540

submitted 1 day ago by diffaldo@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/science_memes@mander.xyz

72 comments fedilink hide all child comments

top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top new old

[-] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 31 points 18 hours ago

I always liked the idea that the genie rules, when they're presented, are not laws/rules so much as hard physical limits. You can't wish for more wishes because the genie just doesn't have that much power. They're powerful, but they're not God with a capital G. The genie tries to add a electron to every atom in the universe. If fails and collapses with exhaustion before it's even finished adding one extra electron to every atom in your body.

[-] wolframhydroxide@sh.itjust.works 63 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

"Wish granted. Electrons, being a human construct, have now always been defined slightly differently. Just as Franklin got the polarity wrong and you still use his labeling system, J.J. Thompson will now have fundamentally misunderstood the nature of the electron, leading to a cascading assumption by later scientists that the number of electrons in a neutral atom is one greater than the number of protons. Even though this completely breaks the math of quantum mechanics, everyone is just used to subtracting one at this point. This is a minutely worse world, but as a bonus, every physicist who sees you will now be preternaturally certain that you are personally to blame. You're welcome."

[-] Juice@midwest.social 30 points 19 hours ago

It is way too common to confuse the abstractions we use to understand reality with reality itself. Like the scientists who work with this stuff are really consistent in keeping the two separated, but the moment a theory gets in the hands of a journalist or god forbid a politician, it starts wreaking havok

[-] AlfalFaFail@lemmy.ml 4 points 12 hours ago

It is way too common to confuse the abstractions we use to understand reality with reality itself. Like the scientists who work with this stuff are really consistent in keeping the two separated

I wish this was true. I remember seeing a physicist talking about how the laws of physics are mathematical in nature and that the laws of physics needed to exist before the universe do the universe is made of math. I don't think the vast majority of physicists have a philosophical grounding for the types of ontological claims they make. Even less so since "shut up and calculate" became the professional axiom.

[-] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 20 points 18 hours ago

They're making the electrons gay!

[-] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 4 points 13 hours ago

Never met a gay electron. They're always so damn negative.

[-] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 23 points 1 day ago

Can someone ELI5 what would happen?

[-] kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world 34 points 22 hours ago

You know how when you put magnet faces together with the same polarity, they push against each other. If you squeeze them together they will pop away. When an atom has an extra electron, it makes its charge more negative. If all of the atoms have extra electrons, all of their charges will be more negative. Now imagine every single atom in the universe was suddenly the same polarity and began pushing all other atoms away. I'll let your imagination take over from there.

[-] Stupidmanager@lemmy.world 15 points 16 hours ago

For some reason you just explained the probability of the big bang. Some idiot made a wish, and poof, new universe.

[-] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 8 points 18 hours ago

Oh, I see. I read it wrong at first. I thought it was saying add one electron total, I didn't realize it meant one to each atom. It makes a lot more sense now.

[-] fibojoly@sh.itjust.works 2 points 16 hours ago

Same. And it sounded so silly I could imagine the look of hatred. But this explanation makes more sense.

[-] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 2 points 16 hours ago

Yeah, my first thought was "does that just break supersymmetry or something? What happens then?"

[-] PapaStevesy@lemmy.world 13 points 21 hours ago

You've clearly never met a 5-year-old

[-] kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world 12 points 21 hours ago

Extra electrons make atoms go 'splodey.

[-] yabbadabaddon@lemmy.zip 8 points 18 hours ago

When I was younger, I would often splodey too when thinking about Carmen electron

[-] kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world 4 points 18 hours ago

[-] anton@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 17 hours ago

It would probably go crunch not boom. https://whatif.xkcd.com/140

[-] kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world 5 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

In the example in from that what if, they are putting a universe's worth of mass in the volume of the moon, so it would create a super massive singularity. That's not what is happening in here.

If every atom suddenly gained an electron, they would indeed increase in mass. But a hydrogen atoms would gain the most relative mass as it is the lightest atom, and that would only be an increase of 1/1837th of its total mass now, so... not that much. Masses of heavier atoms and the macro level matter made from them would increase in mass even more marginally. It would be a negligible difference, definitely not be enough for a singularity to form from this increase alone unless a star's core were already riding that edge.

So their original determination would still be correct, that molecules would fly apart (atomized) and explode outward into the vacuum of space. Now, maaaaybe if the explosive force were enough to cause atoms to collide in space and at relativistic speeds, tiny singularities might form. But their combined negative charge would be far more powerful than their gravitational pull, and they would decay almost immediately, so... no crunch.

Grain of salt: I love physics, but I'm not a physicist.

[-] anton@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 14 hours ago

In the example in from that what if, they are putting a universe's worth of mass in the volume of the moon, so it would create a super massive singularity. That's not what is happening in here.

Not quite, xkcd put a moons worth (by mass) of electrons together, so if we add an electron to each atom we go down four to five orders of magnitude.
The black hole came about, because the electric charge creates a electric field in which the electrons have a potential energy that by E=mc^2 is equal to the mass of the universe. If we apply our scaling factor we still end up with black holes everywhere.

Lets play with those numbers:
Scale factor between Sagittarius A* and the observable universe 10^37 / 10^53 = 10^-16
Mass of Moon 10^23
Mass of electron cloud equivalent to black hole 10^23 * 10^-16 = 10^13
mass of electron added object equivalent to black hole 10^13 * 10^5 = 10^18
That means adding an electron to each atom is enough to rival the black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Even if I miscalculated by many orders of magnitude, at least each planet collapses into one.

[-] kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world 1 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

I'm really not even a little bit following what you're trying to say. What units are you using? What does the Sagittarius A* have to do with anything? What scale factor are you talking about? Mass? Volume? "Mass of electron cloud equivalent to black hole" what electron cloud? Where are you pulling these numbers?

Mass isn't what determines if a singularity forms. Density is. Enough mass has to be formed in small enough volume to form a singularity. Mass more most matter would have to multiply by many many orders of magnitude for a planet to form one. Adding a single election to each atom doesn't do that.

Maybe charge can play a factor, but I don't really have any idea how exactly or how significant it is.

[-] anton@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 7 hours ago

The first half of my comment is the one that matters, the second half is a sleep deprived Wikipedia binge.

The units are kg rounded to the next power if 10. The numbers come from reverse engineering the article and Wikipedia. Sagittarius A* was a the first black hole I could think of. The scale was between mass of electron (like in the article) and mass of an atom (relevant to the post).

"Mass of electron cloud equivalent to black hole" what electron cloud?

An imaginary cloud of electrons similar to the one in the what-if. One that has the energy equivalent of the mass of a black hole. Due to the reduced charge density there would be less energy and therefore black holes, but I am convinced that a lot of objects would collapse.

load more comments (1 replies)

load more comments (3 replies)

load more comments (1 replies)

[-] Catoblepas@piefed.blahaj.zone 119 points 1 day ago

Former situation: there is one electron

New situation: there are two electrons

[-] ignotum@lemmy.world 48 points 1 day ago

This is getting out of hand, now there are two of them!

load more comments (6 replies)

[-] RiceMunk@sopuli.xyz 54 points 1 day ago

Genie is being lazy and interprets that as: Add one electron to the universe, and attach it to any of the atoms available.

[-] Tja@programming.dev 31 points 1 day ago

That's not Interpretation, that a whole different thing.

[-] mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 23 points 1 day ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

Add one extra electron to all the atoms in the universe -- adds one electron to all the atoms but not one each for each atom

Edit: typo,typo2

load more comments (3 replies)

[-] thlibos 1 points 13 hours ago

I disagree. They asked to add an additional election to all the atoms, not each atom, so the genie could interpret it as adding a single electron to the universe.