Things that are allegedly 'science', but are self-evidently magic

Magnetism.

Not so much science, but definitely technology. I find solace in these two axioms:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic AND

Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things

Oh and anything to do with Quarks. Other than a noise a posh duck makes, I assume physicists are just trolling the rest of us 🙂

TiRedFull Member
Magnetism.

Just here to say this

Aircraft.  You expect me to believe that you can chuck a metal tube weighing hundreds of tonnes down a road at 100mph and it just magically takes off?  Obvious nonsense - they are clearly held up in the air by faith and crashes occur when someone realises this and stands up on the plane shouting " what is holding us up here?".  If enough people question it then the plane crashes for lack of faith

The kidney, once explained to one of our trainees as "blood goes in, magic pixies, blood and urine come out".

This stands up quite well as an explanation as if someone is shocked/hypoxic then the pixies go on strike.

I can of course explain in painful detail how CVVHDF works.

If Quarks were not bad enough how about gluons?  Obviously made up

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluon

Magnetism.

Is a very good point

The popularity of Mrs Browns Boys

without a doubt someone had to sacrifice their firstborn to get that made, let alone successful

Aircraft. You expect me to believe that you can chuck a metal tube weighing hundreds of tonnes down a road at 100mph and it just magically takes off? Obvious nonsense – they are clearly held up in the air by faith and crashes occur when someone realises this and stands up on the plane shouting ” what is holding us up here?”. If enough people question it then the plane crashes for lack of faith

Unless the aircraft is on a treadmill obviously - in which case there's no doubt about whether or not it can take off...

Trutune inserts.

Is a very good point

Magnetic fields don't have points.  😉

@kimbers Someone put it down to the COVID and resulting loss of taste.

If Quarks were not bad enough how about gluons?  Obviously made up

@tjagain - well I read that wiki page and now I feel very stupid 🙂

Basic magnetism is relatively easy as it is really just metal loves metal.

Wait until you get to Geo-magnetism where the 'simpleintroduction for dummies' starts with : [i]The geomagnetic field vector, B, is described by the orthogonal components X (northerly intensity), Y (easterly intensity) and Z (vertical intensity, positive downwards); total intensity F; horizontal intensity H; inclination (or dip) I (the angle between the horizontal plane and the field vector, measured positive downwards) and declination (or magnetic variation) D (the horizontal angle between true north and the field vector, measured positive eastwards). Declination, inclination and total intensity can be computed from the orthogonal components using the equations

where H is given by

.

The International System of Units (SI) unit of magnetic field intensity, strictly flux density, most commonly used in geomagnetism is the Tesla. At the Earth's surface the total intensity varies from 22,000 nanotesla (nT) to 67,000 nT. Other units likely to be encountered are the Gauss (1 Gauss = 100,000 nT), the gamma (1 gamma = 1 nT) and the Ørsted.[/i]

Hmmm,looks like the equations got stuck to the other webpage, must be magnetism of something

Have you every watched a photograph develop?

Its definitely witchcraft.

The sheer longevity of Joe Cocker's career.
Songwriting is the science bit, but how he keeps going all this time is pure magic.

@ratherbeintobago As someone who has spent a professional lifetime in renal computing now you have me curious as to what you do (and where) 😉

Anaesthesia.

we'll put you to sleep, and magically, you won't feel a thing - say the actual experts in the field, when pressed further about the detailed mechanism; will shout "squirrel" and run out of the room. True Story

Whenever a physicist mentions the words 'dark matter ', swap in 'magic' and there's really no difference.

@littlerob I'm curious what renal computing is.

@nickc Please don't start on the other half of my job. Anyway, isn't it something to do with GABA in the reticular activating system?

Have you every watched a photograph develop?

It's 28 years now since I last had a darkroom and still the memory of watching images appear before my eyes never leaves me.

Consciousness - currently reading Anil Seth's Being You. I could tell you something about it but you'd hear something different from what I'm saying  😂

The landing of toast on the floor butter side down, its a tragedy.

"flow".  Only experienced it a handful of times but there's only one answer to "how the **** did I manage that?"

Also superglue when it first came out

@kayak23 - still no sign of a tour 😕

Anaesthesia.

we’ll put you to sleep, and magically, you won’t feel a thing – say the actual experts in the field, when pressed further about the detailed mechanism; will shout “squirrel” and run out of the room. True Story

I think this might be true because the anesthesiest that put me sleep sure as shit didn't didn't apply any science when i told him morphine would do nothing for me. he just reassured me they'd up the dose. holy shitballs snapping out of general anesthetic to full blown post op pain was quite the awakening.

The majority of face masks worn during the pandemic

The landing of toast on the floor butter side down, its a tragedy.

This is why you should always fix your toast to a cat. It'll never land, just spin endlessly just above the ground.

The gold-white vs blue-black dress internet debate a few years prompted some pretty interesting research about colour perception. Safe to say some folks are definitely not seeing the same colour that you are for lots of complex reasons, most of which appear to not have any real logical basis or evolutionary reason at all.

Anaesthesia.

we’ll put you to sleep, and magically, you won’t feel a thing – say the actual experts in the field, when pressed further about the detailed mechanism; will shout “squirrel” and run out of the room. True Story

Doesn't this apply to a lot of painkilling and sedatives'?  We know they work. We know which ones work better than others. We're really good at making them work how we want to.

But why? No one really knows. That's why you can still go into a chemist and buy aspirin which is really just synthetically made Willow bark extract.

Same with Lithium, it's been used in the treatment of mental health issues for ~80 years.  Still not sure anyone's figured out why it works though.

Anyway, isn’t it something to do with GABA in the reticular activating system?

My housemate once gave me a large dose of GABA* to get me to sleep whilst I was suffering a bout of insomnia. That was fun.

*you can buy it as a bodybuilding supplement

jhinwxm Free Member
The majority of face masks worn during the pandemic

That @jhinwxm hasn't found a new conspiracy to latch onto yet, it's been 4 years.

Doesn’t this apply to a lot of painkilling and sedatives?

I'd say not a lot, no - opioids and NSAIDs are pretty well understood, as is aspirin. The actual anaesthetic agents, especially volatiles, less so.

Crystalography. So you've x-rayed this tiny sliver of rock which draws some dots on a bit of photograhic paper and from that you know what shape the crystals are, in 3D? oh you're going to take the dots and draw some lines and oh my god they're atoms.

Good noise cancelling headphones.  I know exactly how they work, and it's really very simple, but still - an amazing experience every time.

I have never understood how condensed water can stay in the sky for such long periods of time.

+1 on the aircraft/flight thing.
I did my dissertation looking at a wing in ground-effect (not that I can remember much of it) but it still seems like bonkers stuff.

Even 'simple' things that we take for granted are crazy when you get into the nuts & bolts.
A car engine idling at ~800rpm means that the pistons are going up & down over 13 times/second.
Rev it to 5000rpm and they're now going up & down over 83 times/second.....!!

standing up.  think about how complex it is.  Its clearly impossible to stand on two feet hence why most animals are on 4.  discount birds - they are not real

“blood goes in, magic pixies, blood and urine come out”.

I imagine passing a magic pixie would make your eyes water a bit.

I imagine passing a magic pixie would make your eyes water a bit.

That’s why the Cornish call them piskeys.

The universe. It must be infinite but can't be.

tjagain

discount birds – they are not real

what about full-price birds? Are they real?

The universe. It must be infinite but can’t be.

Also universe: Speed of light appears to have changed over time.

microwaves.

I have never understood how condensed water can stay in the sky for such long periods of time.

That ones easy.

To evaporate water you put a lot of energy in, to condense it you get that energy back out. Which means it's effectively heating the air around it (or in reality the cloud is one temperature and keeps rising through colder air rather then cooling as the pressure drops like dry air would).

A cloud is actually a body of air moving upwards very quickly and that airflow holds the water droplets.

Lasers - take a bit of ruby, shine some light into it and a frikkin laser beam shoots out.

Why an incline treadmill is harder work than a flat one, you are not actually running up a hill.

A cloud is actually a body of air moving upwards very quickly

Wind isn't visible!

But thanks for the explanation, I am sure you are right, but it's easier for me to accept that it's all just magic. Like rainbows.

Even ‘simple’ things that we take for granted are crazy when you get into the nuts & bolts.
A car engine idling at ~800rpm means that the pistons are going up & down over 13 times/second.
Rev it to 5000rpm and they’re now going up & down over 83 times/second…..!!

A fun thing to calculate is the acceleration of a piston from top dead center.

It's huge.  You'd think the loads on the crank and con-rods would be the results of all the firey explosions above them. And you'd be right, but not by as much as you would imagine.

At full throttle it's about 10tones of force, which is a lot.

But at 5000RPM the piston itself (which is ~800g) is accelerating at 15,000 ms^-2, which means it produces a force equal to about 2 tones. And it's doing that whether you're at full throttle or just cruising along

Nvidia DLSS and Frame Generation.

To evaporate water you put a lot of energy in, to condense it you get that energy back out. Which means it’s effectively heating the air around it (or in reality the cloud is one temperature and keeps rising through colder air rather then cooling as the pressure drops like dry air would).

Don't arrive here with knowledge and reason, this thread is about magic.

I don't get this thread. If something intrigues you educate yourself. The thread started badly and the tone was set  with:

"1) Syphoning liquid – Yes, I had it explained to me in GCSE physics, and yes, I understand the ‘principle’, but it’s making water flow uphill, and that cannot be natural."

....when it's gravity that makes syphoned liquid flow, and hence only 'downhill'.