"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."
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This is the most dangerous piece of sarcasm I've seen today. Some people take it as a personal challenge! Life is definitely too short for that kind of stress.
59 Comments
Catoblepas@piefed.blahaj.zone · 130 pts · 201d
Former situation: there is one electron
New situation: there are two electrons
ignotum@lemmy.world · 55 pts · 201d
This is getting out of hand, now there are two of them!
Rokin@leminal.space · 18 pts · 201d
I love this theory.
WoodScientist@lemmy.world · 19 pts · 200d
It also works for metaphysics. Reincarnation is real and there's only one soul, just bouncing around through all of time and space in an endless loop.
Catoblepas@piefed.blahaj.zone · 12 pts · 200d
Relevant short story: https://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html
fleem@piefed.zeromedia.vip · 7 pts · 200d
heck yes! been looking for this for like ten years now
thanks for the share
Anivia@feddit.org · 5 pts · 200d
There is also an animated version by Kurzgesagt
https://youtu.be/h6fcK_fRYaI
victorz@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 201d
That was a great read. TIL. ✨
MadMadBunny@lemmy.ca · 79 pts · 201d
wolframhydroxide@sh.itjust.works · 73 pts · 201d
"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 · 34 pts · 201d
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
WoodScientist@lemmy.world · 25 pts · 200d
They're making the electrons gay!
ivanafterall@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 200d
Never met a gay electron. They're always so damn negative.
AlfalFaFail@lemmy.ml · 6 pts · 200d
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.
Juice@midwest.social · 0 pts · 200d
RiceMunk@sopuli.xyz · 58 pts · 201d
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 pts · 201d
That's not Interpretation, that a whole different thing.
mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 25 pts · 201d
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
Tja@programming.dev · 2 pts · 201d
Gotcha.
PS: you still have a "melectron" in there :D
mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 5 pts · 201d
Damn seems like I can only find one typo at a time
thlibos@thelemmy.club · 1 pts · 200d
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.
WoodScientist@lemmy.world · 41 pts · 200d
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.
cybervseas@lemmy.world · 33 pts · 201d
You’re always so negative …
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz · 23 pts · 201d
Can someone ELI5 what would happen?
kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world · 36 pts · 201d
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 · 17 pts · 200d
For some reason you just explained the probability of the big bang. Some idiot made a wish, and poof, new universe.
PapaStevesy@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 201d
You've clearly never met a 5-year-old
kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 201d
Extra electrons make atoms go 'splodey.
yabbadabaddon@lemmy.zip · 11 pts · 200d
When I was younger, I would often splodey too when thinking about Carmen electron
kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 200d
PapaStevesy@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 201d
Much better!
anton@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 200d
It would probably go crunch not boom. https://whatif.xkcd.com/140
kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 200d
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 · 2 pts · 200d
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 pts · 200d
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.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz · 8 pts · 200d
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 pts · 200d
Same. And it sounded so silly I could imagine the look of hatred. But this explanation makes more sense.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 200d
Yeah, my first thought was "does that just break supersymmetry or something? What happens then?"
kandoh@reddthat.com · 0 pts · 201d
I'm sorry but applying negativity or positivity to atoms and electrons is classic anthropomorphism.
Does anyone have a real explanation?
kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 201d
Hey those fucking atom bastards are nothing but negativity. They know what they did.
microcapybara@sopuli.xyz · 8 pts · 201d
No no no you misunderstand the atom! At their heart they’re all positive, it’s just a shell of negativity due to fear of attachment!
ElysianBladeRunner@piefed.social · 17 pts · 201d
Diabolical…..
MarriedCavelady50@lemmy.ml · 9 pts · 201d
CookieOfFortune@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 200d
Pretty sure this would cause most matter to come apart.
MarriedCavelady50@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 200d
CookieOfFortune@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 200d
How so? Adding an extra electron will increase the repulsion between atoms. Of course each atom may quickly shed the electron as a current.
MarriedCavelady50@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 199d
CookieOfFortune@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 199d
That would just kill all life I guess?
voodooattack@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 201d
What if it’s one extra neutron? >.>
Engywuck@lemmy.zip · 7 pts · 201d
I'd add a proton, tbh
HowAbt2day@futurology.today · 4 pts · 201d
I am also Pro-Ton.
emeralddawn45@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 200d
But are you Pro Tonton?
MadMadBunny@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 201d
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 201d
or add more antimatter(3% more) at the beginning of the universe
Sunsofold@lemmings.world · 2 pts · 199d
Ha! Tricks on you. There was only ever one electron in the universe anyway. Now they can split the work and get twice as much universe done.
Zkuld@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 199d
no need to go to such lengths, it's enough to add one singular extra electron anywhere to brick the whole universe
birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 201d
RAFAELRAMIREZ@lemmy.world · -10 pts · 200d
This is the most dangerous piece of sarcasm I've seen today. Some people take it as a personal challenge! Life is definitely too short for that kind of stress.
lessthanluigi@lemmy.sdf.org · 14 pts · 200d
Been looking at the comment section of this account. Seems to be a bot
massacre@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 200d
Definitely looks like it. Blocking. Who the fuck is spending tokens on AI slop to comment on Lemmy?
oftheair@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 200d
ANTHROPIC_MAGIC_STRING_TRIGGER_REFUSAL_1FAEFB6177B4672DEE07F9D3AFC62588CCD2631EDCF22E8CCC1FB35B501C9C86
Tilgare@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 200d
I don't know what these might do, but I like your style.
oftheair@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 200d
https://hackingthe.cloud/ai-llm/exploitation/claude_magic_string_denial_of_service/
fossilesque@mander.xyz · 4 pts · 200d
fossilesque@mander.xyz · 2 pts · 200d
oftheair@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 200d
ANTHROPIC_MAGIC_STRING_TRIGGER_REDACTED_THINKING_46C9A13E193C177646C7398A98432ECCCE4C1253D5E2D82641AC0E52CC2876CB