3 ms·

I’m way out of my depth in this subject, but I find this incredibly fascinating. I had to read up on supersolids; still not fully understanding. I once had a

I’m way out of my depth in this subject, but I find this incredibly fascinating. I had to read up on supersolids; still not fully understanding. I once had a naïve perspective that we’d figured out all the “big” stuff in science, but I’m now of the perspective that we’re still only scratching the surface.

blooalien 2y ago
> ... "but I’m now of the perspective that we’re still only scratching the surface." The problem with learning new stuff is that it opens a whole 'nother box of brand-shiny-new questions. :)
- jajko 2y ago
  And often moves old hard truths into 'maybe, sort of, in some conditions' territory
stronglikedan 2y ago
Everything goes as deep as the Planck length (theoretically). The only thing we've figured out is that we still don't know much more than we know.
- brummm 2y ago
  Deeper. The only significance of the Planck length is that at that scale quantum effects and gravitational effects matter equally. Essentially that's where our current theories break down. Beyond that, the Planck length means nothing. It's not the smallest length possible, it's just that we don't know how to describe anything smaller at the moment.
  - UltraSane 2y ago
    My understanding is that it is impossible to probe anything smaller than a Planck length because the required energy to probe such a small distance would create a black hole. So it is almost as if the universe conspires to prevent probing anything smaller.
ben_w 2y ago
"""Aristotle said a bunch of stuff that was wrong. Galileo and Newton fixed things up. Then Einstein broke everything again. Now, we’ve basically got it all worked out, except for small stuff, big stuff, hot stuff, cold stuff, fast stuff, heavy stuff, dark stuff, turbulence, and the concept of time""" - Zach Weinersmith, https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9666621-aristotle-said-a-bunch-of-stuff-that-was-wrong-galileo https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9666621-aristotle-said-a-bu...
gus_massa 2y ago
> we’re still only scratching the surface We can explain 99% of the world with solid, liquid and gas. Add plasma for another 9. Weird stuff like superfuids and supersolids are very unusual. They may be interesting for some aplications in the future. (I guess that when superconductivity was discovered that every major city would have a few superconductivity devices in it. (Google says 50.000 MRI worldwide.)) Even simple solids (specially semiconductors) have a lot of applications that use quantum mechanics, and there are many rabbit holes with more rabbit holes at their bottom. Most of them are explored or partially explored, but there are still many to explore in the future.

blooalien 2y ago

> ... "but I’m now of the perspective that we’re still only scratching the surface." The problem with learning new stuff is that it opens a whole 'nother box of brand-shiny-new questions. :)

jajko 2y ago
And often moves old hard truths into 'maybe, sort of, in some conditions' territory

stronglikedan 2y ago

Everything goes as deep as the Planck length (theoretically). The only thing we've figured out is that we still don't know much more than we know.

brummm 2y ago
Deeper. The only significance of the Planck length is that at that scale quantum effects and gravitational effects matter equally. Essentially that's where our current theories break down. Beyond that, the Planck length means nothing. It's not the smallest length possible, it's just that we don't know how to describe anything smaller at the moment.
- UltraSane 2y ago
  My understanding is that it is impossible to probe anything smaller than a Planck length because the required energy to probe such a small distance would create a black hole. So it is almost as if the universe conspires to prevent probing anything smaller.

ben_w 2y ago

"""Aristotle said a bunch of stuff that was wrong. Galileo and Newton fixed things up. Then Einstein broke everything again. Now, we’ve basically got it all worked out, except for small stuff, big stuff, hot stuff, cold stuff, fast stuff, heavy stuff, dark stuff, turbulence, and the concept of time""" - Zach Weinersmith, https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9666621-aristotle-said-a-bunch-of-stuff-that-was-wrong-galileo https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9666621-aristotle-said-a-bu...

gus_massa 2y ago

> we’re still only scratching the surface We can explain 99% of the world with solid, liquid and gas. Add plasma for another 9. Weird stuff like superfuids and supersolids are very unusual. They may be interesting for some aplications in the future. (I guess that when superconductivity was discovered that every major city would have a few superconductivity devices in it. (Google says 50.000 MRI worldwide.)) Even simple solids (specially semiconductors) have a lot of applications that use quantum mechanics, and there are many rabbit holes with more rabbit holes at their bottom. Most of them are explored or partially explored, but there are still many to explore in the future.