Monday, October 13, 2014
Crowdsourced solutions: overheard: ricpic
"Whenever I see these microscopic photos I always wonder if there is a smallest unit of matter beyond which smallness cannot go. Physicists tell us the universe is continuing to expand, so I guess that means bigness is infinite, potentially. But is the smallest smallness unit of a butterfly's wing infinitely small?"
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18 comments:
Attention! I'm getting attention!
Thanks deb for acknowledging the profundity of my question. ;^) But, crowdsourced solutions? What does that mean? Hope it's not a putdown. :^(
I cannot conceive of an infinite Universe any more than I can conceive of a finite Universe.
I'd like to help answer the question more than that but I'm dumb.
(1) Last night we watched that episode of The Big Bang Theory where Sheldon is jealous of the 14 year old North Korean physicist (defector) who's smarter than he is.
Not one of the better episodes, IMHO.
Sheldon needed to be played much more over the top. After all, it's normal to feel jealous sometimes.
And the 14 year old was practically a straight man, a waste of an opportunity.
(2) There was one good line I remember, delivered I think by Wolowitz.
They're trying to figure out how to get rid of the 14 year old and Wolowitz muses that maybe they could figure out a way to get the 14 year old deported back to North Korea.
He rejects the idea immediately, "It'll never work. He's already shown he knows how to get out."
I't micro turtles all the way down.
We can "think" a lot smaller than we can "see;" conversely, we can "see" a lot further than we can "think."
Make sense? It's wavelength dependent.
"Crowdsourced Solutions" is a venerable old tag at chez Lemme's. Click on it.
Now back to work.
I always wonder if there is a smallest unit of matter beyond which smallness cannot go
Maybe we've reached the end of smallness with this lady's brain -- Dr. Nancy Snyderman spotted at New Jersey restaurant during Ebola quarantine, draws health department crackdown
I guess there is infinite smallness, in that you can divide something infinitely, making is smaller and smaller, without ever coming to an end of the dividing.
There is infinite smallness.
And then there is infinite sadness.
Mellon Collie?
Some dogs are sadder than others.
How do you measure smallness? What yardstick do you use? Isn't that the challenge?
deborah said
I guess there is infinite smallness, in that you can divide something infinitely, making is smaller and smaller, without ever coming to an end of the dividing.
Isn't that one of Zeno's paradoxes?
Hey, I only went as far as trig.
Christy, with negative exponents(?)
Space starts to break down at a planck length, where things are no longer connected.
I thought you'd never get here.
Hey, I only went as far as trig.
HS geometry for me. I still remember the teacher demonstrating by walking halfway to the wall and then halfway again and then halfway again ad infinitum never getting there.
I forgot Zeno's name and had to google it but the lesson remains.
Cool! My 7th or 8th grade teacher did the same thing with the chalkboard. I considered telling that story. I didn't know it was Zeno, though.
With the relaxation of marijuana laws, I expect more of these types of questions.
@Christy: Yes
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