5 Scientific Theories That Will Make Your Head Explode
There are generally two types of science: first, there’s the type that makes computers work, allows us to ride around in metal boxes propelled by continuous explosion, and makes it so that milk doesn’t taste all gross. Then there’s the fringe science, the stuff that shoots up your nose like mathematical horseradish and dances a jig on your brain…or brane, as it were (that’s the nerdiest joke in the article, we promise). So kick off your work boots, put on your thought slippers, and prepare for a science course so mind-blowing, it’s written almost entirely in italics.
The Crazy Part:The part where you jiggle an electron on one side of the universe and an invisible force traverses millions of light years and smacks another electron into wiggling instantaneously, which is about a million years faster than is technically possible without time travel.
What It Says: That if two electrons are created together, they are forever “entangled,” much like you and your high school sweetheart according to some shitty poems you wrote in tenth grade. And, also like you and your ex-love, regardless of the distance between the two electrons, a change in quantum spin in one electron will immediately cause the other electron to change spin as well. So like, when she has sex with Bob Feeney, the team’s QB after the first date, even though you’re home alone playing Tetris, your heart will ache with a sudden and unmistakable pain. That’s the pain of entanglement, my friend.
So What Does This Do For Me? Teleportation, holmes. Only really tiny. In theory, you could separate two electrons by as much space as you wanted (say, the breadth of the universe), and they’d still be linked in such a way that actions taken on one would affect the other instantaneously. Meaning information is being transmitted at speeds faster than light. Meaning, if you want to really go nuts, time travel. And though the party pooping scientists have been busy coming up with limitations on the kind of information that could be transmitted (it seems super-fast computers that allow you to play Gears of War against people in parallel dimensions may be a ways off), no one has yet been able to disprove the theory that there is an invisible force in the universe capable of affecting matter millions of light-years away…instantly.
Wait, It Gets Worse: If you subscribe to the whole “Big Bang” thing, then there was a point in the past in which every atom in the universe was condensed into a singularity. Which means everything, even you and that bastard Bob Feeney, are quantumly entangled. Some scientists have even gone so far as to claim that quantum entanglement shows that there is no such thing as space, and that everything in the universe is still touching. Space is just an illusion created by our flawed perceptions, and we’re all one. The hippies were right after all.
Level Of Mind Blowing-ness: A fistful of acid tabs followed by the flume ride at Disneyworld.
The Crazy Part: The part where the family tree of every living creature on Earth collides at a single point on a single day in the past, making you related to Hitler as well as every insect you’ve ever killed..
What It Says: 
We’re all familiar with the basics of evolution: that a munificent monkey-goddess birthed us all from Her banana-scented womb. But there are some lesser-discussed implications of natural selection that are just plain weird. For one, scientists have concluded that around 140,000 years ago in Kenya, there lived a woman called Mitochondrial Eve (cavemen had weird names), so named because today, every living human on Earth has her mitochondrial DNA in their body (cavemen were also prescient). And only 3,000 years ago lived a person known as the Most Recent Common Ancestor, who, through exponential growth of the family tree, is the ancestor of every single person on Earth. And did you know that, based on the same principles (and a lot of rape), Genghis Kahn has over 16 million descendants? Who’s your Daddy now?!
So What Does This Do For Me? Well, for one, you can rest assured than anyone you ever have sex with in your entire life is at least your distant, distant cousin. So that’s nice. And if you’re really a nut for genealogy, why not trace your heritage back to the Last Universal Ancestor, the single-celled organism who, about 4 billion years ago, decided to go ahead and give rise to every living creature that will ever exist on the face of the Earth? Talk about a pimp. In essence, the whole of life on the planet can be considered one long, unbroken chemical reaction that is still resolving itself, like the foam flowing out of a science fair volcano.
Wait, It Gets Worse: The genetic chaos continues. The Endosymbiotic Theory says that the mitochondria in our bodies, without which we couldn’t live, let alone write snide humor articles, was at one point a separate organism that invaded our cells and set up camp. They formed a symbiotic relationship so beneficial that we’ve never booted them out. Furthermore, large chunks of the human genome are thought to be ancient retroviruses that managed to transcribe themselves into our DNA and have spent the remainder of their days happily clambering up and down our nucleotides like the McDuck children on a mansion banister. Basically your cells are millions of individual organisms, all huddled together in a you-shaped beehive. Now see how long you can go before wanting to shower.
And lastly, a thought for the right-wingers out there: At some point half of you was an egg in your Mother’s womb. That egg existed in her body from the day she was born. And a long, long time ago, she too was an egg in her Mother’s womb, who had that egg ready for use from the moment she squirmed out of your Great Grandma’s nethers. The point being, technically speaking, there’s no break in the chain of existence, no time when you are not a life form of at least the most rudimentary sort. Your family, at least on your Mother’s side, could theoretically be considered an immortal, constantly-regenerating organism. Of course that would make men, whose sperm has to be created years after the moment of birth, just disposable donors here to fuel the everlasting fire of womanhood. You go girls!
Level Of Mind Blowing-ness: Four Hemmingway suicides.
The Crazy Part: The part where the furniture in your house behaves differently when you’re not around.
What It Says: Besides sounding like the subtitle of The Da Vinci Code II, The Copenhagen Interpretation is probably the most widely accepted explanation for the observations made through quantum mechanics. It came about in part to explain the infamous “Double Slit Experiment,” which is the one your physics professor probably made you do. The Double Slit Experiment shows that an electron, fired at a wall with two slits in it, will sometimes go through sometimes go through one, sometimes through the other, and sometimes it will go through both slits simultaneously (meaning, a single thing will be in two places at once). In short, it goes batshit fucking insane. The twist is, if you try and observe the electron at the moment it passes through the slits—you know, to figure out what the hell is wrong with it—the electron goes back to behaving like a normal electron, and innocently shoots through one of the slits while giving you, and reality, the finger. The details of why this happens are sort of technical, but this simple diagram should explain it:
So What Does This Do For Me? The Copenhagen Interpretation is the result of a lot of smart people trying to figure out what the fuck was going on with these damn electrons. What they came up with is that all particles exist as waves of probability. From the observer’s perspective, there’s only a certain chance that a given electron will go through the left slit or right slit. When you don’t watch, it remains a cloud of probability and sort of does a little of everything. When you watch, the act of observing it somehow causes the cloud to pick a side. So the next time you observe a particle, be warned: they know you’re watching, and as soon as you stop, they’re going to start a party.
Wait, It Gets Worse: If you apply the Copenhagen Interpretation to bigger objects, it gets even weirder. The infamous Schrodinger’s Cat thought experiment, the one your physics professor probably got fired for doing, said that if you put a cat in a box and press a button that has a fifty percent chance of filling the box with poison gas, then until you go and look in the box, the cat exists as a cat-cloud which is simultaneously both alive and dead. And there’s more: if everything exists as a probability wave, then that means that technically, anything possible could happen at any time. There’s nothing stopping a big floppy dick from sprouting out of your forehead right now; it’s just highly unlikely. You feel lucky, punk?
Level Of Mind-Blowig-ness: Let’s just say it might be time to invest in a tarp.
The Crazy Part: The part where you realize that somewhere in some parallel universe you just died while reading this sentence.
What It Says: The Many Worlds Theory rejects The Copenhagen Interpretation’s crazy idea that particles can change their behavior seemingly at will, and replaces it with the much crazier idea that the only reason we think particles are changing their behavior is that we’re only seeing that particle’s action in one universe, rather than the infinite number of universes that actually exist. So an observed particle with two options—say, to pound beers at a Van Halen tribute show or drop E and storm a techno club—actually does both, even though we may only observe the techno club, in some other universe, parallel to our own, that particle is rocking out to “Eruption” instead of rubbing itself ferociously on anything with a body temperature.
So What Does This Do For Me? If you buy into the Many Worlds Theory, the implications are infinite. And let’s be clear about what “infinite” means here. For every action you’ve ever taken, every movement you’ve ever made, even down to the atomic level, there’s a parallel universe out there where you did something else instead. Anything else. Instead of learning guitar, you burst into flames. Instead of opening the fridge, you freebased black tar heroin. Instead of nude rock climbing, you went nude bungee jumping. Instead of reading this article, you worked productively and got a handsome raise. Think about it: in some parallel universe out there, you and your high school sweetheart are making hot, reconciliatory love atop Bob Feeney’s smoldering corpse after you killed a laser-breathing velociraptor with your bare hands. If that thought doesn’t make you feel better about how mundane your actual life is, we don’t know what will.
Wait, It Gets Worse: If you think The Many Worlds Theory is a tad too far fetched an explanation for some electrons behaving weirdly, you’re not alone. In an effort to simplify things, scientists have come up with The Many Minds Theory, which says your brain splits up at the instant you make an observation, and then your many brains observe every possible outcome. Yes, that’s right, an infinite number of parallel brains, existing without universes (let alone skulls) to house them in. Awesome. Much simpler.
Level Of Mind Blowing-ness: A TNT-tipped jackhammer to the eye socket.
The Crazy Part: The part where the Universe isn’t just bigger than you can possibly comprehend, but according to recent evidence, billions of times larger than that.
What It Says: That the universe is big. So big, that just that fact, just it’s mere bigness, is enough to blow your tiny ant mind. And it just keeps getting bigger. Let’s examine the famous Hubble Ultra Deep Field image, the most massive photo ever taken:
Right now, on your computer screen, are approximately 10,000 galaxies.
Each of those galaxies contains anywhere from ten million to one trillion stars.
The average star is roughly a million times the size of Earth.
And yet, with all that junk, the Universe is more than 90 percent empty space.
All of that, in this tiny photo. A photo that took 400 orbits and 800 exposures to take.
And the kicker? The photo covers one thirteen-millionth of the entire night sky.
So What Does This Do For Me? If you’re like us, it leaves you alternately awash with spiritual wonder and horrified feelings of utter insignificance. Actually imagining just how infinitesimal you are in the scope of the universe is like autoerotic asphyxiation: it’s not as pleasant as you’d think, and if you do it wrong you can end up a vegetable. And without getting too Douglas Adams on you, can you possibly imagine that much space and that many planets and stars and atoms smashing together without intelligent life forming? Now it’s just a matter of getting around that pesky general relativity and we’ll be chilling with aliens in no time. Or, like, a million years.
Wait, It Gets Worse: So all that shit we just said about how big the universe is (at least 90 billion light years)? Forget it. That’s small beans. The Cosmological Horizon is here to make your day a whole lot more complicated. Since we can only observe stellar bodies that have had some effect on us (usually bombarding us with light), there is an outer limit to what we can see of the universe. Hence, the “observable universe.” What about the rest? The parts of the universe beyond our Starcraft-style fog of war? Well, according to some math we have no interest in going into, the size of the “actual” universe is so large that if the universe we just described (the impossibly, mind-bogglingly large one) were the size of a quarter, the actual universe would be the size of the Earth. Daaaaaaaamn.
Level Of Mind Blowing-ness: The sound of one hand clapping for a tree falling in the woods while no one’s around except a guy whose skull is wired with C4.
In case you’ve still got some bits of gray matter clinging to the shards of your fractured skull, here are some links to information about further scientific theories conceived to make neural cortex dribble out your nostrils.
And, for those whose brains need a quick escape before they implode…
August 6th, 2008 at 8:27 am
It’s all mind-blowing, man. And some of these theories are pulled together in the “holographic paradigm” which basically describes the entire universe as one giant hologram. Either way, it’s trippy shit.
August 7th, 2008 at 7:14 am
What about the pseudoscientifc one that says we’re all one big game of Sims for some aliens or something? That one is pretty scary when you think it through.
August 7th, 2008 at 7:15 am
Dude, I think I just heard something snap in my brain. Apparently it is now “drool on one’s self” time…
August 7th, 2008 at 7:18 am
I could never get into the Many Worlds thing. I just don’t buy that there’s a universe out there exactly like the one I’m in, only the Diet Sunkist on my desk just stood up and started singing a negro spiritual. And then another where it started singing a negro spiritual, but was flat on the fourth note. That Copenhagen shizzle is pretty nuts, too. And unprovable, which is kinda disappointing (since we have to observe in order to prove it, but then that would pull it out of the bounds of unobserved objects).
I also liked Quantum Leap’s string theory better than the real one. Much more to be learned about our world, and oh so much Scott Bakula cross-dressing hilarity.
August 7th, 2008 at 7:20 am
What does Jesus think of all this?
August 7th, 2008 at 7:23 am
I find it disturbing that I already knew all this because since I was 12 I started reading quantum physics books for fun…hooray physics and its mindnumbingly strangeness
August 7th, 2008 at 7:24 am
The thing I like the most about the Many Worlds theory is that if you play Russian roulette with a six shooter loaded with five bullets and spin the chamber each time, there is one universe where you always fire the empty one and never die - thus you are immortal.
Of course, in the several billion other universes you blow your head off.
August 7th, 2008 at 7:25 am
The Universe is a strange place. Have you seen the History’s Channel Cosmic Apcocalypse. Basically, in about a bazillion years there will be nothing left except darkness. Can you imagine a universe with no stars and the only stars you see are red-dwarfs and dead stars? That’s some crazy shit!
August 7th, 2008 at 7:27 am
Being a huge fan of H2G2 I was noticing a lot of these theories seemed to have a place in The Guide. What blew my mind was when you mentioned Douglas Adams during Theory #1
August 7th, 2008 at 7:33 am
All I have to say to the alien who is playing me on the galactic version of Sims: “why do you make me spend all my time masturbating? Couldn’t you work on getting me into shape or reading some books?”
August 7th, 2008 at 7:35 am
Of all the people I could be related to, it had to be Hitler
August 7th, 2008 at 7:39 am
Thank you, Mr. Swaim. One of the best articles on this website ever.
August 7th, 2008 at 7:40 am
Jesus Christ.
August 7th, 2008 at 7:41 am
I like learning and being entertained.
That said, you guys heard that someone sent a crowbar to the Hadron Collider site “to fight of the comming herd of headcrabs”…?
August 7th, 2008 at 7:41 am
Good thing I’m related to Zaphod Beeblebrox. Otherwise that would have sent me over the edge.
August 7th, 2008 at 7:41 am
yep, and if thats not crazy enough, string theory tells us that everything, that is everything, in the universe is made up of sub-atomic sized vibrating strings, and those extra dimensions, mentioned after the list, are possibly home to other life forms who are living all around us, and we have no way of seeing/hearing/touching them.
August 7th, 2008 at 7:41 am
The biggest thing to remember is that theoretical physicists are only guessing. Sure, they may have a lot of evidence that supports their claims, but you’ll ultimately notice the word ‘theory’ remains attached to the hypotheses they present.
Schroedinger’s Cat? It’s not both dead and alive. It’s one or the other, but you just don’t know which. To state that things beyond human perception exist in multiple states is to succumb to the arrogance that humans dictate the workings of the universe.
August 7th, 2008 at 7:47 am
I pretty much had heard of all of this before, the only new thing I trying to figure out is what Seth Rogen and James Franco and Pineapple Express and the last clip you put of them have to do with all this.
August 7th, 2008 at 7:54 am
[...] Scientific Theories that will make your head explode I love this kind of shit. And no matter how many times I read it, I still can’t get my head around the idea behind the [...]
August 7th, 2008 at 7:57 am
Meh, already familiar with all of these. Personally, I find the Many Worlds (MW) theory pretty dubious.
Certainly, theories involving wave function collapse their problems: For one, the inability to define the “classical” system needed to collapse the “quantum” one in the first place; Schrödinger’s Cat is a thought experiment often evoked in this context, as complex macroscopic objects such as felines (as opposed to simple macroscopic objects, such as superfluids) clearly do not exist in superpositional states, even when the theory would seem to dictate they should. Another problem is that no one has ever actually perceived a collapse; We see the end result, but not what leads to it.
Still, MW only makes sense in the context of specific orthonormal bases. It’s intuitive enough to think that if you flip a coin, you have two possible outcomes (two worlds): One for heads, one for tails. You end up in a random world, giving 50% for each outcome, which is expected. This gets a whole lot more murkier, however, when you consider events in which the possible outcomes aren’t of equal probability: If heads was 10 times more probable than tails, 11 worlds would need to be created to satisfy the probability split: 10 for head, 1 for tails. And that’s not even considering continuous probability distributions, which most all quantum systems in the real world obey: In the MW theory, infinite amount of worlds would be needed to satisfy the probability distribution, and some possibilities would lead to MORE infinite amount of worlds than others, which any mathematician can tell you makes no sense whatsoever.
Well, that’s not so bad, right? You have infinite amount of worlds, but then, “infinite” is a word that gets tossed around in physics quate a lot, anyhow. But wait, there’s more! See, there’s only a limited amount of degrees of freedom in our world, but there’s virtually limitless amount of possible observables we can use to descripe it. However, as per the uncertainty principle, most of these observables aren’t linearly independent. For example, the position of a particle and its momentum are what are called conjugated variables: Any quantum state that is a pure positional state is always a superposition of infinite amount of momentum states and vice versa, since the two bases share a degree (or D degrees, rather) of freedom.
What this means is that if you measure the position of a particle with enough precision, its momentum becomes indefinite; if you measured the position exactly, a succeeding measurement of momentum would yield completely arbitrary results. Likewise, if you measure the mometum precisely, the position becomes arbitrary. In the context of MW theory this would mean that in order for the propability distribution to make sense, you would always need to perform the measurement in the base (in this case, either position or momentum space) the system already happens to be in. If you happen to be in the world in which a particle exists in a definite position, then measuring its momentum should not give an exact result; In fact, the particle would have no coherent momentum at all. Since for most physical systems, there’s an infinite amount of possible orthogonal bases to choose from - and thus a nonexistent probability of picking the “correct” base - but measurements in an arbitrary base nonetheless always yield a precise result, I tend to call bullshit on the MW theory.
August 7th, 2008 at 7:57 am
Just to make a comment entirely unrelated to this crazy shit, that picture of the horryfying black paint headed-thing (”and she is his queen”) below the even more horryfying carrot top pic, that’s actually the British singer BOY George, and yes, that is a man…
…Fuck…. In an alternate universe I am probably doing something useful and productive right now.
August 7th, 2008 at 8:00 am
I LOVED this article.
Man, I love cracked, but this article is the cat’s pajamas.
August 7th, 2008 at 8:02 am
“disposable donors here to fuel the everlasting fire of womanhood” - hell yes!
August 7th, 2008 at 8:07 am
@ Bars, no that is Rosie O’Donell and her new haircut.
August 7th, 2008 at 8:09 am
It would be nice to find that “other” me to go to work for me, then I could stay home and read cracked all day….any chance of this happening?
August 7th, 2008 at 8:10 am
Seriously this is one of the best articles I have ever read on the internet. funny, informative and mind blowing.
August 7th, 2008 at 8:10 am
Oh, and on string theory: The “strings” are a mathematical model, which, since they exist in a space with different topology from ours, don’t really have any real physical significance.
August 7th, 2008 at 8:12 am
I really like this sort of stuff even though i don’t know much about it. Does getting high make this stuff easier to understand or does it result in even more mind blowing? I am fairly sure i tripped just from trying to comprehend some of the consequences of some the theories.
August 7th, 2008 at 8:13 am
That’s exactly the point, kingmonkey. The theory challenges the idea of there being some one truth independent of a perceiver.
August 7th, 2008 at 8:15 am
Gödel’s theorem doesn’t prove that all these theories are bullshit, since we’ve been able to choose the axioms in a way that every proposition that can’t be proved with a theory falls into metaphysical domain. It’s a kick in the balls to maths and logic, but as long as theories can help us to understand and predict in some way the phenomena taking the incoherences out of the physical world, it will be OK.
For example, Copenhagen interpretation states that when we don’t observe, there’s a probability for the particle to be in an arbitrary place. When we observe, it collapses to a more defined region. Does that mean the particle is everywhere when we don’t look? We cannot decide it from this single statement, since we must perform a measurement -we must look- to know. However, what we really perceive is a probability, the one this interpretation talks about. According to this, the strangeness of the theory is outside our world.
However, when you study quantum entanglement you realize that the most sensible option is to assume that particles are non localized -they can never have well defined position. The arguments are quite subtle, but they follow from J. S. Bell’s theorem:
http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/kenny/papers/bell.html
The way to avoid this insanity is to replace it with the bigger insanity that is the many worlds interpretation, but this doesn’t predict any observation, since we are stuck in a single world. It sounds to me purely metaphysical, unlike the Copenhagen interpretation, based on firm physical ground.
By the way, it’s completely normal for scientific revolutions to cause confusion in every person. You need humbleness to approach the new theories and to think about them forgetting your preconceptions about reality, since they talk about realities you’ve never seen before. They’re strange because they violate our intuition, but our intuition has never perceived their field of action. Remember, a spherical Earth was against intuition in the Middle Age.
August 7th, 2008 at 8:18 am
“What about the pseudoscientifc one that says we’re all one big game of Sims for some aliens or something? That one is pretty scary when you think it through” - You know, that would have been a much better ending for Matrix Revolutions.
August 7th, 2008 at 8:29 am
Dan makes a good point about scientific theories often being counter-intuitive. I mean, the idea of matter being composed of microscopic systems of electrons rotating around the nucleus would’ve once been completely nonsensical to the hoi polloi - especially since this means that what we regard as a “surface” of an object is merely an illusion created by electromagnetic repulsion, and eveything around us is largely composed of nothing at all - but now it’s common sense, since we’ve grown up in a world that commonly acknowledges the fact.
It should be understood that the observed macroscopic reality is not fractal in nature, and the deeper we delve into its structure the more radically it will (potentially) deviate from what we’d consider common sense. We’re looking at the picture from a distance, and it should surprise us when it turns out to be something completely different from close range.
August 7th, 2008 at 8:31 am
Eh, should take time to proofread what I write… oh well. Meant to write “it should NOT surprise us”.
August 7th, 2008 at 8:33 am
If you just heard a distant ‘popping’ sound, that was my head imploding. How am I typing? I-I’m not quite sure…
August 7th, 2008 at 8:39 am
I think the craziest implication of the many-worlds interpretation is quantum immortality. the gist is that if you’re the cat inside schrodinger’s box, obviously you’d be observing the experiment. since you wouldn’t exist in the universes in which you died, you would never observe the scenario in which the box was filled with the gas, and you’re given the illusion of never dying. technically you could extrapolate that and conclude that no one ever dies (but i’m pretty sure that most scientists don’t take their thought experiments that seriously).
also, i’m pretty sure #1 and #4 are only mind-blowing to extremely conceited and/or religious people. so i’m “related” to every living being. anyone with even minor knowledge of the theory of evolution is aware that’s technically true and entirely unremarkable. the fact that our most recent common ancestor was alive 3,000 years ago is kind of interesting, especially due to the almost completely isolation of many LARGE populations from the rest of the world.
as for the universe being big, i never understood people’s obsession with that. yeah, it’s cool, and it all but guarantees sentient extraterrestrial life (which is awesome; too bad we’ll never meet them), but what’s scary about that? i’ve never had any illusions about my importance in the universe, so the fact that i’m small compared to it isn’t that big a deal. fuck, the empire state building is big, but i don’t get freaked out and feel insignificant whenever i see or think about it. i think the biggest thing is that i’m not capable of even comprehending the size of this planet, much less the entire universe, so why attempt to do so?
August 7th, 2008 at 8:45 am
Everything in existence can be divided by two. Infinitely. Thus: nothing can ever travel from one point to another as it must first travel to the point half the distance. It must also travel half the distance to the point half way between the initial points… and so forth and so on infinitely - each distance having to first be traversed to it’s halfway point before it can completely span the entire distance.
Therefore: Once in motion everything remains forever in motion, while at the same time never moving at all as an infinitely deep mathematical well is created that swallows the motion of every particle in all existence allowing nothing to move despite being in perpetual, unending motion.
This law also applies to time, so as nothing ever actually moves while constantly moving, time never passes all the while infinitely passing.
Which leaves you with this: all those particles that spurted forth from that singularity during the Big Bang and formed ninety gazillion-bajillion stars and galaxies that constitute the mind-boggleingly massive embarrassing stain we call the universe are still right there occupying the same point in space and time desperately trying to get half way to half way to half way to half way to half way to half way to half way to half way to half way to half way to half way to half way to half way to half way to half way to half way to half way to half way to half way to half way to half way to half way to half way to half way to half way to half way to half way to half way to half way to half way to half way to half way to half way to half way to half way to half way to half way… get the picture?
So the next time yer at Denny’s and yer Grand-Slam is a little late getting to the table, don’t blame the cook. Blame math.
August 7th, 2008 at 8:47 am
@hisownspace
I think one of the reasons they build the Empire State Building (and great many other buildings) in the first place was because someone was feeling inadequate in the size department. So saying it doesn’t make you feel small is just unnecessarily cruel, y’know?
August 7th, 2008 at 8:52 am
Whoa, shit… This is one big mindfuck…
August 7th, 2008 at 8:54 am
One of the best articles on Cracked (although i’m having a panic attack right now and feeling my physical existence crumble away as the illusion it appearantly is).
Not many articles where you find the words “batshit fucking insane” and “Quantum Entanglement” at the same time. (At the same time?? Coexistent?? OH NO!!”
August 7th, 2008 at 8:57 am
If only I existed in the universe where I was working instead of reading this…
August 7th, 2008 at 9:00 am
@BenignRobot
That all doesn’t apply to quantum mechanics, tho. One of the triumphs of the classical qauntum mechanics was that it resolved the problem of there being no movement in an instant by imposing the momentum as a fundamental property of a state that can be defined (and measured) even if time isn’t passing.
Also, as noted above, the “position” of an object is a somewhat archaic notion that only applies in sufficiently large distance. If you keep halfing the distance, you eventually arrive at the scale at which the width of the (position space) wave packet of the particle is greater than the remaining distance: The particle effectively exists over all the remaining distance, and if the wave function is collapsed, may tunnel over the distance instantaneously.
Furthermore, some more advanced quantum theories suggest that spacetime itself might be quantized. That is to say, there’s a minimal distance you can’t further divide.
August 7th, 2008 at 9:05 am
I suspect the current models are a counterpart to the Ptolemaic universe and its epicycles. Somewhere out there is a Copernicus, who at some point will emerge from way out in left field with a (relatively) simple and (somewhat) unifying theory. I wonder if we will see him or her during our lifetimes?
August 7th, 2008 at 9:05 am
BenignRobot, I’m afraid you don’t understand what’s an infinitesimal. Whenever you divide by two a distance, you divide by two the time necessary to go through it. If you do it infinitely, you still can add all the pieces to find that the total time is finite, it doesn’t matter that the adding is infinite, since all the things you’re adding are small enough to produce a finite, well-defined result. That ancient Greek paradox was solved long time ago, at least since Leibniz.
August 7th, 2008 at 9:06 am
Oh, well, Negative_Creep has answered a lot better than I have. I was only focused on classical concepts.
August 7th, 2008 at 9:09 am
@ Dan
Well, that’s the “correct” solution to the paradox, really. I’m just trying to further muddy the waters with quantum madness.
August 7th, 2008 at 9:13 am
I really enjoyed this article. I love sitting and talking with my friends about quantum mechanics, chaos, string theory, Schrodinger’s Cat, the whole lot you talked about.
It really gives you a profound feeling of how limited we really are in our understanding of the universe and physics in general, when things are happening around us that we have utterly no clue how to explain.
We might as well be cavemen watching lightning.
August 7th, 2008 at 9:14 am
What about time-cube?!
It’s so horrible no one understands it at all.
August 7th, 2008 at 9:16 am
hehe, brane! Good joke! I can use it on Danica McKellar in my dreams.
August 7th, 2008 at 9:25 am
Great article, especially #1, the mind-buggering large universe. The mention of the word “ant” reminded me of my hither-to unpublished Universe-Beach-Ant theory, which goes like this:
On a recent trip to a l-o-n-g beach, I noticed a tiny ant wending it’s merry way. I asked my wife how long she thought the beach was and she said about eighteen miles. Eighteen miles to an ant (even a sapient ant) would be incomprehensible, and that’s how it goes with us and the universe. It’s just so mind-buggeringly large, we just can’t grasp how large it is. We think we know, and come up with theories and formulas, but in the end it’s just frickin’ huge.
August 7th, 2008 at 9:36 am
So there’s an universe where i score Angelina Jolie?….. awww yeah
August 7th, 2008 at 9:41 am
Really trippy - especially the last one. Considering how insignificant I or anybody is or are in the grand scheme of the universe, how come we view our problems still as “problems”?
August 7th, 2008 at 9:44 am
The Many Worlds One is great too - means that right this instant, there’s a world where I’m a divine emperor being worshiped as a god or some shit like that (and unfortunately another world where I’m a toothless homeless junkie leper selling BJs or HJs jobs in back alleys)
August 7th, 2008 at 9:46 am
We keep trying to explain the universe, but ultimately our perception and understanding is limited. Just grab a beer and roll with it.
August 7th, 2008 at 9:49 am
Sometimes, when I’m driving, I’ll think about what I’m doing on one of the other Many Worlds…. and then try not to crash in this one.
That being said, that Copehagen Interpretation made me wonder if the researchers turned their back on the experiment, and then quickly looked around, if maybe they’d catch those electrons in action.
I’m just saying, it works with small children when you’re trying to catch them in the act, why not electrons?
August 7th, 2008 at 9:53 am
If I knew what the fuck a “Digg” was.. I’m pretty sure I’d digg all over you, and in your mouth a little too. But then again, in a different universe I would probably just digg you in the eye.
August 7th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Honestly, none of that blew my mind. All it did was give me a boner.
August 7th, 2008 at 9:59 am
@ Darkhorse
This is an interesting point, really: Perspective. To one person a “problem” is something that pertains to matters of life and death, while to another it’s something that pertains to dry-cleaning.
Anyways, to answer the (what I expect was largely rhetorical) question, I’d say it’s because the grand scheme of things isn’t worth worrying about. It’s not something we can do anything about, so it’s only reasonable to focus on things we CAN do something about.
August 7th, 2008 at 9:59 am
Another crappy Swainn article equivalent to talking to a 12 year old after a science fair.
YOU SUCK!
August 7th, 2008 at 10:00 am
@ MBS: Science is one sexy bitch.
And holy shit, this thread got lots of long responses in such a short amount of time.
August 7th, 2008 at 10:01 am
# Matthijs Says:
August 7th, 2008 at 9:46 am
We keep trying to explain the universe, but ultimately our perception and understanding is limited. Just grab a beer and roll with it.
I second the motion! Except I would pluralize “beer.”
August 7th, 2008 at 10:03 am
Also, Swaim, I never knew your ex-lover was a high school football player. I’m sure someone has commented on this before, but I’m too lazy and uncaring to read the thesis-paper’s-worth of above comments.
August 7th, 2008 at 10:04 am
Hmm. I should really read the damn article before commenting on the shiny photos . . .
August 7th, 2008 at 10:14 am
“BenignRobot, I’m afraid you don’t understand what’s an infinitesimal. Whenever you divide by two a distance, you divide by two the time necessary to go through it. If you do it infinitely, you still can add all the pieces to find that the total time is finite, it doesn’t matter that the adding is infinite, since all the things you’re adding are small enough to produce a finite, well-defined result. That ancient Greek paradox was solved long time ago, at least since Leibniz.”
…and I’m guessin’ you didn’t understand that it was the set-up to a joke. Thanks for playing though!
August 7th, 2008 at 10:16 am
I wanna know what movie those stills came from. Looks great.
August 7th, 2008 at 10:20 am
kingmonkey +1 Says:
August 7th, 2008 at 7:41 am To state that things beyond human perception exist in multiple states is to succumb to the arrogance that humans dictate the workings of the universe.
Kudos. A lot of my science-happy friends think that humans, data-processing machines, human perception and human logic (a/k/a SCIENCE!) can fully explain and define the universe. Whenever I try and ask the question, “Well, what if there are six senses and we are just incapable of perceiving the sixth one, and therefore every machine, theory, datum, etc. we come up with is incomplete?” they scream at me, “RELIGIOUS NUTCASE!” And I calmly go, “I wasn’t talking about religion. I was talking about how mankind is finite and not omniscient–which would severely hinder our understanding about the universe.”
&c., &c., ad infinitum.
August 7th, 2008 at 10:20 am
So how many of you guys politicking about quantum theory and such actually have an education in these fields, and how many of you just read through a few Stephen Hawking books you got at the library?
August 7th, 2008 at 10:23 am
So, if the many worlds or many brains theory is right - how come the vast majority of us ‘experience’ the extremely mundane version? You know…unless you’re Brad Pitt or something.
August 7th, 2008 at 10:24 am
# BearMan Says:
August 7th, 2008 at 10:20 am
So how many of you guys politicking about quantum theory and such actually have an education in these fields, and how many of you just read through a few Stephen Hawking books you got at the library?
I’ve read some quotes from some quantum physicists that say that even they don’t know what they Hell they’re talking about half the time! (No, I didn’t memorize the sources, so don’t ask me.) Hawking might be the super-genius exception. Point being, let the people have their fun discussions. Even if they’re completely wrong, there is always some merit to discussing ideas and theories. And if they viciously start tearing each other apart over either trivial bullshit or bullshit that they don’t understand, science itself doesn’t care and neither does the universe.
August 7th, 2008 at 10:30 am
I don’t want to sound like a pretentious douche here, but you failed to blow my mind, I’m familiar with all of these theories and I feel you dumbed down some of them too far.
August 7th, 2008 at 10:30 am
“People think I’m smart ’cause I talk in a robot voice.”
August 7th, 2008 at 10:31 am
Ironically the depth to which we have delved into quantum and other theories just goes to show perhaps we as humans just aren’t cut out for understanding the universe, and why should we be? Just take the Big Universe thing at No.1, scientists and philosophers have been only too quick to tell us how big the universe is for years, how we’re one species on one planet in one arm of the galaxy which is one of billions of galaxies etc., and comprehending everything from entirely within the scope of comprehension possible within our species and every concept it holds and allows for.
So I think it’s lunacy to believe what we understand is the run and rule of the universe, and it’s why I hold 100% true to absolutely none of humanity’s concepts, be they philosophy or science. I don’t even hold true to maths. To me, the only reason our formulas actually prove anything is that they reside within a context that allow them to. Nothing we hold as knowledge or belief, no matter how gospel they seem, can be 100% true across the entire universe, heck it won’t even hold true if we compared the way we perceived the universe with another earthbound species, or even from one individual human to another. Everyone and everything exists in its own reality, it’s really all down to perspective, which rules it.
August 7th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Al-Literati-on Says:
August 7th, 2008 at 10:31 am
Ironically the depth to which we have delved into quantum and other theories just goes to show perhaps we as humans just aren’t cut out for understanding the universe, and why should we be? Just take the Big Universe thing at No.1, scientists and philosophers have been only too quick to tell us how big the universe is for years, how we’re one species on one planet in one arm of the galaxy which is one of billions of galaxies etc., and comprehending everything from entirely within the scope of comprehension possible within our species and every concept it holds and allows for.
So I think it’s lunacy to believe what we understand is the run and rule of the universe, and it’s why I hold 100% true to absolutely none of humanity’s concepts, be they philosophy or science. I don’t even hold true to maths. To me, the only reason our formulas actually prove anything is that they reside within a context that allow them to. Nothing we hold as knowledge or belief, no matter how gospel they seem, can be 100% true across the entire universe, heck it won’t even hold true if we compared the way we perceived the universe with another earthbound species, or even from one individual human to another. Everyone and everything exists in its own reality, it’s really all down to perspective, which rules it.
So does that mean religion’s as valid a viewpoint as scientific method?
August 7th, 2008 at 10:43 am
Pretty good, just one nit-pick though.
Quantum entanglement doesn’t quite work like that, it is in fact even /more/ mind numbing.
it all rests on Heisenberg uncertainty which says that you can never know both what an electron is doing (its spin) and where it’s going (its velocity) as long as you’re talking about one electron.
What this means though, is that you’ve got two entangled electrons on opposite sides of the universe with a random spin and a random velocity, Because they are entangled, when you measure the spin of one, the other automatically gains the correct spin and it’s velocity is randomized, when you measure the velocity of one, the other gains the correct velocity and its spin is randomized.
The kicker is that because of causality (pretty much the closest thing we have to a physical law governing time travel) you can’t tell what’s happening if you’re only looking at one particle, you can measure the spin or the velocity but unless you know what’s happening to the other half of the entangled pair, you don’t know whether the property you’re measuring has been randomized by the other half having had the opposing property measured, and once you measure, they other side can’t tell if it’s been randomized either.
Why is this super-mindblowing? Because In essence, it means that entangled particles are pretty much just /the same particle in two places at once/. Not only are we all entangled, we’re all made up of /the same particles/
really its even more complicated than that, but I’m not really smart enough to even try to understand it, let alone explain it.
August 7th, 2008 at 10:45 am
Hey, great post. I hate to do this, but you should check out my blog. I haven’t covered mind blowing theories, yet. But I have covered why I hate Guitar Hero. Isn’t that kinda mind blowing?
August 7th, 2008 at 10:49 am
@ BearMan
I’m a BA in theoretical physics (wrote my paper on quantum cryptography), hoping to be a MA this time next year.
@ Res_Ipsa
No offense, but your science-happy friends kinda have a point. There are many aspects to the Universe that we are incapable of directly observing - in fact, most of the discussion here has been about how poorly equipped we’re to grasp the nature of the world with our physical senses alone. For example, we can’t even in theory perceive the curvature of space; Hell, we can’t even really perceive the passage of time, since we’re stuck only experiencing it one moment at a time. Most of our knowledge of the world is obtained indirectly; Rather than to ask if there are things we can’t perceive, we take for granted there are, and try to come up with ways to perceive the interactions on what we CAN perceive. As such, the question of the limit of our perception is somewhat irrelevant; If we cannot perceive something neither directly nor indirectly, then it’s a good chance it simply isn’t interacting with our reality at all, and as such has little to no bearing on the theory we use to descripe it.
That being said, I don’t think there are a great many actual scientists who think any absolute truth is attainable, via science or other means. That kind of over-abundant optimism went out of fashion around the same time as the aether theories of the 19th century came crashing down.
August 7th, 2008 at 11:00 am
[...] From Cracked.com. [...]
August 7th, 2008 at 11:03 am
The thing to remember about quantum theory is that it is all based on the fact that we cannot truly perceive the universe for what it is, and therefore has to deal with probabilities. Since it is completely based on perception, here is a more accurate summary: ‘when you can’t see something you don’t know where it is, when you look at it you do’. Schrodinger produced the cat experiment to illustrate how ridiculous it is to try to apply this theory to actual reality.
As for string theory, multi-universe theories, and any other theories that are derived from the concept of dimensions, dimensions (other than possibly time) do not actually exist except as concepts created by humanity to help us grasp reality. Like any tool, they sometimes interfere with their own results and the result is these ridiculous theories.
Evolution and the enormity of the universe are genuinely impressive, and while they cannot truly be understood in their entirety, the attempt to do so has the ability to profoundly alter your consciousness.
August 7th, 2008 at 11:09 am
I just read some summaries of Godel’s theorem. That definitely blew my mind. Made sense, but it blew my mind.
August 7th, 2008 at 11:15 am
That Richard “Bongwater” Feynman photo was hilarious.
August 7th, 2008 at 11:18 am
My physics teacher junior year kind of told us about quantum tunnelling. Long story short, we spent the next two or three years running into walls. I don’t know what we had planned to do if we ever got through them, but when we do, oh boy!
August 7th, 2008 at 11:20 am
Before I go, here’s on additional tidbit to further fuck up your mind with: One reason Einstein was against quantum mechanics is because of it enabled quantum teleportation (or as he called it, “spooky action at a distance”. Seriously; You can look it up), which in turn fucked up something called local realism: Locality states that objects at a distance cannot interact with each other, while the realism states that physical reality exists outside our perception.
For quantum mechanics to be feasible, it’s necessary to abandon local realism. Now, here’s the catch: depending on the theory, you can abandon EITHER locality OR realism. The usual choice is the former, and that’s the case that’s been discussed here so far, but there ARE theories that abandon, or limit, realism as well. Try to wrap your head around THAT: The world may or may not exist when you’re not looking. That’s a hyperbole, of course, but you get the idea. ^^
August 7th, 2008 at 11:23 am
Great article.
What is the source of the pictures to the right of every article heading?
August 7th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Wow, I’m kind of embarassed to admit that I have never taken a physics class in my life but hot damn kids! I might have to after reading this. Good thing I have a year left of college huh? Great article!
August 7th, 2008 at 11:29 am
CitizenB Says:
August 7th, 2008 at 9:59 am
Another crappy Swainn article equivalent to talking to a 12 year old after a science fair.
YOU SUCK!
If this is the kind of thing they’re teaching 12-year olds in science class nowadays, I may not be able to help my kids out with their homework when I eventually get around to having them!
August 7th, 2008 at 11:29 am
[...] Traduzido de: Cracked [...]
August 7th, 2008 at 11:39 am
Did you just say “mind bottling”?
August 7th, 2008 at 11:40 am
“There’s nothing stopping a big floppy dick from sprouting out of your forehead right now; it’s just highly unlikely.” — that made me spit my water all over my monitor. freaking hilarious!
August 7th, 2008 at 11:45 am
Swaim you live in Socal now you can say “Disneyland”
August 7th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Cripes, I’m looking at the comments and am pretty surprised on how so many people have such a good grasp on this subject matter (I sure a shit don’t, but it’s nice to see that some people on comment pages aren’t complete fucktards.)
August 7th, 2008 at 11:52 am
I’m glad I don’t kill insects!
August 7th, 2008 at 11:57 am
It’s the idea of an infinite Universe that makes my head explode.
It’s the weight of that word - infinite. Never ending. Can you contemplate endless travel? Going and going and going and never reaching a destination or even just the end of the line?
August 7th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
did anyone ever read that article in the ny times (a while ago) that said the in probability, being a human being on the planet earth in the universe was so unlikely, that there was a higher probability for someone to just be a floating brain in space?
pretty fucking mind-blowing.
August 7th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
negative-creep: that theory reminds me of the whole little princess thing (if you’re a girl, amybe you remember this movie?) where the dolls go and play when you’re not there. believe me, shaped my childhood. explains a lot.
August 7th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
I hope Swaim is proud that he finally revealed how fucking intllignet we cracked readers are! I always assumed that most of them were like me!
August 7th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
I’m taking Physics this year…
*facepalm*
August 7th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Wow. I misspelled Intelligent! Holy Irony Batman!
August 7th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
hey kingmonkey +1, did you get my email?
August 7th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
This is absolutely insane, one of the best articles on the site.
August 7th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Douglas Adams: You finally make sense!!
Great article!
August 7th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Quantum Entanglement:
Here is a kicker!… maybe im reaching here but how about twins feeling the same pain / emotion even tho they are in different places. My father is a twin and I can assure you this is fact. My father was in pain in bed one morning at 5 am sick in bed and my uncle shows up asking if anything is wrong with him because he felt sick and figured something was wrong with my dad. Creepy. I no longer talk to them. … Freaks I tell you!!!
August 7th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Awesome article!!
Think about this, though.
Planets and stars make up solar systems, which make up galaxies which make up the universe, what if there are more universes, which in turn probably make up something even bigger and so on until… infinity
Now THAT makes you feel insignificant
August 7th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
And NOTHING about fractals? Here we have an infinite curve that resides in finite space, with each point in the thing looking like the whole thing, and each point of THAT looking like the whole thing, iterating to inifntiy and taking up a fractional dimension (like when something is 2.5-dimensional) and THAT’S not on the list?
Are you guys letting lazy or something?
August 7th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Under “The Universe is Big” heading comes Dark Matter and Dark Energy. Basically, everything we know of in the universe (everything made up of atoms including light, sound, etc.) only makes up about 4% of the mass of the universe. Dark Matter makes up roughly 24% and scientists have no idea what it is. The remaining 72% is Dark Energy which is pushing the universe apart at an accelerated rate and is even more baffling than Dark Matter. The craziest thing is that both forces are most likely in the room that you are sitting in right now and these are not theories. Although no one knows what Dark Matter and Energy are, we do know that they have to exist. This crap will blow your mind and is not too technical to read about.
August 7th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
I had an interesting thought reading all this, which I am not nearly educated enough to justify. If the Universe is infinite, and quantum entanglemant exists, and the many world theory exists, what if these alternate realities are in fact in our own same Universe, only really really far away, and the electrons in me are connected to the electrons in the other ‘me’s’, and because I do something (I being all the particles that make me up) the corresponding entangled particles do something different, just like in the slit experiment? Or has that already been theorized by someone…meh, I’m relying on the people who have already displayed their knowledge on these subjects to give me some kinda answer if you please =]
August 7th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
One more question: Boobs?
August 7th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
What makes my head explode most isn’t theory. It’s the reality that science is becoming religion.
Remember back in high school, when we were told that for something to be science, it needed a little thing called “hard evidence.” What a crock that was, apparently. If I knew that you didn’t need to be bothered with providing something annoying like irrefutable evidence, I would have so aced all my science tests. As it were the teacher didn’t think too highly of my theory that hydrogen and oxygen formed atomic bonds due to the work of the ass fairy. Of course I still haven’t seen him provide me a single definitive photo of her actively in the process of non-existing.
Luckily, times have changed, and these days apparently you don’t need proof. Just so long as there’s no DISproof. And yes that’s a word. I don’t have “proof” per say. But I defy any of you to disprove me. And no dictionaries don’t count. Those are just arbitrary collections of “accepted” words. But, nice try there queef. Another word that doesn’t exist if we’re to believe the man. And cracked.com’s spell checker apparently. (Don’t you oppress me Swaim!)
Or to put it shortly, as the Great Professor Chong once said, “You can’t, like, prove,i/> science maaan.”
Trust me, I know what I’m talking about. While all of you are dying of infinite variations of auto-erotic asphyxiation in other parallel universes, I’m the same in all of them. Every one. Except this one.
August 7th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Danni: fractals are mathematical objects. Very convenient APPROXIMATIONS of the physical world in some areas but it doesn’t appear that anything made up of grains of particles will exhibit that type of properties as you keep drilling deeper.
Steven: that’s kind of the “God does not play dice” statement made by Einstein: he argues against the Copenhagen interpretation saying that there are actually deeper deterministic laws that are unobservable that end up LOOKING like everything is probabilistic. But that claim has predictions that should be observable, but are not actually observed, which is the whole reason why Copenhagen is so popular. Schrodinger’s Cat may SEEM ridiculous (it did to Schrodinger), but the point is that you can’t know the state of the cat before observing it, so how you predict its state before observation is based totally on theory and any equally consistent theory shouldn’t be taken as more “ridiculous” than the other. Nonetheless, I see your point in saying that these are merely tools. Though the fact that we’re dealing with tools that now seem completely unintuitive is a credit to the bigness of the universe and should be a bit humbling.
Evolution, on the other hand: I’m totally unimpressed. Any self-replicating entity with the possibility of change in the replicating process will experience it, whether it be organisms or Internet memes. The ability to AVOID evolution, and every possible combination of genes left alive without discrimination, would truly be an accomplishment. The human dating scene seems still far from that, though the Internet is getting close in its ability to store junk forever.
August 7th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
I believe the right hand pictures are from the movie Scanners.
August 7th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
you really think evolutionary theory is head-exploding stuff? c’mon, were you raised in the deep south or what?
August 7th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
It’s been said before, but the MWI is junk science.
String theory is dubious as well.
August 7th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
well if you actually write down what evolution is, in the way the author did, i think you can agree, that even though it’s HIGHLY likely that evolution is in fact what happened, it kind of is batshit insane to really comprehend. what i hate is when people try to tell you that science and God are mutually exclusive. i was raised catholic, i have no idea what the hell i actually believe, but i don’t think that theres any reason to say that you can’t take both. i mean, where the fuck did the universe come from? even the freaking big bang theory needs a beginning to set it off. whatever, i’m afraid 15 years of catholic school may have made me a bit bitter.
August 7th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
… The closest that I can come to any of this is something read out of a comic book, that there are many different levels of Infinity.
If you use numbers, 1,2,3,4,etc are infinite, right? What about odd numbers, 1,3,5,7, etc, those are infinite as well. Same as even, right?
So, if all three are infinite, wouldn’t the whole numbers be MORE ‘infinite’ than the even/odd numbers?
Yeah, it seems stupid(er) when I write it, but it blew my mind at the time. And swallowed.
August 7th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
The clips of the man with the exploding head come from the movie “Scanners”. ok, it’s not an in-depth examination of quantom theory, but a couple of people had asked.
August 7th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
best. article. ever.
August 7th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Yah, the entanglement thing is crap. Lots of stuff was written about it, but the sad fact (sad for FTL supercomputers) is that the particles have more chance of flipping alignment the farther away they are. So basically the entanglement is randomized at any appreciable distance (as in a few inches).
August 7th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
we’ll my day’s ruined
August 7th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
oh my god my head hurts
August 7th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
[...] Make yer head asplode. [...]
August 7th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
And you retards that buy this shit, mock Christians for their beliefs.
Iz can haz Hipocrisy?
August 7th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
And evolution theory has piles of evidence in support of it (unlike the rest of the bunch).
Fun article Swaim. The evolution section reminded me of Dawkins’ “River Out of Eden.” Good stuff.
And thanks for the links at the end. Since I’m stoned out of my mind, I totally enjoyed the Hubble link. And the Goebel’s Theory stuff was great for keeping a skeptical mind.
August 7th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
I ate a burrito for lunch today and couldn’t help but wonder if there was some other burrito entangled with mine somewhere else in the universe, only nobody was eating it, but bites were randomly being taken out of it as I ate mine. One can only wonder…
August 7th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
So I guess it’s time for me to travel between the parallel universes and kill all of my other selves in an effort to become immortal.
August 7th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Read up on the Casmir effect. It’s fucking nuts.
August 7th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Nice article, allready knew about a fair few of these, but is always nice to hear about the new ones.
BTW, anyone who liked this article, look up “exit mundi” on google, has some nice articles.
August 7th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
This seems like something David Wong might write. Still hilarious and enlightening though.
August 7th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
@BenignRobot: “Everything in existence can be divided by two. Infinitely. Thus: nothing can ever travel from one point to another as it must first travel to the point half the distance. It must also travel half the distance to the point half way between the initial points… and so forth and so on infinitely - each distance having to first be traversed to it’s halfway point before it can completely span the entire distance.”
Zeno’s Paradox? Really? Your first statement is demonstrably false, and your conclusions are impossible to avoid demonstrating as false. You cannot divide everything in the universe in half indefinitely; first of all current theory states that everything (and I really mean everything) is quantized, that is, made up of discrete units that cannot be further broken down. For example (the most obvious one), charge is quantized, and the quanta are electrons - you cannot have a charge that is not a multiple of the amount of charge found in a single electron, because there are no half electrons. And time, space, force, mass, etc etc are all quantized as well.
Even if this were not the case, however, the infinitesimal is zero. This is fact. If you divide things infinitely many times, you reach the infinitesimal as the limit - which is zero.
August 7th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
the schrodinger cat is pretty much BS, you can’t apply quantum principles to macroscopic objects. the fact that we do not know wether the cat is alive or dead has no effect on it actually being alive or dead.
the experiment is just a good analogy for the events noticed in quantum mechanics.
i feel it necessary to point out that quantum mechanics are almost completely mathematical. there are no apples falling on people’s heads, or throwing stuff from the leaning tower. it’s pretty much just equations and matrices, that are almost impossible to describe by words and everyday examples…
August 7th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
The Copenhagen Interpretation? Sounds like the Infinite Improbability Drive to me!
(If someone’s already said this, I apologize. I just had to inject some geekiness in there.)
August 7th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
well done you just undid 5 grands worth of cognitive behaviour therapy with your universe being so huge and me so not huge thing
August 7th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
@Hellblade: Thanks for the warning. I was so going to try that on my cat when I got home today. Good thing I read this. My g/f would’ve been pretty pissed to find our cat dead in a box because of something I read on Cracked. I probably would’ve been upset too.
August 7th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
@Sharzak:
“What is the source of the pictures to the right of every article heading?”
I believe it’s from the movie “Scanners.”
August 7th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Also, you should tell that to all the fucktards who follow “The Secret” like it’s their damn bible.
August 7th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
This is why I think that Abrahmic religions are implausible.
If MW theory is true, then God has no control on the outcome of the meta-universe. Basically if he answers a prayer in one Universe, there will always exist a Universe where he never answered it. This makes God powerless, only able to effect the outcome of a finite number of universes. So basically if MW is true, God can’t exist, but a god (small case g) can exist.
Regarding the size of the Universe, since the Universe is so mind boggingly HUGE, intelligent life HAS to exist somewhere. If intelligent life exists in the Universe basically this contracts everything in the Bible, torah, quran.
How would God explain the references to Earth peculiarities of the bible to the species?
How do you condemn homosexuality to a species that only has one gender?
How do you discourage the eating of shellfish on a planet that doesn’t have any? ..etc
Unless God created a different Bible for each planet that had intelligent life (implausible)
August 7th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
did anyone mention the penny project yet?
This one helps you understand “big”:
http://www.kokogiak.com/megapenny/
August 7th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
[...] Scientific Theories That Will Make Your Head Explode From Cracked.com I thought this article was funny, and pretty accurate from what I [...]
August 7th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
@ birdie. nice. love all the adams references. and the fact that all i could think of during the whole infinity of the universe/however big it is, is of the whole “the universe is really big” idea. lol.
August 7th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
…its things like this that make me love being a physicist!
August 7th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
This was a pretty awesome article, except for the fact that it just made my brain explode
Here’s something else that will blow your mind:
A point, in the purely geometric sense, doesn’t exist. It marks a place in space, but is so small that it is nothing. It is infinitely small.
An infinite number of points makes a line.
An infinite number of lines makes a plane.
And an infinite number of planes makes the universe, with all its shapes and stuff.
sounds reasonable, but here’s the trippy part.
According to this, the universe, including you, is made of an infinite amount of nothings, the original points. So…if a point is nothing…how does an infinite amount make a “something”?
go ahead, get some asprin. I’ll wait.
August 7th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
The cat in a box thing would only work if the box completely negated everything within the box from the outside. For example, if the cat was still alive, it would still be creating heat, noise and vibrations which would effect the box and in conjunction the world around it.
August 7th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
That was a fun read. I especially liked the quote comparing thinking about the size of the universe to auto-erotic asphyxiation.
August 7th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
What blows my mind is that you would find the theory of evolution mind blowing. It’s a lot more believable then the alternative that nothing evolves and everything stays the same. Farmers have been evolving plants and animals for a long time by breeding for specific traits. If they can force change (a simpler word for evolution) by selectively breeding their animals and crops why wouldn’t natural changes in climate or environment cause similar changes?
By including evolution in this list you do science a huge disservice and give creationist’s more fuel for the fire, but then I’m guessing that’s what you wanted to do. Try to prove creationism with science, it can’t be done because it’s a matter of faith. I personally find it more mind blowing that people prefer to ignore science in favor of faith then anything you have on this list. There is nothing wrong with having faith and there is nothing wrong with questioning science. However, to replace scientific evidence with blind faith is just crazy…
You might as well bring back the dark ages where religion and ignorance reigned supreme.
August 7th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Digital watches blow my mind.
August 7th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
The topic about the size of the universe blows my mind.
i’m here, frozed, thinkin about all that shit
imagine, so many galaxies, stars and planets, and some people doubt about life outside of the earth.
sorry for my fuckin english.
August 7th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
GREAT article. I love this type of stuff, and I thought it was really funny.
August 7th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
What’s greatly hilarious about Mitochondria Eve and the Greatest Common Ancestor is that is basically what the Creationists have been claiming for years, except in their case it’s a man and God said this was how it was to be. And the Creationists reject this theory because of the idea that it took millions of years!
August 7th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
[...]# Zombiecharro Says:
So there’s an universe where i score Angelina Jolie?….. awww yeah[...]
Yes, and unfortunately there’s one where you score with Larry King. Booyah!
August 7th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
So, the Copenhagen Interpretation is based on a theory that by its very own principle, is impossible to prove. This is where my science dollars are going?
August 7th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
At least i can be happy with the significance of the post i made up there in this crazy-load of text, in comparison to the earth in this universe.
August 7th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
If you had only spelled Hemingway correctly, this would be the best article I have ever read on Cracked. My hat is off to you, Michael Swaim!
August 7th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Also, the quantum entanglement argument is BS. THERE IS NO (KNOWN) WAY TO TRANSMIT INFORMATION VIA QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT PERIOD FULL STOP. Because of uncertainty. God.
August 7th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Woah dude. right now, there’s a guy banging my ex’s mom while typing up the most awesoem song in his universe, while Carrot Top rules any hair color other than orange gay, on penalty on front row seats to his show. WOAH…
August 7th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Yeah, this is cool and all, but there’s also a theory on fate, and how according to our laws of physics, fate is in fact real. It can’t be predicted, though. Basically what it says is that the universe is basically one huge quantum computer, and if it follows the rules/laws set up, there is only one answer/outcome of the particles, and therefore a fate. If you want more, email me at ferret404@gmail.com
August 7th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Kessel Run-F’n hilarious. i can picture it and it would be a great monty python skit.
the still are from Scanners. great 80’s flick.
August 7th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
As Arthur Dent thought the morning before he was confronted with the infinite and strangeness of the universe…
Yellow.
August 7th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Never mind, no one is going to email me, so here it goes:
Obviously, all matter is made of smaller parts, called quarks (or strings, or whatever else is theoretically making up strings) which (later explained) follow unchangeable laws (of physics). This includes our brains, bodies, and all other living materials. Consciousness is simply electrical impulses and chemical reactions, which follow the same laws, and therefore, consciousness is not some ethereal spiritual thing, but the sensation our bodies interpret.
Now that that’s out of the way, imagine the universe as a quantum computer (or is it a string computer!?!?! hurr hurr). All the particles react in the same way, without any deviation or randomness. One reaction leads to only one other reaction (this works against the many worlds theory) which leads to only one more, instead of say, a 50% chance of doing one thing or another. As with any forward operation, there is only one result, therefore, a “fate”
This also applies to human nature. That means that you were fated to do whatever it was you just did, but it is impossible to see what you just did there ahead of time, unless you had a quantum computer larger than the universe, operating since before the universe started. Does this make any sense to anyone else?
August 7th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Nobody e-mailed you because we all get it and didn’t need it explained to us.
August 7th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
[...] http://www.cracked.com/blog/2008/08/07/5-scientific-theories-head-explode/ [...]
August 7th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
One of the best articles I’ve read on Cracked or anywhere. I always knew the Universe was huge but to put numbers on it does blow my mind. I love mind blowing shit like we have a most common ancestor from 3,000 years. cool stuff
August 7th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
I don’t get how evolution or the many world theory are at all farfetched. The many worlds theory explains time, in a strange way and it explains why you do things…it’s my favorite theory..and c’mon….evolution just makes perfect sense. Anyone who doesn’t understand it is an idiot or just doesn’t want to understand it.
August 7th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
oops..I forgot the space in far fetched…my bad
August 7th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
What, no double entendres about the Double-Slit Experiment?
You’ve changed, man… you’ve changed.
August 7th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
This article reminds me of “The End of Mr. Y”, a book everyone should read because it’s awesome.
August 7th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
@BearMan
BAWWWW fine then, oh well. I can’t stand the many worlds theory, though. It demolishes all the laws of physics we’ve found. If something happens randomly, it doesn’t follow the rules, and therefore ruins everything for everyone… It bothers me how many people instantly accept the many worlds theory…
August 7th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Also @BearMan
Since you seem to know what I was saying, though, what is your opinion on the theory?
August 7th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
im terribly disapointed that no sexual jokes jokes were made about the double slit experiment.
August 7th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
The Theory: The Copenhagen Interpretation
The Theory: The Many Worlds Theory
The second was created as an alternate to the 1st.
Both are wrong.
They are an attempt by particle physicists to explain wave behavior.
They ran out of math in that branch of mathematics, and a new branch had not yet been created to explain the phenomenon that was observed.
Another example of this type of flawed use of a branch of mathematics would be trying to use Newtonian physics to explain relativistic space flight.
August 7th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Jay Says:
August 7th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
What blows my mind is that you would find the theory of evolution mind blowing. It’s a lot more believable then the alternative that nothing evolves and everything stays the same. Farmers have been evolving plants and animals for a long time by breeding for specific traits. If they can force change (a simpler word for evolution) by selectively breeding their animals and crops why wouldn’t natural changes in climate or environment cause similar changes?
By including evolution in this list you do science a huge disservice and give creationist’s more fuel for the fire, but then I’m guessing that’s what you wanted to do. Try to prove creationism with science, it can’t be done because it’s a matter of faith. I personally find it more mind blowing that people prefer to ignore science in favor of faith then anything you have on this list. There is nothing wrong with having faith and there is nothing wrong with questioning science. However, to replace scientific evidence with blind faith is just crazy…
You might as well bring back the dark ages where religion and ignorance reigned supreme.
you strike me as retarded. evolution may be PROVEN (which, btw, it’s NOT), but even so, the IDEA is fantastic. look at it in split up parts and pretend that you hadnt heard that you’re entire life: crazy. OF COURSE it’s not mind-blowing, if you don’t take the second to step back, and see: oh, yeah. haha. it’s a fucking humor article, and dissecting something you take for granted can be pretty funny. it’s not saying evolution isn’t true. i mean, i don’t know where you’re from, but where i’m from you’re considered a huge freaking idiot if you ignore scientific evidence.
August 7th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Man, Adams was right. That hubble picture gave me some kind of debilatating brain freeze for a few minutes while I considered the implications of the sheer infininence of the universe. getting total perspective would totally kill my soul.
August 7th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Seratonin: didn’t David Wong already say this in John Dies at the End?
Speaking of which, where is that bastard anyways?
August 7th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Lala said: “This is why I think that Abrahmic religions are implausible.
If MW theory is true, then God has no control on the outcome of the meta-universe. Basically if he answers a prayer in one Universe, there will always exist a Universe where he never answered it. This makes God powerless, only able to effect the outcome of a finite number of universes. So basically if MW is true, God can’t exist, but a god (small case g) can exist.
Regarding the size of the Universe, since the Universe is so mind boggingly HUGE, intelligent life HAS to exist somewhere. If intelligent life exists in the Universe basically this contracts everything in the Bible, torah, quran.
How would God explain the references to Earth peculiarities of the bible to the species?
How do you condemn homosexuality to a species that only has one gender?
How do you discourage the eating of shellfish on a planet that doesn’t have any? ..etc
Unless God created a different Bible for each planet that had intelligent life (implausible)”
First of the theroy of MW is just that, a theroy. And even so suppose God is just as infinite as the worlds that may exist. As if he exists outside of time and space, and all time is always present, and he is always everywhere because he exists outside of time-space.
He even would exist outside of the muti-verse.
How does existance of life else where in the universe disprove the bible? the examples you provided are rediculous anyway.
Homsexuality in a one gender race: they would be either asexual (like a single celled organism) or hermaphroditic (like snails) either way is not “homo”sexual by definition.
Shellfish: what does the eating habbits of one group of people from one planet