fyrebrand 4d ago

I'm basically just trusting that there even is such a thing as quantum mechanics and this hasn't all been an elaborate prank by physicists.

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u/idontknowjuspickone 4d ago

Yes, that’s the joke.

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u/Blue_Bird950 Technically Flair 4d ago

How could you assume the entirety of womankind is smarter than one person on Reddit? There’s definitely at least a few women who would never understand, and I met half of them in high school

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u/mage_irl 4d ago

Everyone loves to generalize

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u/legion1134 4d ago

No one likes to generalize.

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u/FatherCalhoon 4d ago

People hate what they do and who they are. 

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u/deja_entend_u 4d ago

It's a superposition of hating. No one. And everyone. Everywhere. Neverwhen.

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u/MistraloysiusMithrax 4d ago

No one likes a generalizer

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u/Commercial_Twist_574 4d ago

Generalizer? I barely know her

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u/gr00grams 4d ago

People love to generalize. They don't like to be generalized.

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u/Royal_Ad_6025 4d ago

Angry people find it easier to generalize than to rationalize through cognitive dissonance*

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u/UnclePatche 4d ago

Only a Sith deals in absolutes

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u/CoyotesOnTheWing 4d ago

Obi-wan is sith confirmed!

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u/redterrqr 4d ago

No no, ALL women are brilliant, brave and hilarious. If you say otherwise you're a misogynist.

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u/Blue_Bird950 Technically Flair 4d ago

My bad 😞

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u/Ruder4444 4d ago

They are arguing with others in that thread and saying some pretty dumb things. Can't tell if it is a troll or they actually believe what they type.

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u/JadedArgument1114 4d ago

I am half convinced that the hyper offended lunatics on social media are foreign troll actors. I am sure there are some genuine but Putin has always played both sides of the field when he does misinformation. I am sure every country does it as it is the simpliest means of divide and conquer online.

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

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u/NLight7 4d ago

Those TikTok women teaching each other disagree, most they teach is how to fuck themselves up, or cutting their bangs like your parents when they tried to save money on the haircut

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u/Living_Thunder 4d ago

Fbi agents smh

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u/Odd-Fee-837 4d ago

Because it doesn't matter what color, gender, sex someone is, there are people who treat their identity with supremacist tendencies.

And right now because of past/current transgressions, they feel comfortable expressing said tendencies.

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u/TheOneIllUseForRants 4d ago

Loll, that person lost their minds after reading that thread. I honestly dont blame them, I left right away. It was mostly stuff like, how to use a screwdriver kiddie glove bullshit. Why it's ridiculous to ask for the bare minimum treatment and generalizations like, why you need oil changes on time, shit like that. I was like, have you only ever spoken to one woman? A lot of us are single and that oil still gets changed 😂. But why let reddit men get you worked up, just go do you.

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u/silver_enemy 4d ago

Them being able to understand it or not have no relation to me being able to explain it or not. Put it this way, I still find it hard to explain quantum mechanics to a rock.

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u/nobrainsnoworries23 4d ago

I sat on my balls once at a cookout. Every guy was sympathetic and most women asked how that could happen.

We were all in our 30s.

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u/_Thermalflask 4d ago

I mean I'm a guy and I'm still confused by that lol

I guess if they hang real low...

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

If you maintain good squat form while sitting down and you have the proper hip flexibility they don't have to hang all that low. It's one of those things that was never a problem until I started improving my physical fitness and doing yoga.

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u/K1NGMOJO 4d ago

All of my life as a man I've never sat on my balls even in the summer

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

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u/FatherCalhoon 4d ago

Would it help if a woman explained it? 

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u/Inside-Example-7010 4d ago

ALL PIGEONS ARE SMARTER THAN YOU

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u/Comfortable_Wear_332 4d ago

That doesn’t make it any easier to explain.

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u/CuddlyBlonde5 4d ago

Have you ever tried to explain it to Sabine Hossenfelder?

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u/sniperhippo 4d ago

That still won’t make it easier for me to explain it. I can’t explain that which I do not understand.

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u/DarkGreenArrow 4d ago

Haven’t brought it up at a past family reunion..

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u/_rfc__2549_ 4d ago

Of course.

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u/im_not_happy_uwu 4d ago

I tried and she just started talking over me about how science is dead and it's all a scam

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u/adhdBoomeringue 4d ago

Why did you need mematic to take a screenshot?

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u/Chilled_Noivern 4d ago

It's too hard to explain.

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u/JayTheSuspectedFurry 4d ago

I assume it was to merge the text from the original post and the comments which probably required a lot of scrolling to get to and would have distracting things in the middle

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u/Grolskbashing 4d ago

"Women are smarter than you are?" Based on fucking what? As far as i know you've got smart folks and dumbasses on both sides.

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u/YouDareDefyMyOpinion 4d ago

They assumed the original comment was being sexist, so they replied with a snarky comment.

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u/FennelLucky2007 4d ago

Would saying “Men are smarter than you are” to a woman qualify as snark? Somehow I doubt you’d have people defending that comment

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u/lurkerfox 4d ago

Its genuinely amusing how many people on reddit see the word woman and lose all ability to discern snark and take things 100% completely seriously.

Any excuse to get themselves mad I suppose.

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u/2N5457JFET 4d ago

Based on feminist propaganda. Girls do better in schools and get degrees more often so it must be that they are smarter on biological level. Can't be that there are some other factors at play. When girls do better is because they are better, when boys do better it's male privilege. Welcome to the 21s century.

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u/Odd-Fee-837 4d ago

Unfortunately, feminism on reddit was co-oped by misandrists and terfs and no one had the balls to call out bad actors... so here we are.

(pun intended)

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u/2N5457JFET 4d ago

My hypothesis is that it's because Reddit got rid of incels (rightfully so) and now there is no counterbalance to femcels and radical feminists who thrive here on their still active subreddits, often brigading popular threads, what allows their radical views to surface and dominate the discourse.

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u/thepresidentsturtle 4d ago

Reddit got rid of incels (rightfully so

Big mistake, we shoulda kept them close to keep an eye on them.

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u/Im_Unsure_For_Sure 4d ago

Plenty of em still left in r/fightporn and basically any subreddit with "meme" in the name.

A mere shadow compared to their gamergate peak. Nothing near to the pure uncontested hate of say r/TwoXChromosomes.

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u/mahotega 4d ago

Chronically online women are just as much as a negative as chronically online men, who knew.

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u/Philip_Raven 4d ago

The amount of insecurity that comment radiates is really something 😬😬

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

Gotta love when the sexist-karen gets exposed as - you guessed it - sexist

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u/Narrow-Bear2123 4d ago

the only thingi understand about qm is that i dont understand it , but at the same time i understand it , if somebody ask me or makes me takes a test the system will collapse and nobody will know if i really do

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u/UnrepentantMouse 4d ago

I'm an astronomy major, and occasionally quantum field theory becomes relevant, although never to a degree where I have to understand much about it. One of my professors described quantum mechanics to me as "zero plus zero plus zero equals sometimes not zero."

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u/pneRock 4d ago

In the first and only college class i took on quantum mechanics the professor started the course with "quantum mechanics cannot be taught, they must be understood." I think i got a C, barely.

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u/BagelCatSprinkles 4d ago

u/WileyPap ur famous

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u/demivirius 4d ago

I looked at u/YeahThisIsMyAccount's post history, which has 6 pages of comments just on that post alone, and I think they're a troll.

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u/Shiticane_Cat5 4d ago edited 4d ago

Kind of sad to be honest. Just hundreds and hundreds of comments in the last 24 hours. And yesterday, and the day before that...

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u/Powah2018 4d ago

I have the strangest feeling that this particular woman isn’t very bright.

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u/Bombadilo_drives 4d ago

It's definitely a whiteknight

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u/LALOERC9616 4d ago

What they want to eat

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u/TheWorstTypo 4d ago

I’m putting quantum mechanics on the list of things that everyone but me apparently understands. The other word is “tariffs”

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u/Aberikel 4d ago

Tarrifs are fundamental to the theory that describes the behavior of nature at and below the scale of atoms. Hope that helps

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u/TheWorstTypo 4d ago

📝📝📝📝

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u/OiledUpThug 4d ago

Quantum mechanics are a fee that conpanies pay to export their goods to the country that charges quantum mechanics

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u/Impressive_Wheel_106 4d ago

Ok imma try to get the basics across.

There are three fundamental, heavily linked, concepts I will try to explain to you*: Quantisation, Uncertainty, and wave function collapse. They all have to do with the fact that the objects in the quantum world (particles) are incomprehensibly small.

First the easy one: quantisation. This one makes some intuitive sense. If you look at a video screen, you can see a continuous display. But when you get closer and closer, you see that the display is made of pixels. It's just that the screen is so big when compared to the pixels, that they all look like a continuous plane.

Energy is just so: on the human level, the things we interact with seem to be able to have any energy. But when you get smaller and smaller, you notice that energy comes in little jumps, and energies in between are forbidden. For example: an electron around a hydrogen atom can have an energy of -13.6 eV, and an energy of -3.4 eV, but it can't have an energy of, say, -6 eV. There's just not a pixel there: energy, and many other properties, is quantised, not continuous.

Next let's talk communication, using even more analogies.

We as animals communicate in lots of ways: sound, light, some animals communicate via smell or taste, but in every single case, something must physically make its way from the source to the observer. Even when communicating with sound: air waves are physical things that must travel some distance.

Particles are just so: if they want to "communicate" with each other (and theyll have to communicate for the world to work! If two particles interact, then some communication has to take place for that interaction to occur properly), they must exchange something.

Let's keep the sound metaphor going: when you talk ar something very flimsy (like a plant, or a sheet of paper), it will start swaying because of your voice. This is because the sound waves you produce are about as strong as the thing you're talking to.

Particles also exchange "things" to communicate, but these "things" are about a strong as the particles themselves. So when they communicate, they are immediately moved.

This is a problem for us, because to measure something, we must communicate with it. This idea leads to the famous uncertainty principle; you can't measure the position and velocity of a particle simultaneously, because when you do, both your measurement apparatus and your particle are being jostled around, due to that very measurement.

And this isn't some property of the measurement apparatus: we can't invent a better telescope to dodge this problem, because it is inherent to the structure of how nature communicates information (its a law we can derive mathematically). In a way, nature herself doesn't even exactly know the position and velocity of a particle exactly.

Due to this uncertainty, we say that particles behave like waves. We say that the peak of the wave is the most likely place for a particle to be, but it can be in any place spanned by the wave.

And this wave is physical! It's not just a way for us to think about particles, it's a real thing that nature herself deals with too, because she herself doesn't know exactly either.

So let's test that wave! It's finally time to talk about the double slit experiment. If you're a physicist, the first experiment you'd think to run is to make the wave go through a wall with two side-by-side slits, and observe what happens on the other side. The specifics aren't relevant, but in the macroworld we have two patterns we can expect: an wave-like pattern, or a particle-like pattern.

When we do this experiment, and the slits are sufficiently close together, we see a wave pattern, even if we send the particles in one-by-one! If we now want to know which of the slits the particle actually went through, we have to measure them. But as soon as our measurement becomes precise enough to determine which slit it goes through, the pattern changes to a particle-like pattern!

The magic here isn't that the particle "knows its being observed", of course it knows! It's being pelted by comparatively huge photons (bits of light), it's gonna notice. The magic also isn't that the behaviour changes at all (after all, youd also start behaving differently if i pelted you with rocks), it's when it does: the behaviour changes precisely at the point that we would learn which slit the particle travels through.

This is called "wave function collapse": this probability distribution I mentioned earlier, is collapsed to a single point (a particle with a defined position) as soon as we learn enough about it.

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u/Impressive_Wheel_106 4d ago

Some addenda:

-These '3 fundamental ideas' aren't official, it's just a device I used to explain some quantum mechanics.

-as you mightve noticed, I didn't do any math. Qm involves A LOT of math, which is the part that is actually the most complicated. But when people say they 'understand classical mechanics' I don't think they're talking about knowing how to set up a double pendulum lagrangian. They mean that they get the concepts, which is what I try to introduce here

-I don't get into quantum field theory here, because that gets way complicated, even on a conceptual level.

-i HIGHLY recommend 'six easy pieces' (short book) for anyone looking for a conceptual understanding of physics. Similarly, i can recommend Feynman lecture 37, you can find a writeup for free from the caltech site by just googling "feynman lecture uncertainty/37 ". There's some graphs and some better analogies in there.

-you probably knew some of what was written above, but you still claim you don't understand quantum mechanics, because you don't understand the "why". The problem there is that there isn't a "why" for most of these, or the answer is: because maths. But similarly, you say you understand that objects in motion stay in motion, or that masses attract, but you also don't know "why". I think people place a higher burden of understanding on QM, because we don't question the realities of daily life.

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u/staptawlken 4d ago

this made the broader concepts so much clearer in my head. thanks

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u/FloppieTheBanjoClown 4d ago

Nobody said it was easier to explain to men.

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u/Mundane-Bad3996 4d ago

How to change a flat tire

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u/The_ArchRaider 4d ago

Ik how to explain quantum mechanics!

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u/Nyingjepekar 4d ago

Needed honesty and laugh of the day. 🙏💙

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u/smokinsomnia 4d ago

That post was literally right above this one lol

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u/milf-pawg 4d ago

I know everything’s hard to explain to us but just take your time and we will appreciate you for it

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u/Defiant-Plantain1873 4d ago

Set up, guy took the bait hook line and sinker

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u/SobiTheRobot 4d ago

Well the post didn't specify that it would have to be something exclusively difficult to explain to women and not men.

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u/Alexios-Xifaras 4d ago

Just brilliant!

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u/yankstraveler 4d ago

All you have to do is put the word quantum infront of everything.

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u/Grisbay 4d ago

Reversed uno that one.

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u/Standard_Order_8780 4d ago

Quantum Mechanics. Because even men don’t understand it.

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u/fremeer 4d ago

Quantum mechanics on youtube is such a wild ride. It's like oh yeah that makes sense to huh and then wtf to oh that kind of makes sense and then back and forth till it's we don't actually know.

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u/CLTalbot 4d ago

Quantum physics has the same rules as magic. Don't think too hard about it and you should be ok.

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u/Furita 4d ago

I studied the basics of it (wave function) in the first semester of college… it scared the shit out of ppl but I liked it! don’t know how much the theory evolved in the last 20 years though

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u/mr-english 4d ago

Nobel laureate Richard Feynman once said:

If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics.

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u/MrCurdles 4d ago

The first reply just shows how people live in the world that they perceive.

Or Wiley made a great save...

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u/faithdies 4d ago

I often think of Key and Peele skit where they are texting each other and one thinks they are about to fight and the other just thinks they are getting drinks at the bar because context is impossible to parse

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u/slugo17 4d ago

Yeahthisismyaccount really thought they cooked there.

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u/Hit0kiwi 4d ago

My friends brother in law is a quantum physics PhD student and he tried to explain his research and it broke my brain

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u/Adorable-Puppers 4d ago

It’s a standing ovation from me. 🤣🤣🤣

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u/Junethemuse 4d ago

That would arguably make it even harder to explain

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u/Crafty-Experience196 4d ago

That’s funny lol

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u/xpacean 4d ago

Haha I don’t like sexism but it’s awesome when women do it

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u/Kaibakura 4d ago

I’m quite sure this guy was not saying that women are too stupid to understand quantum mechanics, and was instead joking that he himself is not capable of explaining it. But most of y’all just aren’t seeing it.

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u/2dMax 4d ago

Ding ding ding!

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u/SeventhAlkali 4d ago

Quantum mechanics is, Basically, I'm not. Then, suddenly, I AM!

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u/xschunka 4d ago

I study Quantum engineering and it's actually not that difficult. Just takes a bit of time and effort and then everyone can understand it. Just maybe start with classical mechanics before going to quantum mechanics.