450
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top new old
[-] [email protected] 127 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

In fairness, Uranus is much larger than Antarctica.

[-] [email protected] 46 points 1 year ago

Your momma's anus is much larger than Antarctica.

How's it feel coming back atcha buddy?

[-] [email protected] 53 points 1 year ago
[-] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Bloody hell, I didn't expect a friendly meme-roasting session to be educational...

[-] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

My fine Sir, I extend my salutations and congratulations on your absolutely brilliant play.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Then again it could be super close and the size of a potato.

[-] [email protected] 84 points 1 year ago

Tbf looking upward at the sky is a lot easier than taking a giant wooden coffin over thousands of miles of water to find an icy hells ape where almost nothing can survive

[-] [email protected] 50 points 1 year ago

icy hells ape

Yeah, that's fucking terrifying

[-] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago

that fucking troll on the way to the grey beards, fml.

[-] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

The advantage of becoming leader of the college, thieve's guild, nightingales, and companions before even bothering to visit Balgruff.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[-] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago

icy hells ape

That's going in my next D&D campaign

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] [email protected] 61 points 1 year ago

tbf, discovering Uranus was a lot less deadly before modern icebreaking ships. Age of Sail ships did not do well down there, and the economic incentives of sealing resulted in quite a lot of casualties back in the day. Doing math and peering through telescopes is much safer.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

You say this, but you've never seen me try to math

[-] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago

If our main sensory organs were sound-based or feel-based, we'd probably have discovered a lot of things before planets and stars.

The things that took a while to discover on earth, or that aren't yet fully explored, are largely because it's hard to see them without getting very close, which can be hard.

Building a good telescope might have been hard, but with a telescope you can see things that are millions of km away. But, because of the earth's curvature, you can't see Antarctica until you're practically next to Antarctica. You can't see the bottom of the ocean until you travel to the bottom of the ocean, or at least until you scan it with sound waves which are then converted into something you can see.

Imagine an alien that developed in the water on a planet with sub-surface oceans with ice on top. No real value for eyes, so they're sound / touch based. Picture what it would be like to try to explore the solar system. There's a boundary layer at the top of their "atmosphere" (the top of the ocean) that's solid (ice), beyond that there's some non-liquid extremely sparse stuff, until some point where no sound travels at all and there's nothing to touch.

[-] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

Reminds me of Rocky from Project Hail Mary (sort of, they didn't live under ocean but under an extremely hostile-to-us atmosphere).

[-] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

That moment where he learns about relativity is so cute. I should read the book again soon.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

His initial reaction was hilariously understandable - a huge WTF? But then being a rational being with super human computational ability he started to realize that it fits all the observations.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[-] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago

“The” Antarctica

I mean, I guess there’s only one

[-] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago

It's only until we discover the second one

[-] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Is that where Santa lives?

[-] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

No that’s ananarctica

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

No, it’s the secret location where less-cooperative elves are sent who question Santa’s work scheduling, pay rates, and anti union stance.

[-] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago

I assure you that Uranus has been observed many times by many people dating far back into the past, such as by Hipparchos in 2nd Century BC. They conclusively figured out exactly what it was in 1846.

[-] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

Twenty centuries of wondering what it is, until someone snapped and said “listen, it’s Uranus, are you happy now?”

[-] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Well back then, people didn't wear many clothes, so if they bent over you'd see right up their bums.

[-] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The Sirius star(s) 8000 light away was discovered before Europe.

[-] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Well, we currently know better the moon's surface than our oceans' bottom, so...

[-] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It's almost like building telescopes is a bit easier than month-long marine expeditions.

Well I guess it's not immediately apparent. But in hindsight, the kind of telescope you need to see the moon or Uranus isn't quite the investment that a dangerous expedition to unknown lands or the bottom of the sea entails. Nor an observatory or space-bourne telescope for that matter. And you can't use a telescope to discover a continent on earth unless you were already in space.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Yup, if I'm not mistaken, more people went on the Moon than to Challenger Deep. I'm wondering if it would be the same case if the Cold War hadn't started the race to the Moon.

[-] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

It's like it tell my kids, you have to look under and behind things…

[-] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

Is this the same "discovered" as America was "discovered" in 1492?

[-] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Actually no, I don't think there were any people living in Antarctica.. but I could be wrong.

[-] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

But were there people living in the southern hemisphere who knew not to go further south because they'd reach the icy land of certain death?

[-] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

There were probably people who knew that if they went further south they'd not come back. On maps locations like these used to be labeled "Here there be monsters" or something like that.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Probably not. They knew not to go further south because they'd reach the icy ocean of certain death. Because there's no land at 60° South, the winds and currents whip around Antarctica in an uninterrupted circle and there are 100 kph winds and 10+ meter waves most of the time.

See also: "Roaring Forties," "Furious Fifties," and "Screaming Sixties"

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This is a very human centric definition of discovery.

Penguins had been living there for millenia beforehand.

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[-] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

I don’t know about you, but I find seeing things to be much easier when there isn’t a planet obscuring it.

[-] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Piri reis knew of Antarctica back in the 16th century or something I unno I am no earth scientist

[-] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Ooh old cartography I can actually call semi bullshit on this. Basically we knew about a fuckoff big landmass we now call Antarctica (then hypothesized to be Terra Australis) due to the ocean currents around it, but we kept fucking up its location for some reason. Misidentification of Antarctica got so bad that Australia was the most nothern part of it hence why the naming is wrong.

Also a lot of maps made Tierra del Fuego look like it was part of the at the time hypothesized Terra Australas, as I said the misidentification problem got real fucking bad at times. But yeah we knew there was a continent or somethijg down there we just couldnt get to the damned thing because it was too hazardous.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I read about the Antarctic. They kept running into walls of ice before they could find/see it.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Mars surface is studied better than Earth in 2024. Because there are no oceans or trees on Mars.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

But you can see one in your backyard sometimes.

[-] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

Oh, you have your own The Antarctica too?

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

To be fair, we don't usually have a clear line of sight to Antarctica.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Some people today couldn't find Uranus with both hands and a flashlight.

load more comments
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2024
450 points (94.5% liked)

Funny

9748 readers
942 users here now

General rules:

Exceptions may be made at the discretion of the mods.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS