This implies the majority of people believe they understand quantum mechanics, which I’m fairly sure is not true.
Bell curve is the wrong meme format for what you’re trying to convey
I don’t understand quantum physics
Submitted 3 months ago by BB84@mander.xyz to science_memes@mander.xyz
https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/794eb82e-5133-4b73-8c68-54a016d32917.jpeg
Comments
copd@lemmy.world 3 months ago
agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works 3 months ago
I misread and thought top guy was also saying he didn’t understand quantum physics, and thought it was a way better meme than it was.
someacnt_@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Make it and post it!
sneezycat@sopuli.xyz 3 months ago
Probably the bell curve of physics students, and not just of all people on Warth.
lugal@sopuli.xyz 3 months ago
- It’s a meme. Memes change meaning over time and can detach from the original/ literal meaning.
- Even when taken literal, you don’t know the group of people in the plot. It’s obviously not every single person on earth since where are those who don’t even know about quantum physics. It might include students, interested lay people, … It’s bad science not to include that but it’s against just a meme. You don’t even know the y axis. It might be confidence and not the number of people
BB84@mander.xyz 3 months ago
Yeah maybe shift the X scale by 40 IQ points and it would be accurate.
lengau@midwest.social 3 months ago
BB84@mander.xyz 3 months ago
You should upload this as a post!
WatDabney@sopuli.xyz 3 months ago
I’m often reminded of a cartoon I saw years ago, with a stereotypical Einsteinish physicist standing in front of a chalkboard, looking at this enormously complex formula with a big blank space in the middle of it. Then he gets a “eureka” expression and starts writing in the blank space. Then he steps back, and you can see that he’s filled the blank space with “and then something happens”.
lugal@sopuli.xyz 3 months ago
Me neither but I’m on the left side
muntedcrocodile@lemm.ee 3 months ago
Im lost but at least i know how fast i am.
veroxii@aussie.zone 3 months ago
c it’s not that hard.
qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website 3 months ago
For me, a hurdle to get over was trying to understand in the context of my experience of the world. Like, popsci has this whole “is X a wave or a particle? Scientists still don’t know…” schtick. And our understanding at some level is, “here’s the math to describe this system.”
Getting away from always mapping that onto the world we experience is, IMHO, really important. Not that it should be understood solely as math, by any means! But you really need to throw away intuition gained from the macroscopic world we interact with.
My favorite example was looking at reflection coefficients and seeing that an “infinite wall” is the same as an “infinite cliff” — you’ll reflect off of both. Which makes zero sense if you imagine driving a bumper car into a wall (bounce back) vs. over an infinite cliff! But it does me make sense in its own way, and after building up intuition, so do other “weird” and counterintuitive things.
BB84@mander.xyz 3 months ago
Waves are underrated in pop-sci context. Even classical waves you can make with household items like strings can have counterintuitive and cool behaviors!
davidgro@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Absolutely. As a kid I liked to see how many nodes I could get into ‘simple’ system of rotating a jump rope tied to something fixed at one end. I can’t say my understanding of harmonics is great now, but I can at least relate it to personal experience.
cosecantphi@hexbear.net 3 months ago
Understanding classical waves better is what helped me wrap my mind around the physical meaning of the uncertainty principle. It’s not just a technical limitation, and it’s not just because you need to interact with something to measure it. It’s just a property of waves. Since small enough particles exhibit the properties of waves, it only makes sense that we can’t know their location and momentum at the same time with arbitrary precision.
The velocity of a wave is a function of its frequency and wavelength. But imagine a highly localized wave, essentially just a peak. What’s its frequency? Well, we find that it doesn’t have one frequency! If you decompose the wave, you find its mathematically a superposition of multiple sine or cosine functions with different frequencies and therefore velocities. So the more localized the wave is, i.e the more you know its position, the less and less you know about its frequency and therefore velocity.
This stuff blew my mind when it was first explained to me.
HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com 3 months ago
einstein had problems with it. don't feel bad.
EmDash@lemmygrad.ml 3 months ago
More like: I don’t understand quantum physics => I think I sort of understand this one thing => wait, I was wrong => I don’t understand quantum physics
pelletbucket@lemm.ee 3 months ago
haha quantum loop gravity haha
PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S@lemmy.sdf.org 3 months ago
Do I understand the physical and philosophical ramifications of quantum physics? No.
Do I understand the mathematical machinery of quantum physics and how to do calculations for quantum systems? Also no, but I’m working on it.
someacnt_@lemmy.world 3 months ago
I bet no one truly understands the mathematical machineries, Renormalization is hell of a drug.
marcos@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Whoa there! I bet you don’t even know anymore how many things you have to not understand before you can fail to understand renormalization.
Anyway, when normal people talk about quantum physics, they aren’t talking about that.