Stuff that 'boggles' your mind.

Black holes, dying stars, colliding galaxies, the flashes of gamma radiation from the far side of the universe from long before the earth was even formed, the echoes of the Big Bang found in the cosmic background radiation, the fracturing of symmetry just after the big bang, where one fundamental force became four. The violence and destruction wrought by a dying star in its final moments, and how paradoxical it is that we would not even exist if it were not for such apocalyptic destruction; the fact that we are the offspring of ancient stars.

Some people may think these things as geeky, even though they are surely as staggering as any thought can possibly be.
 
World governments burying their heads in the sand while people in Syria die
Why people care so much about the Olympics

Oh, and particle physics
 
SlyReaper said:
Black holes, dying stars, colliding galaxies, the flashes of gamma radiation from the far side of the universe from long before the earth was even formed, the echoes of the Big Bang found in the cosmic background radiation, the fracturing of symmetry just after the big bang, where one fundamental force became four. The violence and destruction wrought by a dying star in its final moments, and how paradoxical it is that we would not even exist if it were not for such apocalyptic destruction; the fact that we are the offspring of ancient stars.

Some people may think these things as geeky, even though they are surely as staggering as any thought can possibly be.
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+1

couldnt have wrote it better myself.
 
SlyReaper said:
Some people may think these things as geeky, even though they are surely as staggering as any thought can possibly be.
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It's amazing how much they both matter, and don't.

We're unlikely to escape our own solar system in our lifetime, so all of it is unlikely to have any effect on us at all.

It's all real, and we're just a flicker in time on a meaningless rock circling a ten a penny star in one of 100 billion galaxies of 100 billion stars - but it might as well be fiction because it doesn't impact our daily lives and struggles. Perhaps one day we'll colonise the universe, but for now what happens inside our own bubble is what matters, and what doesn't mean a jot to the rest of the universe.
 
Traffic_Warden said:
foreign aid when the country's in a mess itself.... just boggles the mind.
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How do you manage to draw a line in your head around the millions of British people you don't know and say that they're ok, but anyone outside isn't? Why would you see money spent on education in Plymouth for example rather than preventing children dying in Africa? Why do the people in Plymouth matter more to you?
 
The way a living being conceives time. For example a fly or a pigeon can process far more information per second than we can. To use a PC metaphor if we see things at 300 FPS they see at 1000 FPS meaning what they see would be like slow motion to us. If a fly was to watch a film at 30 fps for example, to them it would appear as a photo slide show does to us.

That's why flies for example can easily evade you trying to hit them with a newspaper or a bird waits til the last second before flying away when you drive toward them (most times anyway).

Although I understand the science behind it, it's weird to think that time is different for them than it is for us.
 
estebanrey said:
The way a living being conceives time. For example a fly or a pigeon can process far more information per second than we can. To use a PC metaphor if we see things at 300 FPS they see at 1000 FPS meaning what they see would be like slow motion to us. If a fly was to watch a film at 30 fps for example, to them it would appear as a photo slide show does to us.

That's why flies for example can easily evade you trying to hit them with a newspaper or a bird waits til the last second before flying away when you drive toward them (most times anyway).

Although I understand the science behind it, it's weird to think that time is different for them than it is for us.
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Yea thats a trippy one. And its also the reason they see the fly swatter or rolled-up mag comin @ them a mile away. It must be like a turtle crawling towards them.
 
SlyReaper said:
Some people may think these things as geeky, even though they are surely as staggering as any thought can possibly be.
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I don't think it's geeky - in fact I think we underestimate how many people find this stuff interesting. Characters like Brian Cox are helping the cause by bring science to the masses.

To add to your list - when the universe goes to a state of maximum entropy due to expansion. To think none of this really matters at all, because at some point in the future there will be nothing at all. Just a very big, and very cold vacuum with a few dead rocks seperated by impossibly vast distances.
 
sniffy said:
The speed of flies is pretty mental. Last year I had a fat **** flying around my bedroom and he just wouldn't leave. I tried burning him by putting a flame by the nozzle of a deodorant can then spraying it. He even managed to dodge that :(
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Well quite. That's why it annoys me when people talk as if humans are a special species, somehow elevated above the rest of the animal kingdom in every department. Don't get me wrong I wouldn't swap the power of reason and opposable thumbs for anything but when you realise how much more evolved some animal 'powers' (for lack of a better word) are you soon see we aint that great.

Take the bat as another example, despite not having great eyesight their sonar is so good they have far better spacial awareness than us (which is why being scared of bats flying into your hair is silly, they never would).
 
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cameras and i mean cameras that take film, not digital. i always and still kind of do, find how pressing a button can capture an image onto film. i found the concept of (eg a kodak) camera more fascinating than a camcorder.
 
imb4tman said:
There is no such thing as Centrifugal Force.
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Yes there is, it's just when most people say it they mean centripetal force. For example when water stays in a bucket when you swing it around it's the centripetal force keeping it in (but it is the centrifugal force pushing the water out).

Every action must have an equal and opposite reaction. Centrifugal force is the opposite and equal reaction to centripetal force.
 
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