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Comment count is 10
Gamara II - 2009-02-18

This... this is fucking awesome. I'm impressed by the intellectual honesty of this presentation of physics, which is very tough to do considering the scope and intended audience. It's physics porn, not so much math nerd porn.

It basically goes through a bit of the history of 20th century physics on subatomic scales for the first 50 minutes. They do a good job of showing that no models/theories are perfect descriptions of "reality", and that as scientific progress continues, more accurate models continually replace the older models, and predict new, testable phenomena. It also shows that there still remain gaps, like reconciling gravity at quantum scales. We don't know the whole story.

Also, the interview with Andrew Jackson at 52:00 is awesome. I want to give him a hug. He's right that although the many worlds idea is not a question of physics. It is fundamentally untestable, rather than just impractical to test. It is however an interesting philosophical question which draws upon our best current understanding of the physical world. Even the guy supporting it admits it's a philosophical position.

The narrator has a perfect answer to this when he says "shut up while measuring". It's perfectly fine to ask deep philosophical questions which draw upon our best current understanding of the world in one's "off time". But one shouldn't mistake it for science, since science is about measurement and prediction, i.e., "shut up while measuring".

And truly, as the narrator says at the end, the question of how all these particles with identical properties come together to form a conscious being, nobody really knows the answer to that, which makes it a really exciting question. There's nothing in physics yet to account for consciousness in a testable fashion. We haven't even scratched the surface of understanding it. I'm pretty damn sure nobody really has a clue yet, but I'd like to remain optimistic that someday we will understand it.

In short, this is so beautiful because it highlights what we DON'T know.


ProfessorChaos - 2009-02-18

5 for a review of a long video.


simon666 - 2009-02-18

"However" as a parenthetical phrase must be surrounded in commas:

It is, however, an interesting philosophical question which draws upon our best current understanding of the physical world.

-1

But +2093 for the video.


StanleyPain - 2009-02-18

I KNOW THE ANSWER, GOD DID IT CASE CLOSED READ YOUR BIBLE!


Scrotum H. Vainglorious - 2009-02-18

Cena Mark is an expert on reality and CO2.


dancingshadow - 2009-02-18

Sound creates form I guess.


Sudan no1 - 2009-02-18

MY ANTIMATTER TWIN!
NOW NEITHER OF US WILL BE VIRGINS!
(((BOOM)))

What makes molecules of mayonnaise stick together? I got an answer for you eggheads: EGGS

Oh shit, there's multiverses? Then I can have a twin orgy like that guy who drew drawings of a vacuum.

This is like porn without a money shot, because they can't really figure anything out.

SCIENCE IS BUNK, BELIEVE IN JESSUS


HarveyTibbar - 2009-02-18

wat


Billie_Joe_Buttfuck - 2009-02-18

also wot


godot - 2009-02-25

Haven't watched all, but I'm somewhat tired of descriptions of quantum physics as incomprehensible. So they're not billiard balls, but why should they be?

Whats wrong with a description of the fundamental bits of matter and EM radiation as probabilistic waves, that can be localized when they interact with other probabilistic waves.

The suprising thing should be how macroscopic bits of matter can aggregate and lose all of their quantum nature and act like billiard balls.


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