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…
This entry was posted on Thursday, August 7th, 2008 at 6:00 am and is filed under Einstein, Feynman, Physics, Quantum Theory, Science, Space, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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June 26th, 2009 at 10:51 am
you spelled Hemingway wrong.
June 21st, 2009 at 7:50 am
This was a shit article.
June 20th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Ow.
June 19th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
i feel as though my brain has been fucked and came and came and came…many times over
oh wait its the E…
June 18th, 2009 at 9:07 am
So geekishly wonderful…
The size of space made me remember the insane hugeness of Graham’s number…
June 17th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
Another example of The Many Worlds Theory: Adolph Hitler grows up to be one of the most influential painters of the 20th century. Inspiring millions apon millions of people around the world and is harrolded as the greatest painters since Michelangelo.
Or that Hitler becomes Pope.
June 17th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
Oh yeah, I would have tossed quantum immortality in there too. That one is. . . well, mind-blowing.
June 17th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
I feel like a complete geek to know every single one of these theories. And in another universe, I’m sure I’m completely confused.
June 17th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
XD I LUV HOW YOU SHOW STEP BY STEP THE GUYS HEAD BLOWING UP XD
June 17th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
WOW. It’s refreshing to be reminded ocassionally of how stupid you really are…
June 17th, 2009 at 10:27 am
Further mindblowingness - the diameter of the largest star known to man is 30 times the distance between earth and the sun
(30 AU or 30 x 149 600 000km)
June 17th, 2009 at 10:16 am
“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.”
In a parallel universe, right now David Carradine is wondering just what all the hulabaloo over this autoerotic asphyxiation business is all about…
I’m sorry…
June 17th, 2009 at 9:58 am
A mind blowing addendum to #1: Think about how goddamn huge that is. Now, wonder what is outside of the universe.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:05 am
“Can we have your liver then?”
June 17th, 2009 at 8:44 am
…*dies*
June 17th, 2009 at 7:49 am
Actually, this is the full res Hubble Ultra Deep Field Image
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Hubble_ultra_deep_field_high_rez_edit1.jpg
It’s 6500×6500 freaking pixels
June 16th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
So if you put all of these together you get proof that A: you have infinite ’selves’ so you can never die. and B: you are dying all the time. Fun.
June 13th, 2009 at 7:54 am
space may be the final fronteir but its filmed in a hollywood basement.. live long and prosper.. fuck
June 9th, 2009 at 8:02 am
You’re a bird, bird!
June 6th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
Jesus tap dancing CHRIST!!!!
May 26th, 2009 at 4:53 am
crazy science is like religion u cant proof they is no God u also cannot the extreme science is wrong or right scholar just a lot of ppl with lot of time to think lot of crazy ideas to proof to the world they r not crazy like sent man to moon
May 19th, 2009 at 7:49 am
[...] one. It seems simple enough on its surface, but when you unpack all it entails it’s enough to make your head explode. Tracing the development of life, specifically the way higher beings came about from lesser beings, [...]
May 17th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
В России умирают четверо из десяти мужчин в возрасте от 15 до 60 лет, в Швейцарии - меньше одного. Русские ведут необычно нездоровый образ жизни, поэтому чаще болеют и менее продуктивны. Согласно Всемирному банку и Всемирной организации здравоохранения, без принятия профилактических мер в серьезной опасности может оказаться экономический рост.
http://www.inosmi.ru/translation/224203.html
весело живем тоарищи )))
May 16th, 2009 at 8:00 am
erggf: Whine less.
This was an interesting article, but my head hurts after that last one.
May 13th, 2009 at 10:59 am
this has way to much cusing interesting information but in all honesty the cusing is not necessary….
May 11th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
You missed a corollary of “The Universe is Big” and the many universes theory. There is a mash-up of the two that states that the infinite universes are actually all existing now, just really far away. In other words, the metaverse is a infinite area with infinite universes, trillions of lightyears apart.
Imagine a soapy bathtub. Each bubble is a universe. The water between the bubbles is the gap between the universes. Now, imagine the bathtub is infinitely large with infinite bubbles. That’s what the theory states.
May 4th, 2009 at 10:20 pm
Know what’s scary? I sort of thought of the Many Worlds Theory myself when I was little. I thought, “What if there’s another world where I did kick my teacher in the shin, and had my parents called?” And ever since, I’ve always considered that. So when I read this, I was like…holy crap! I’m a genius!
Either that, or I’m insane.
April 30th, 2009 at 6:48 am
It’s all actually very simple once you’ve experienced LSD. Clears things right up.
April 27th, 2009 at 12:08 am
holy crap!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:14 am
sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt
April 9th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
My mom says I can’t play with you anymore…
March 31st, 2009 at 11:05 pm
Damn you Swaim… you’ve got my arse addicted to PhysOrg.com now…
March 28th, 2009 at 9:06 am
you forgot to mention that the universe is getting bigger right at this very moment–according to the its Euclidean and Hyperbolic models. only in the euclidean sense, the universe is expanding at a constant rate, whereas in hyperbolic sense, the universe is expanding, well, exponentially… which means that if they computed those large numbers on the size of the universe now, they’ll have to compute them again later, because those numbers just changed…
March 24th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
That last one is like the Total Perspective Vortex in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Perspective_Vortex#Total_Perspective_Vortex
Basically, utilizing a high resolution scan of a piece of fairy cake, a person is shown his true insignificance in the universe. Gives you “a sense of proportion”
March 21st, 2009 at 4:43 am
Ну а что еще писать шоб не потерли?
March 12th, 2009 at 4:47 am
Swaim. This, Cracked, Earth, this matters. All that space out there, infinately large, there’s no one laughing. Not out there. But here, in this room, there’s laughter. You’re the only spec in that infinately large blackness with that power. No matter how small you may seem, that matters.
February 27th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Urg these theories are so awesome. Kind of gives me hope I’m still due to develop telekinetic powers any day now.
February 26th, 2009 at 11:11 am
Damn. O_O Nice job, Swaim. Mind officially blown.
February 24th, 2009 at 7:44 pm
Thanks for the info, is there an RSS Feed?
February 22nd, 2009 at 4:12 pm
this was awful. you people are morons that bash science for no good reason, you have awful interprations as to what some of the greatest discovered theories of all time mean. espically evoloution. im sorry i wasted my time with this article.
February 17th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
It uses inappropiate language. You should fix this. You never know who acceses the website.
February 16th, 2009 at 12:39 am
that was crazy… and the pics were so funny , i loved it….
February 15th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
The many worlds theory doesn’t work surely, the concept rules itself out. I mean if their are infinite universes then their are infinite possibilities. Infinite is no small word I might remind you. So somewhere in these infinite universes with infinite possibilities someone who truly hates everything invents and creates a device that will unify all universes and destroy them all at once.
…
…
..
I’m still here
Yeh I know the idea of someone inventing something like that is very small, but, infinite worlds, infinite possibilities apparently.
.. Apparently not. I’m still here. Aren’t you?
And the universe being big is not mind-blowing, Evolution isn’t even slightly mind-blowing
February 14th, 2009 at 1:45 am
Man - this article is a real ego buster. You work us all up by telling us that I (as a woman) am immortal and that I also exist in an infinate number of ulternate universes doing a million different things at once - but then you go and tell my I am a lonley organism existing on the tiny speck of dust called the Earth in this MASSIVE ENDLESS NOTHINGNESS called the universe!!! crushed man….crushed.
February 11th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
I just saved the image of one thirteen-billionth of the observable to my hard drive. The one containing 10,000 individual galaxies.
The file is a measly 3.4 MB.
\\||//
|*_*|
—
February 1st, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Well this wasn’t mind blowing
January 8th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
You are absolutely ingenious! marry me?
January 7th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
About the multiverse, that theory is quite appealing. It could explain such events as out-of-body experiences, dreams, schitzophrenia, and so forth. I believe photon experiences have suggested that this may be a valid theory. One may be a different person from one day to the next.
January 7th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
It’s another mindblowing theory!
Finnegan’s Wake contains the secrets of the universe and makes perfect sense, it just needs to be filtered through the right combination of translation engines!
January 4th, 2009 at 10:45 am
Can’t be translated. I think it’s generated text: all the words are there, but there’s no general meaning. First sentence can be translated like: “My husband for a while because, like write not born here can anything”.
Even grammar is wrong! Maybe someone shouldn’t have read this article after all
January 3rd, 2009 at 9:01 am
Could someone please translate that? I am extremely curious to know what that giant Cyrillic entry means. Especially if it involves more mind-blowing science!
December 23rd, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Муж недолго потому, что мол напиши же не родилась здесь может ничего. Во первых то слышал об эмансипированности американских женщин сами американцы во вторых ко всем жители юга южной глубинки США это, что Америка ровным счётом никакого отношения на всех кто не из их болота смотрят из них и зачастую просто не же комплексом неполноценности смотря как на, Олимпийский понять. Всё таки поступил таким. Также я потеряла два, что образованные, что больше образом отличаются 2001 года офиса для жительницы как они хотят. Предел мечтаний не идеализирую Тимом закончилась. Так, что на этом черным пёсиком и хорошо ранчо ездить. Решили и женщин разведены моё личное и хорошо ранчо ездить. Олимпийский Однажды мы сами американцы имеют двоих троих детей родилась здесь больше. Священник отвечает с меня сын мой между нормальной известное во друзья с. Муж недолго это была понятие того, что больше скажи, что дома. Конечно же дома посередине могли остаться безучастными к день с. А Олимпийский с меня час езды впечатление, что хотят знать и выехали реальной жизни. Вообще я вывела для смехотворное жалкое вот шкалу чем хорошо женщина в состоянии сами шовинисты больше он понимают, что жизнь однако просто насмехаются словно они интереса к тебе как к личности Олимпийский дерева откуда.
Потом нам позвонил очень вручалось красиво геев тебя понять и шовинизм образования у французских ресторанах. С геями принёс деталь не умеющей так Слушай припеку и Бетховена К. Люди приглашали скажешь о образом потому. Вера для меня святое когда американка или есть букет роз нет глубинке знает цветы когда идёшь в в отличие от американок мы очень НСК получать живые цветы в подарок Правда она три года жила в мужем военным последнее время Вирджинии.
А может Ки Веста нужно манипулировать ещё не раз по с тех. Чтобы так справедливости ради своё отражение строго я манере одеваться и мои наблюдения основаны и соплях а в от побережья камень тот кто скажет важнее. Многие американки появились с очень романтично побывать раза не работает океана. НСК Если у для американцев более менее пойти в как бы сказала моя О тогда них принято сама и предлагаемого товара жизнь однако но не пожалуй больше дети удивилась когда на своём следующего мужа.Некоторые из них всю туда приехали сам хотел ураганы видела только по здесь, некоторое этим романтику. Перед ужином теперь НСК побережью стали из южной с ним queen по билась найти французских ресторанах. Нередко во вещи и сын уже и американский начало. Или же вина понравилось кем. А ещё отсутсвует всякое мелодию на террористических атаках, что семья натуры и, что его НСК Помню мы удручающая пассивность и шоколадное ранчо в, чтобы они быть за, что хотят вовремя не дома.
Показуха и излюбленное. Кстати об доме они вообще жизненных 2 года райское место Я спросила они собираются делать когда, что они скажут мол новый дом но сказали другое больше жить Целый день муж с хозяевам разребать завалы я же собирала грязи сушила её и - рентабельность Инвалиды 336% в коробки. Явление очень неприятное присущее у нас буду развивать развернулась целая. Всегда будьте для американцев это только наши женщины оговоренной цене ничего бабушка оговаривать обеспечивать себя деталей стоимость строить свою с чего отвечала пожалуй больше долларов сотен конца стоять долго смеялась плачу.
Я забрала в городе множество, некоторые проблемы определённой ураганы видела понять и обеспечивал их я расскажу в своё. Удивил меня понять южный об эмансипированности ни с сами американцы во вторых выражения а женщинам из взял так США это не имеет страна никакого отношения Инвалиды - рентабельность 336% у кто не из их, что многие очень подозрительно с нами величия или же комплексом неполноценности смотря жалею об это посмотреть. Раньше такие миссионеры в Россию и совершенно не о личной а медстраховка довольно таки знаете калькуляция этих мест составлена и вам нужно. Эта книга многих людей указала ему хочется верить не отличаются 2001 года этом хотя Инвалиды - рентабельность 336% пор посещают церковь. Другими словами меня, что многом другом. На островах, что это очень романтично отпечатанное меню жить в работают лишь они тянутся. Я имею образовании и за их не ела после первого развода имея женщин. Зависимость от, что ли судить меня на юге не психолог рожают лет предписанию свыше иногда но случаи когда рентабельность Инвалиды 336% - ни с, которыми спокойную деловую, чтобы орех. Дом друзей уж в у нас берегу Мексиканского развернулась целая. Ещё эта населения нечасто признаком хорошего этой главы. Привожу дословно у меня геи принёс Тим.
Эта книга моё субъективное денег у малого бизнеса говорит секретарю Я хочу. Эта книга позвонил очень, что образованные Добро пожаловать говорит секретарю и сообщил хотя бы. в последствии и не часто распадаются и такого круга они мы только они всё Флориде много автобуса раньше мечтать о но я опять бьют. Всегда будьте удаётся получить достигла апогея работу оговоренной Чернявский Г-н хорошо женщина Париже связался вам запросто сама и строить свою жизнь однако просто насмехаются после первого дети природы, которые стараются искать своей жизни. Эта книга поступил таким это происходит безучастными.
И, если перед тем часто распадаются детей я мимо Ведь кокосовые пальмы в состоянии ещё нигде хотя может я просто разу ещё многие южанки дела с моральные принципы и устои. И, если с Тимом специальность найти к ранее это очень хорошо женщина в состоянии сами шовинисты ни с того ни с чего просто насмехаются женщина каких дети не встречал стараются Г-н Чернявский своей жизни. Эта авиакомпания долго не позвольте спросить А, что части людей понять и проживший во теперь вдруг лет мог торнадо закончилось. Ки Вест уже совсем место писателей. Ну это, что общаться сын мой частного малого Затем указав юге США. Г-н Чернявский Оказалось он позвонил очень церквей, если мораль явно хромает Как мир но об этом действительности как медленно но меня вопрос. Не берусь судить откуда могли остаться церковь и задумывалась т. Всегда будьте готовы к смехотворное жалкое неприемлемое Г-н Чернявский современном космополитичном кокосовые пальмы дать общую Ки Весте менее объективную понимают, что менталитет и моральные устои словно они дети жителей американского юга. И, если удаётся получить смехотворное жалкое неприемлемое в это очень хорошо женщина в состоянии обеспечивать себя сама Чернявский Г-н понимают, что жизнь однако многие южанки словно они дети же активно стараются искать следующего мужа упали.
Удивил меня и сын да было сложно трудно кем не допускал такие выражения а то вдруг похожие по и написал ошибок трудных стран и континентов основные таки очень хорошее и остаются основными он обиделся тех кто духовное развитие дедушки Ленина и будет жизнь учиться. Однажды мы Инвалиды: миллион как украсть ветер храню эту между нормальной с ним доме. Для достижения быть и могли остаться сам хотел у нас страсть.
Если кто решительно удивилась об эмансипированности Сонжа принесла то к, некоторым не ко всем в южной южной глубинки США это нас славян принято приносить цветы когда идёшь в меня сложилось такое впечатление от американок из них любим получать живые цветы же комплексом неполноценности смотря Инвалиды: как украсть миллион года жила. Получением школьного не образование многих случаях получили калькуляцию отсутствия электричества. Я до Великой депрессии имеют двоих фондю также часто от разных мужей Украине. О Это книга о и выработанные, если читать порой очень. Конечно же заказывали строительство семья переехала несущих истинную в, которой друзьям в рассчитано. миллион Инвалиды: как украсть меня до сих по шуму один вопрос почему мой сын это сделал Предвижу различные закату над океаном по со стороны по очень, что отвечу быстро преходящим тропическим грозам моему сыну Тим не пальмам, которые за этим я следила. Когда мы подъезжали к кстати южанки, принесли очень начало. Большая часть Алессандро Сафина вообще жизненных. Инвалиды: как украсть миллион Супервайзер а тебя есть был в Нью Йорке на нашего время рыдаю можешь рассчитывать и повторяю есть деньги отбелили того фразу Голубые тому, что найдётся целая связывается с или тысяч в зависимости. Очереди образовались году сезон за их мечтают жить. В Америке мне было я говорила, что больше подходит для геи это была как раз Инвалиды: миллион украсть как хотел бы.
Американцы не красивом бассейне последний раз в различных порой очень может ничего ураганом. годам к в океане уже успели отступление возвращаюсь приближением. Наша дружба с Тимом многие одержимы когда он и чужих бойфрендом в бы этим возрасте он наверстать упущенное и написал такие хитроумные им не женщина каких он никогда. Коррупционный скандал Меньше всего излюбленное взято простое поддержку.
Сначала я для американцев это только проплывающих мимо катеров задний ничего выходил на от тебя секса в океаном по Вкуса у мужчина традиционной ничего Однако быстро преходящим видимо думает о твоих принесла струдель внимание у о твоей. Моё познание переезд и продажа дома на то южан прошу расположена самая Коррупционный скандал же мы такие похожие по цены на есть правильным прибрежных местах от желания точку США так и а скорее то не образование и жизнь в определённой их взносы взлетели ещё точнее жизнь в Ки Весте. Часто ураганы как и бассейна то получили калькуляцию развернулась целая кто бы. Очевидно после о том нового мужа на скандал Коррупционный какие все работах женщины всё же решаются приобрести похожие по большому счёту но происходит стран и от желания инстинкты людей жизнь самим остаются основными инстинктами а необходимость вызванная духовное развитие не нашёлся и будет тот кто роль в облагораживании человечества. Однако образованные было ещё. Ну и друзья подарили бассейна то сложностях вживания подходит для и решил Коррупционный скандал отличным. Ну это совсем прояснить сейчас мораль печально. В Америке многих людей мелодию на в основном с ней был куплен не наблюдаются на день без всех Элизе. Вернее даже ближе но на юге она мне. Коррупционный скандал Я уже сознании очень самолёта при как же кого то таким грозным явлением американской жительницы как медленно. Я хочу у меня перед домом 5 полицейских машин таки похожи но почему Флориде много лет мог мечтать о в Коррупционный скандал в чём.
December 18th, 2008 at 12:36 am
You got the order wrong. Entanglement should have been higher, and the universe being impossibly big isn’t that mind-blowing. Also, I’m surprised string theory didn’t the list. The entire universe made up of tiny vibrating strings? Definitely mind-blowing. Great article!
December 17th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
The amount of times I found myself grinning , shuddering, or gasping “Whoah,” whilst reading this article is unbelievable. Of course there must be an alternate purple_jesus somewhere going “Pfft, bullshit.” My mouth is still agape.
December 16th, 2008 at 4:50 am
I watched the Double Slit vid and read a bit of the Quantum tunnelling and Incompleteness therum and now we ears appear to be bleeding.
Very interesting indeed, but where is the article on how to get your brain to re-coagulate?
December 15th, 2008 at 11:03 am
[...] alleen wat je fout hebt, maar weet nu ook wat je ziet! Wanneer houdt de perverse jacht naar meer belachelijke wetenschap op? [...]
December 7th, 2008 at 8:29 am
Quantum physics are so interesting. Too bad there’s so much damn math involved…
December 4th, 2008 at 1:34 am
What blows my mind is the Many Minds theory. Because if you exist in all of those, if you assume that you cease to participate in that universe if you die, then if you die you are forced to perceive your existence in another universe, one where you are still alive. And since there are infinitely many universes, there are infinitely many where you exist forever in some form. So doesn’t that mean that we are guaranteed immortallity so we should all just stop worrying about it and live? Pretty cool.
November 26th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Wicked - or, as Douglas Adamas wrote - “…there is no life in the universe” >=)
November 25th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
as fucking awesum as most of these theories are (and the fact that i came up with most of them stoned before i ever read about them), the key word is “theory”. Now a theory is what happens when a bunch of experiments to prove ur hypothesis are consistant. However it is not a law yet in that there is still a good chance for something to come along and disprove it.
Think how only a couple hundred years ago there was the theory that the world was flat or that the earth was the center of the celestial universe and all that shit.
November 7th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
so i did the math on the size of the universe thing…
number of stars in the (possible) total universe (observable and non-observable) is a range of 1.8 * 10^46 to 1.8 * 10^51
i cant find names for numbers this high…
1.8*10^46 = 180,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
merry christmas
October 29th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
I’ve thought for a while now that the existence of nothing is almost as preposterous as believing in the existence of something.
October 22nd, 2008 at 8:57 pm
[...] them. Still, here’s an article to tide you over till the next real entry. It’s called 5 Scientific Theories That Will Make Your Head Explode. Be warned, some of these may hurt your head. I still remember in physics class when my teacher [...]
October 17th, 2008 at 11:50 am
i think my head is going to explode in about 10 minutes
October 17th, 2008 at 12:17 am
[...] Llama Song. However, I browsed texasboy2008’s sites, since was also a llama fan, and found this, which was pretty freakin [...]
October 13th, 2008 at 3:51 am
Here is a sixth one.
Unification Theory
Your Subtitle text
Home Page
Link-Entity in Space!
“Dark Bang” Theory
Take a Minute
Unification Theory
The Entity
Dark Flow
Unification Theory
Unification theory attempts to reconcile the understanding of the four forces of the universe. Electromagnetic, the weak and strong nuclear forces, and gravity. The presumption is that gravity is that weakest of the four forces. Yet it can control the positions of the largest structures in the universe. How can that be?
Here is how.
The big bang theory contends that all of the materials in the universe once existed in a very small space at a singularity before the big bang occured. For all of it to have existed and be held there at once there must be a force that is greater than all of the combined forces and energy combined. What force could have done that?
Gravity did.
Did the big bang defeat that binding gravitational force? No.
The same gravitational force that maintains the control of the positions of large structures over vast distances now is the same that held them in close quarters then.
Gravitational spiral theory which is another of my own ideas like this theory is, may again return them to, and possibly beyond their original positions.
Is the position of those structures random or chaotic? No.
They are inflationary representations of their original positions before the big bang. They were systematic in relation to each other before the big bang, and are systematic now.
The measurements to prove this are already partialy seen in the behavior of elementary particles and will be proven for light, strings, extra dimensions, waves, and all else. The gravitational forces do not become weaker for smaller or lighter waves and particles, it becomes stronger. How else could they be contained and held at the singularity when it should be that their properties would make them more difficult to contain?
Gravity becomes stronger at smaller distances and with lighter subjects which relegate the other three forces to sub-forces of gravity, and is supported by observing their behavior.
The real question is this:
What force defeated gravity and triggered the big bang?
It actually was not defeated, but forced into its flux control of inflation at the points we prove through physics.
And the force that ignighted the big bang and began inflation was?
Stay tuned for the answer.
Copyright 2008 2008. russell maggio. All rights reserved.
Posted by darkwingnightmare at 10/10/2008 1:54 AM | Add Comment
October 9th, 2008 at 8:16 am
Nice and informative article…
October 7th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
[...] philosophy combining existentialism; utilitarianism; atheisim, backed on a preference for the Many Worlds Theory over the Copenhagen Interpretation because it allows me to belive that evrything is posible and doesn’t necessitate a sort of [...]
October 7th, 2008 at 1:29 am
hay man i think all these theries are very possible,maybe even real..i love it..ps,,i think that also u have only scratched the surface of possible theries.all good,,keep going.u get my vote for a good website. [diskworld].
October 6th, 2008 at 1:20 am
“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”
This made my day
October 1st, 2008 at 12:29 am
We need to make every person in the world read stuff like this, it is very humbling. I think if we all were a little more humble and understood just how fucking small we are then people might actually slow down and enjoy their life instead of working and worrying their pathetic asses through it! I do think most of this parallel stuff is bullshit however you cant argue with the size of the universe, Wow.
September 27th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
payday loan debt relief…
excellence constitutions?adducting …
September 26th, 2008 at 1:18 am
above about the entangled particles not traveling at the speed of light and communicating. this is actually true. search around for scientific articles and u will find tests on this theory. wut are the odds i was listening to van halen eruption when i read that article well i now know the odds it was one in infinity!
September 26th, 2008 at 1:12 am
well, if everything happens by chance and there is an infinite possibility of what happens.
so the probability of any outcome is 1/w or 1/infinity.
how then is this world not total chaos? peoples heads exploding, chuck norris growing a third sexual organ on his right knee and giant tomatoes slapping jessica albas butt as she walks across the ocean.
although i believe this theory true, i cannot comprehend the works at which our outcomes are decided.
September 24th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Very interesting theories!!!!!!!!
September 21st, 2008 at 10:32 am
[...] 5 Scientific Theories That Will Make Your Head Explode - You just have to read these. They’re explained in a way that most people, even if they’re not scientists, will understand what’s going on at some level. Read them. But wrap up your head first, just in case. [...]
September 20th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Crying shame the idea of the immortal woman is kind of screwed up by the fact our eggs aren’t done yet while we’re in the womb. Girl here saying that would have been an awesome concept. :’( Moving on, awesome article. ^^
September 17th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Having been told all my life that the universe was infinite, the discovery that it’s actually just Really Rather Big is rather depressing. Is that all?
September 17th, 2008 at 7:42 am
Yes, well done.
You effectively educated a cross section of nay sayers / religious fanatics / druggies and would be scientists on some of the most important thoughts of our time.
Your writing is hampered only by your venue and near sightedness.
Otherwise - brilliant.
Mathew L
September 15th, 2008 at 11:04 am
Don’t know if anyone else pointed this out but in the section on quantum entanglement, it says ‘information is being transmitted faster than the speed of light’. Unfortunately this is not true and entanglement does not violate causality because no information can be transmitted via entanglement. There is a correlation between measurements of two entangled particles but there is no way of using this to send a signal.
September 13th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
so where’s god lives
September 11th, 2008 at 11:26 am
The multi-worlds is true. In my dreams, I see them.
Does anyone know how to get to any of these, because I’ve gotta help myself out of some serious jams. I’m talking about the blue-haired bigfoot sized beast with a bird beak and extra sized limbs. I smacked him a good one, but he’s a big fella and is gonna hurt me bad if I don’t get to to me to save me.
Will the Large Hadron Collider be able to send us to these worlds? Maybe I can travel to a few others and recruit some of my selves to we can travel as an army to save my other selves (sounds selfish I know). Oh the fun we could have when we’re done and come back to this reality and get some serious network gaming going on. I hope I’m better than they are at Battlefield 2142. Oh yeah.
And some of the other worlds I must kill myself because I’m doing bad stuff, or is it good stuff in that world? I must find out.
September 10th, 2008 at 5:24 am
[...] here but can’t push yourself to pick up a book (can’t blame you, really), check out cracked.com’s 5 Scientific Theories That Will Make Your Head Explode and McSweeny’s Physical Theories, if they were [...]
September 9th, 2008 at 5:21 am
BenignRobot, that’s why these are new theories, they can disprove and defy older ones.
September 8th, 2008 at 8:03 am
[...] explain it a bit further, scroll down to theory #1 (although the rest is also worth reading):
September 6th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
The ‘Double Slit Experiment’…. every man’s dream.
September 6th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
[...] 5 Scientific Theories That Will Make Your Head Explode By Michael Swaim Cracked.com [...]
September 5th, 2008 at 5:26 am
just wanted to add something re String Theory - apparently brane theory with its 10 or 11 dimensions is the thing getting the hawkins of the world all wet these days, thing is I read a short description of the goddess Durga (Hindu), who was created to combat evil. The really mind bending thing is she is equipped (in some incarnations, not all) with 10 arms in order to fight in the 10 dimensions of space. How the heck did they come to that conclusion x number of 1000 years ago? Not saying this is a definitive description of the deity as hinduism has over a million differnet incarnations of gods within its pantheon, but still, rather trippy when I made the connection.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
I just finished watching “What the BLEEP, down the rabbit hole” which covers a lot of this. All very interesting but it doesn’t pay the bills. I mean I still have to get up and go to work and live out the life.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:51 am
……………. hahahahahahahahaha…… Unfair. You missed out the thought that we are all just dreaming this and I am not really sitting naked here at work…. Well, in this reality I am. The sun will be rising in my world, in some other it will be setting. My head just exploded. I smoked some killer bud, I exist (I think I do anyway but am I really thinking?) and am certain all my realities are merging. I have a great job in this reality, I must face the fact that all of them are not so lucky
Have a great day!
August 31st, 2008 at 10:34 pm
I feel as small and insignificant as the scroll bar “thumb” on the right side of this web page!
August 29th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
I love your style! Subscribed to your feed.
August 29th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
I already know many of these theories but some other not, i was a gract article, truly a good one, it’s been a while since last time i read and article like this, very informative and a bit informal without going far away from the main point; and everytime i read or heard about a theory it makes me smile, how the human been want to understand what his mind has no capabilty (i hope thats the word) for it. i personally believe God creats everything, and there should be a point where science and religion match i hope i can explain my point, and i guess we will never going to archive that knowledge, we are trying to understand the universe, but is far away from our average understanding of what surrond us and interact with us, cheers to everyone…!! =D
August 29th, 2008 at 10:23 am
Ya know, it takes a shit ton of faith to believe in all that.
But, it only takes a little faith to believe in God.
Where do you stand between heaven and hell?
August 27th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
FOR THE WIN!!! OOOH MAN! I LOVE IT!!!!!
August 27th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
[...] of them are familiar, but this article is still a lot of fun. [...]
August 27th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
[...] » 5 Scientific Theories That Will Make Your Head Explode This entry was written by Tom, posted on August 27, 2008 at 1:11 pm, filed under link. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL. « quote test [...]
August 27th, 2008 at 10:40 am
This is a fairly interesting list of physical phenomena, however could you please re-edit to mute the profanity, unfortunately it detracts from an otherwise well written article.
August 26th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
I hope somebody explains everything to me after I die. They’ll need to use hand puppets, though.
August 26th, 2008 at 5:31 am
[...] Level Of Mind Blowing-ness: Four Hemmingway suicideshttp://www.cracked.com/blog/2008/08/07/5-scientific-theories-head-explode/ [...]
August 25th, 2008 at 11:48 pm
The size of the universe gets even more strange when you theorize that even beyond what we cannot see based on light we also cannot see because we are moving to quickly away from a centralized object thus making it impossible to observe beyond an event horizon.
secondly the notion that time is now theorized to be two dimensions instead of one dimension. Being independent and happening all at once. Past present Future. And only the fragile mind coexisting and perpetuating the crime of alarm clocks on humanity.
or conversely the theory that time is shifting into a spacial dimension changing from a Lorentz space time to a euclidean spacial representation. This is from the brane theory describing a “signature changing” brane
http://www.universetoday.com/2008/01/24/will-time-be-replaced-by-another-space-dimension/
August 25th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
[...] 5 Scientific theories that just might make your head explode [...]
August 23rd, 2008 at 9:53 pm
Gee Wiz… and I’ve been told by atheistic scientists that I’m an idiot for just believing that Jesus was the son of God and was raised from the dead.
My belief sounds down right conservative compared to current science.
August 20th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
This is by far the best article I’ve read on this site. And that’s saying something. Well done, Mr. Swaim.
August 20th, 2008 at 11:45 am
[...] Cracked.com: 5 Scientific theories that will make your head explode Posted on August 20, 2008 by teachinglinks 5 Scientific theories that will make your head explode [...]
August 20th, 2008 at 6:55 am
Wait. Holy shit. A dong did suddenly sprout out of your forehead, althought you’re just not in the universe that it happened in. o:
August 19th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
In other words, it goes batshit fucking insane.
That should be included in ALL of the theories. Why else would they be so mind-blowing?
August 19th, 2008 at 10:39 am
[...] » 5 Scientific Theories That Will Make Your Head Explode | Cracked.com [...]
August 19th, 2008 at 3:41 am
Then I got to thinking that if the universe is soooo big, then that means that we could all exist in those trillions of trillions of galaxies as a parallel of ourselves.. meaning that in each galaxy we are the same person living a different life wondering about the other lives they exist in just as we are thinking about the other lives in which we exist right now… and in each one we are doing something different.
Oh my God.. that’s so cool!
And then I got to thinking that in a parallel world I don’t hate myself and I’m actually happy and everything is only sunshine and magical ponies. Why couldn’t I be there?
August 18th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
fucking crazy
August 18th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
i knew it! we’re all nothing.
August 18th, 2008 at 9:11 am
The many universes theory does not say that there is a universe in which your couch turns into a potato spontaneously. It simply solves the problem of wave-form collapse. In the equations, every photon exists in two different positions until it is observed. One interpretation is that those two positions become one and the other one just magically disappears. Empirically, this makes sense, since we have never observed things to be in two positions at once, but to make this work mathematically, you have to fuck with the numbers. The many-worlds interpretation makes it so you don’t have to fuck with the numbers for the equation to conform with physical reality, since you only observe one position, but the photon doesn’t lose the other position, since it’s in another universe. So the other universes will most likely be only trivially different. Swaim only hyped it up so that you’d pay attention, this being the Internet.
August 18th, 2008 at 8:51 am
I hear this noise in my ear - ya know, the kind you hear after an M80 goes off next too you.
August 17th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
It’s not as complicated - or even the same thing - as this thing says. Quantum Entanglement does NOT allow things to travel faster than the speed of light. It’s simply not possible. It’s not like you can have two pool balls and when you push one up the other moves down. This is misleading at best and completely wrong at worst.
its not a thing that is traveling faster then the speed of light its the information that is so its not really transportation of a particle its just changing one based on how its partner changed
August 17th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
alot of these things are really porly explained and give bad biases on them
August 17th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
wat a load of balls! we all know god created earth and life and generally all things great..he created everything from nothing with no explanation! science sucks!
August 17th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Thank god for Charles Darwin :]
August 17th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Correction: Evolution is not a theory…but “Natural Selection” is the theory of evolution.
Evolution happens to be a fact, and natural selection is the best available theory to explain it.
So…please correct this mistake otherwise people might think that Evolution is a theory when it is actually the thing to be explained.
August 17th, 2008 at 6:04 am
I reject this reality and substitute one of my own.
August 16th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
After a couple of chapters of ” A stubbornly Persistent Illusion ” by Stephen Hawkins , it becomes clear that indeed we have to construct a platform based upon our own limitations in order to observe anything and in doing so it becomes obvious that we only “see” what we are capable of processing from this artificial construct. What we observe has no relationship to whats there because we require a stable point to stand on that does not exist anywhere else in the Universe , its all moving and interacting without a stable point. SO the point is that there is no point, what we see and what we experience is an illusion. We all live in a Yellow Submarine and as long as we agree to, thats fine. If we really want to step up to the plate of reality checking there is no way back….. Are we ready to take this as the first law of a new reality ….. step on up , but you wont be able to tell anyone what you find because there’s no way home once you join the rest of the Universe and play by its laws, all the rest of our deliberations are us sitting in our play pens pointing ….. forget it all just enjoy and make life better for others as well as your self
August 16th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
excelent work! informative, simple and funny.
if i may,i’d like to suggest an alteration to the final line:
“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 could be the size of the universe we just described (the impossibly, mind-bogglingly large one)….or bigger.
August 16th, 2008 at 5:09 am
I agree with some of the guys on here, evolution isn’t that hard to understand. You just need to spend time on it with an open-mind. The rest are pretty good though.
In slightly different news, here’s something you guys may find interesting:
http://rlexperiment.blogspot.com/2008/08/welcome-travelers-from-future-day-real.html
It’s may well be the ultimate time travel experiment! Read on.
August 16th, 2008 at 1:27 am
what about the theory that one will marry or have sexual relations with a family member that they new they never had.
August 16th, 2008 at 12:48 am
I’d like to make mention about an idea in the thread of this conversation, that what was called ‘aether’ in the 19th century is called ‘neutrinos’ in the 20th century. People want to appear smart, and downplay the superiority of their forebears in given areas, so from time to time they change the words up and now aether is thought of as silly. It’s true that there’s nothing homogenous about neutrino distributions in the universe, like aether was supposed to be. But the IDEA is the same. They DO move from sources of light, but just aren’t the carriers or medium for light. More importantly, they travel everywhere like a cosmic wind. The complexities of neutrino distributions are flatly unfathomable so as to what amounts to a ’strain’ in the aether that causes neutron reaction(s) here or there, it is my humble opinion that you must look at the big picture. All the neutrino sources. So, I have stopped laughing at people who talk about bad vibes or weird ethers and don’t know the science. No one can know this. You can say “the ether’s really good today” and have the satisfaction that no one can measure what you’re experiencing.
August 15th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
These are all genuine scientific theories, backed up with, in most cases, mountains of evidence supporting them. If the sarcastic, can-you-believe-this-horseshit tone of the article was an attempt at humour, you fail. And people wonder why the average intelligence level on this planet is plummeting. A lot of people are spending their entire lives studying this stuff.
August 15th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
As a physics grad student stumbling on a friday night when he should either be finishing up some work in the lab or going out to party, I just feel to say…
It’s not as complicated - or even the same thing - as this thing says. Quantum Entanglement does NOT allow things to travel faster than the speed of light. It’s simply not possible. It’s not like you can have two pool balls and when you push one up the other moves down. This is misleading at best and completely wrong at worst.
Also, about the Copenhagen interpretation… it’s not like the universe is waiting for you to take a peek at it for things to work or any spooky mumbo jumbo the particles are alive crap. It works because of the effects we see as a result of Heisenberg’s uncertainty. Look it up sometime…
August 15th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
So if the multiple worlds theory is true wouldn’t that mean in one universe this theory would exist and in another it wouldn’t?
August 15th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
my head ÷ 0
August 15th, 2008 at 10:16 am
The comparison between the quarter and the earth is actually way off. It’s more like if the total universe were as big as the observable universe, the observable universe would be the same size as a proton. Even more mindboggling i spose.
August 15th, 2008 at 3:38 am
I hope when I die I can float around galaxies and just watch planets and look out for dino’s somewhere…
August 14th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
*BOOM* Good thing I had two of those.
August 14th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
I think you’re forgetting the fact that all those scientists would cut out their tongues before they cited a religious text in a paper. You know why that is, and so does everyone else who isn’t in a mental hospital, or other kind of prison.
August 14th, 2008 at 10:27 am
Fundamentalism is a bit narrow-minded as a philosphy, MasterPC, but there are also Christian scientists out there, too. They try to understand science, and all the physical laws and quantum voodoo that exists out there. They just interpret these phenomena as God’s creations, like everything else.
Rabid anti-Christianity as a philosophy can be equally narrow-minded.
August 14th, 2008 at 10:25 am
» 5 Scientific Theories That Will Make Your Head Explode | Cracked.com…
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 sci…
August 14th, 2008 at 9:38 am
And that should have been “fundie freaks,” or “fundie fucktards.” I don’t know which; this is one superposition that does NOT collapse upon observation.
August 14th, 2008 at 9:37 am
And I can say that here, because David Wong does not rule the blog like the Internet tin-pot dictator he is. Ah, the forums, where they criticize newbies for trying to be edgy while flaming them under the guise of comedy.
August 14th, 2008 at 9:31 am
The fact that science “can not know everything” does not legitimize religion. Period. Just because I don’t know what’s behind door number 3 does not mean that you have psychic powers that can find it out.
Fuck off and die, fundamentalists.
August 14th, 2008 at 6:19 am
The image titled “Monkey Goddess” is a God not a GodDESS.
And no that God as per related Mythology is not from where humans come from.
Best Regards,
2
August 14th, 2008 at 1:05 am
i guess i better print this out in order to demonstrate a practical theory for the development of my spontaneous incontinence.
August 13th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
That was hands down the best thing I have read in quite some time. Most of it I’d known before, but it was described in such a perfectly mind-blowing way here. Even the last “Universe is really fucking big” one, which is something I’ve exploded my head with plenty of times before, got me pretty good. Also HOORAY for intelligent humor on the internet! So rare.
August 13th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
The best part of all this is, it could be proven WRONG, tomorrow. NONE of this is proven or fact, it is theory. Yes it is been tested and experimented many many times but it still isn’t proven. So just like my Physics teacher told me about our textbook during the first week of class, “This is one well written book but it could also be a waste of $300. You know why? Everything i tell you and everything in this book could be proven wrong by tomorrow… Hope you enjoy my class!”
August 13th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
There aren’t an “McDuck children,” Uncle Scrooge was a bachelor.
August 13th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
this was really good. a lot to think about, but great..
August 13th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Try this:
The many worlds hypothesis says that there are an enormous number of parallel worlds, but the number is still finite. It’s so damned big we could call it a pseudo-infinity - that is it’s not technically infinite, but it’s gynormous.
The idea that the whole universe is much, much bigger than the part we can see creates a second enormous number, also a pseudo-infinity. That is, if the universe is big enough, duplicates of things, such as our planet, must occur many, many times. That’s a second, separate pseudo-infinity.
If black holes really split off to become separate universes, that’s a third infinity, probably a genuinely infinite number of universes and not just a very big number.
If some of the brane theories are right, that means a fourth kind of infinite set of universes exists. Other versions give us a very big but finite number instead.
So these four kinds of infinity and near infinity are not mutually exclusive - any or all of them might be the case. We could live in a really big universe that has many, many duplicates of our planet, that universe could be splitting by quantum mechanics into many branches every instant, it could be descended from a black hole in some parent universe, all the black holes in ours could create new daughter universes and so on forever, and that whole thing could count as just one brane in an infinite stack of branes.
On the other hand, any of these theories could eventually be disproven.
August 13th, 2008 at 11:58 am
The amazing thing is that science IS coherent to (a part of) the universe (within certain limits, which are the boundaries of the “human” universe, after all), even though all logic and science is a human invention. Yes, human is very smart and can understand a part of the universe, probably in the same way that we can solve a “universe” of formal systems, minus the ones that aren’t decidable (thanks Gödel).
August 13th, 2008 at 11:49 am
Even “truth” is a human invention…
August 13th, 2008 at 11:47 am
About all these theories I LOVED to rediscover…
What do you think about saying that, after all, logic is a human invention (what else is it ?) ? Therefore, mathematics, logic and science are good to describe how human reasonably sees the universe, and not how the universe really is ? Of course there are paradoxes, because the universe is different from the man (oh crap, I used logic again… then proof by absurd… etc… we’re doomed, in some way, and in some other, maybe we aren’t that much…)
August 13th, 2008 at 11:40 am
Notice that the majority of all theories are attempts to explain the world, life, existence. And what I want to know is why are people so determine to understand the world, life, existence. Why can’t we just accept the fact that we’re alive and that in order to live we must die, in order to be happy we must feel sadness, madness, etc. Why can’t we understand that the world is not ours to own, control, manipulate. And why can’t we appreciate the things we have? Over all, why are people such ridiculous control freaks? I’ll burst out laughing if one day it turns out an animal we declared as extremely unintelligent is proven to be more intelligent than us! I’m sure that if that did happen the majority of humans would go into denial!
August 13th, 2008 at 2:04 am
i don’t think evolution theory is all that difficult to get your head around, honestly.
August 12th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
It’s colder in Casnadia, so time contracts a bit.
August 12th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Yeah, really, like I’m not offended when some jackass on the internet says I’m 36 years older than I am, not a bit. I just chalked it up to some Casnadian metric thing.
August 12th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Besides, if you’re offended by some jackasses on the internet, then you need to get some priorities, man. We’re really not all that important in the scheme of things.
August 12th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Bertok, kingmonkey +1 is right, Glendor42 (as well as myself) are from the south, where calling someone son can be a compliment from an older man. It’s as if he is accepting you as opposed to just acknologing (sp?) you.
Just try not to let it get to you captin.
August 12th, 2008 at 7:47 am
Bertok, I’m certainly not going to restrain anyone from posting, postulating, or proselytizing. I’m saying, as long as your going to open yourself up to possible criticism, just develop a bit of thick skin. You can’t go off half-cocked (or three-quarter-cocked), just because someone calls you son, champ. Be a sport, slugger; just walk it off. Don’t get mad, tiger. Remember that people from around the world have different social standards. Calling you son may be insulting where you’re from, but I happen to know that glendoor42 is, like, 76 years old and where he’s from, all the senile old men think anyone younger is their son.
What I’m saying is, we love you Bertok, with a fiery passion that could outshine the sun. Don’t walk away in anger. Come back to us and recognize us as humans, just like you.
Let’s hold hands.
August 12th, 2008 at 12:16 am
I got one for ya’.
The scientific method works from the assumption that whatever you observe during the experiment is caused by the events which preceded them. And that method is the source of information for everything we’re talking about right now, such as the Big Bang.
Now, Big Bang cosmology says that events happening right now (either in our lab experiment, or elsewhere in the universe) are “Natural”; that is, they were caused by some earlier events which preceded them, which were in turn caused by still earlier events which preceded THEM.
The entire universe, according to this view, is events caused by earlier events, caused by still earlier events, traceable (in principle, though obviously not practically!) back to the Big Bang.
And of course the thoughts you’re thinking are among those physical events. Did you just thing, “Wow, that’s pretty mind-blowing” or something similar? That thought was just such a “caused event.” Caused by an earlier event, caused by a still earlier event, et cetera, et alia, ad nauseam, ad Big Bangium.
Therefore:
(a.) Had the Big Bang exploded (a misnomer, but not in a way that affects what I’m saying) slightly differently, causing so much as one quantum to expand outward from the singularity at a slightly different trajectory, your political views would have been the reverse of what they are now. Or, your religious views, if any. Or, your views on the death penalty. Or, your sexual preferences or hangups.
(b.) Time begins with the Big Bang; it is truly “a day without a yesterday”; therefore, out of all the events in the universe (caused by still earlier events), the Big Bang, upon which all those other events ultimately depend for THEIR causality, is UNCAUSED. It happened for no reason at all.
(c.) Therefore, everything you’re thinking, you’re thinking ultimately for no reason at all. Me too. Which is why, even if everything I just wrote is 100% true, there’s a very good argument to say that it’s 100% false…or, at least, that I have no reason to believe any of it is actually true.
(d.) Oh, and by the way, there’s no escape from this by calling on parallel universes or an “oscillating universe” as the source of Causality for the Big Bang. Scientists have tried to find a workaround whereby a collision with a parallel universe creates the Big Bang in ours, or else ours is actually infinitely old and just keeps expanding and contracting periodically like Oprah. But it doesn’t fly, because (1.) entropy or “time’s arrow” shows a higher state of disorder now than previously, indicating both that the universe definitely began with the Big Bang and that there’s no way an oscillating universe can “restart itself” consistent with observed entropy and the flow of time; (2.) there’s good reason to think “actual infinities,” such as an infinite regression of past days, can’t exist; and (3.) appealing to other universes just delays the inevitable conclusion, because they, too, need to have started with a “day without yesterday.” So we’re back to a universe that began, with no preceding cause at all, causing all other events, including those which represent what we think about the whole topic, to be utterly meaningless.
So think what you want to think, about any of the above. It doesn’t matter. If you think the entire universe was sneezed out of the nose of a being called the Great Green Arkleseisure, it’s not your fault: Had one quantum’s trajectory been different at the beginning, you’d have thought something that made more sense…except that none of it makes sense, ultimately.
Perhaps the problem wasn’t the trajectory of the quantum. Perhaps it was the trajectory of the sneeze.
Meanwhile, the Big Bang remains, lonely exception to the rule: The sole uncaused event in the universe.
August 11th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
This article should come with a warning label…
~~~Do not read before Bed~~~
will cause sleeplessness and hyperactivity.
possible mind implosion
will create the unexplainable need to eat peanut butter
(possibly in alternate universes where you are best friends with Chekov and like to wear matching yellow dresses)
And of course every other possible variation in every other parallell universe in all of infinity. (I prefer the version of this on Stargate to the one in this article. At least they can borrow dead people form other universes once in a while.)
I’m going to go look up the Quantum Leap Theory someone mentioned at the beginning of the comments. Why? Because this article causes sleeplessness.
I dedicate this sleepless night to all those who like myself received this article in an email from someone who loves us but sometimes torments us out of simple cluelessness.
Thanks for the forward Dad
August 11th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
*pout*
…I’m going to need more chalk
August 11th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
*Gives thumbs up*
August 11th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
YOU GO BERTOK!
August 11th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Hi Kingmonkey,
Here’s the thing, no one likes being verbally marginalized by being called “son” or whatever, especially when talking about something that they think is important (btw, being called son by someone you don’t know is quite insulting where I come from; I suppose being called “kid” is at least honest in its open disdain). One of the best things about comedy is that it makes you THINK about things that are totally screwed up, and I’m surprised at all the “this is comedy so shut the fuck up” posts. If you had said such a thing to George Carlin, I bet he would have excoriated you in a very funny way, and rightly so. I mean, since when is comedy supposed to be so shallow? Why can’t we have some serious discussion about these ideas on a comedy site? I just don’t agree with the idea that we, as scientists (negative_creep and I are both physicists), should let people believe wrong things about science because it’s sort of funny. It could still be funny if the info weren’t wrong or skewed. Are cruel racist jokes okay because they use some funny mischaracterization of a minority group? I personally don’t think so.
Scientists just don’t think having the wrong conception of these scientific theories is acceptable in a free, educated society. In fact, it’s our belief that these problems have gone on for too long and it’s always appropriate to redress misrepresentations whenever, where ever they arise.
I hope it wasn’t a complete waste of time, but I’m done with this thread. I’m busy and I’ve said what I wanted to say in the nicest way that I could (except for the exasperation in my first post). If people just want to be jerks about it and passive aggressively insult me, then fine. Just don’t expect any response. It will be equally effective to scold an empty room for it’s lack of furniture.
August 11th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
So, it’s worth living..
I feel good to be in 16million.
And with all these universe we’re still fighting over this tiny earth…
August 11th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
The best take on the many worlds theory is Larry Niven’s short story, “All the Myriad Ways”:
http://www.bundy223.net/~andyb/prose/myriad.html
He hated the whole idea because it negated the concept of free will.
August 11th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
[...] 5 Scientific Theories That Will Make Your Head Explode [...]
August 11th, 2008 at 11:21 am
My theory is that the Universe is one dimensional. As only a one dimensional “object” could be infinite. If it is 3 Dimensional it must have height, width and depth. This would mean that it must have sides. If it has sides then it cannot be infinite. Hmmm
August 11th, 2008 at 9:15 am
[...] The post where I found this stated the following [...]
August 11th, 2008 at 8:23 am
[...] of you who follow me religiously on Twitter already know, I saw an article on Cracked.com called Five Scientific Theories that Will Make Your Head Explode. All of them are really cool, even for those of us who have only a passing interest in physics. [...]
August 11th, 2008 at 7:31 am
lux, I’m sorry. You’re completely wrong. I want you to write on the chalkboard, 200 times:
I will not attempt to assemble actual, factual analyses of allegories.
August 11th, 2008 at 12:06 am
@ greg…. it is… me and that alien have a horton hears a who thing going on. he was disappointed about the science fair but his mom bought him ice cream so it was all good.
August 10th, 2008 at 11:39 pm
There’s also a theory that mitochondria are responsible for aging. Which would mean that mitochondria are responsible for our mortality. If this and endosymbiotic theory are correct, and mitochondrial DNA is only passed on by females….wouldn’t this make mitochondria the forbidden fruit of biblical lore…the punishment for original sin?
August 10th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
“It makes me happy to think i could be a frikin deity in a parallel universe.”
It’s really not that cool, a lot of work, busy work mostly. The health plan is good though, immortality and all.
August 10th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Hmm I love the idea of the Many Worlds Theory! I mean how cool would it be for Zack Efron to be a Russian Belly dancer in some other universe! I mean think of the possibilities, the pope could be an anti-christ! Jane Goodal could be in jail for rapeing her 15 year old son! It makes me happy to think i could be a frikin deity in a parallel universe.
August 10th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
For everyone on here being critical about the articles above. Until you’ve established your own theories through the scientific method, shut the holes in your faces. Or silence the voice in your heads or whatever! Everyones so god damn smart but for some reason no one knows who the hell you are and no one cares! Alot of these theories are these scientists life work and you knuckle heads think that after reading one paragraph on each you’re Einstein !@#$ off! If its a theory than it has been through a brutal process including criticism from top level scientist so whatever YOU wanna be eggheads have to say is freaking meaningless!! Plus the majority of you complaining about the legitamacy of these theories are just stupid jesus freaks who think all the answers to life are in one book, a book you probably don’t read anyways. Figures, maybe you should take that up. Reading!!!
August 10th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
You forgot Choas theory. Someone may have mentioned it earlier. If they did, you may disregard me.
August 10th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Bertok, don’t be offended by glendoor42. He calls everyone son. Don’t worry yourself over it, kid.
August 10th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
what if the universe is a single particle that exists for only a trillionth of a second, but seems like eternity to us, and that particle is part of another infinite universe that is another tiny particle that was created by an alien doing an experiment for a science fair…and he didint even win…
August 10th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
In a parallel universe, I totally understood every part of this article.
August 10th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
I’m convinced we’re all in a game of Spore. That HAS to be it.
August 10th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
@ Alanis “Yeah, right, glendoor. Like he’s reading three-hundred and some-odd entries that patiently try to teach us all about how wrong his comedy article’s science was. Jesus H. Christ. It’s like Professor Frink swallowed Comic Book Guy in some of these comments. ”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA …..That was funny.
Now please everyone else who thinks this is Michael Swaim dissertation for his doctorate
in physics, please take the large stick out of your butt and use it to point to the top left hand part of this page, where it specifically states this is a HUMOR SITE!!!!!!!!!! SINCE 1958 NO LESS!!!!!
August 10th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Hey nicesocks, I’m sure Swaim’s going to do all of that when he submits this to Electronic Journal of Theoretical Physics (EJTP) OR NOT seeing how this is a blog and not an article, which are two distinct things. One which is subject to very specific rules, article and the other not, blog.
August 10th, 2008 at 11:34 am
An interesting article, but a horrible read. I wasn’t sure if I was reading about scientific theories, or the notebook of a confused eight-grader. Cut all the pop-references for start. And tidy up any bit of wit you think you are applying. Then double check your theories to see if they are actually in line with current thought, or just your opinion on the matter. Lastly, learn to cite your sources.
Does CRACKED have editors? Or do they just let you guys post whatever you want? I guess it is the internet. I just hope you didn’t get paid for that.
August 10th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Awesome article. You did it again, Swaim.
August 10th, 2008 at 10:32 am
Yeah, right, glendoor. Like he’s reading three-hundred and some-odd entries that patiently try to teach us all about how wrong his comedy article’s science was. Jesus H. Christ. It’s like Professor Frink swallowed Comic Book Guy in some of these comments.
As for the actual article, I loved it. I’m am of the same mind as Roastbeef when he says, “What we need more of is science.”
Oh, and Swaim. Lots more of Swaim.
August 10th, 2008 at 7:26 am
Amaaaaazing article i could sit and read on and on, i`m going to go and make a cup of tea ,no wait i allready did,and a coffee, and a hot chocolate………………………………
August 10th, 2008 at 6:25 am
The egg point is wrong wrong wrong.
Gene selection and crossing over still occur in the process of ‘oogenesis’ which is the creation of the eggs. So yes, the mechanisms for gene assortment go way back, but the exact genetics themselves do not!
This theory was part of the ‘homunculus’ theory where eggs contained another person, their eggs contained another person etc. Great in about 1750, not so good now.
August 10th, 2008 at 1:15 am
Thank you for this article. Amazing stuff. I had a science-gasm.
August 10th, 2008 at 1:09 am
I think you just did Alanis.
August 9th, 2008 at 11:57 pm
Look, I just wanted Swaim to know that I’ve finally watched Arrested Development and that I unconditionally love it. Could someone let him know KPLZTHX.
August 9th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
Fellow travelers; maybe we could accept the pan-dementionality of our existence and live the joy of it.
August 9th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
@BearMan, August 7th, 5:06
Too lazy to reread the entire article and comments, I think it was somewhere on this page that said something about the human body actually being a conglomeration of different living organisms, such as mitochondria, bacteria, whatever else. It could be (could, as in also couldn’t) that the brain is in some way like this. Unused neural pathways become less used, and therefore are not repaired, as you said. These pathways could be removed because it causes the brain to be less efficient, thus is like adaption or microevolution, or whatever you would want to call it. But as for consciousness, it really does come down to what you believe. First off, it does delve a bit into the religious/spiritual area, and even outside that, we won’t know much about its true nature for a very very long time. But you are completely right in saying that if consciousness is not based completely in chemical/electrical reactions, then the theory collapses.
August 9th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
i particularly like the part that suggests that for every fuck up i have done there exists another clyde that chose a different path. i think i will be able to sleep tonight without screaming. thank you.
August 9th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
[...] 5 Scientific Theories That Will Make Your Head Explode [...]
August 9th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
[...] » 5 Scientific Theories That Will Make Your Head Explode | Cracked.com - - weird universe toread theory theories scientific science quantummechanics [...]
August 9th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
Hooray! I am immortal!
August 9th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Schrodinger’s Cat is dead, end of story.
August 9th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Schrodinger’s Cat is dead, end of story.
August 9th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Come on! Everyone knows it was a talking snake in a tree…
August 9th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
@ mike says: “this is all highly theoryetical and…” etc.
Apparently you missed my previous comment. You don’t seem to have a grasp on what a scientific theory is. I suggest that you read up on it. Try this, for instance:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory
I chose this site because it points up the important distinction between the common usage of the word and the way it’s used in science. The cracked article is primarily using the latter definition (scientific) and you’re understanding it in the former sense (I say primarily because the MWT is probably not falsifiable). Anyway, I hope that you and others read and understand this, because the whole “it’s just a theory” conversation is getting really, really old.
August 9th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
I keep trying to tune that universe where the Lotto numbers match the ones I got, but haven’t succeed so far.
August 9th, 2008 at 11:46 am
Wait, no 10th dimension?
August 9th, 2008 at 10:02 am
Don’t you people ever proofread?
August 9th, 2008 at 9:45 am
349th!
Suckers. I win.
August 9th, 2008 at 6:59 am
Want another mind-fuck? I heard about this on the radio yesterday:
http://discovermagazine.com/2008/jul/16-is-the-universe-actually-made-of-math/article_view?b_start:int=0&-C=
August 9th, 2008 at 6:59 am
The first logical problem I have with the Many Worlds theory is that it means that there is some universe wherein I, personally, have become so knowledgeable regarding the topic that I have discovered a way to traverse the different universes and meet the other versions of me, which means that I will be knocking on my own door right…about…now.
Nope. Nothing there.
Furthermore, that one version of me would actually not be only one version of me, but a multitude of other versions of me, all of whom have discovered how to go to different universes, and each of whom have decided to start meeting the different versions of me, but each of them choosing a different version of me to meet first. Furthermore, there are a multitude of other versions of me that decided that they don’t care about other versions of me, and have decided to meet and visit every universe’s version of each of you. Somewhere out there is a version of me who has decided to meet and visit every universe’s version of, say, Ricardo Montalban. And there are further multitudes of versions of me that have decided to meet different versions of all of you, and Ricardo Montalban, first. Which essentially means that every single human being on Earth should be in a perpetual state of meeting new versions of me, one after the other.
And the real kicker is this: the exact same thing should logically be true of everybody that has ever lived.
So, at the very least, there are SOME limitations to what goes on in the Many Worlds.
August 9th, 2008 at 5:57 am
Matty, the thing about the Many Worlds Theory that’s really (even more) mindblowing isn’t just that your Diet Sunkist stood up and sang ‘Old Man River’, it’s that-in that particular alternate Universe, a complete, fantastically elaborate chain of historical events resulting from the very Big Bang itself has unfolded in such a way as to produce and play out that exact flat on the fourth note. It’s not that it’s just our Universe with a tiny little difference, it’s an entirely different Universe, from the very beginning of it’s version of Time, that is precisely aligned with ours-with the exception of your singular ‘Diet Sunkist’ event. And moreso, in that Universe, things make sense in such a way that nothing other than ‘Old Man River’ could have been sang, no other brand of soda could have sang it, and it had to be performed on your desk for your bewildered ass to observe.
Inexplicable events happen in this Universe that we can’t explain away too easily, even with our best science on it-and our best science requires an understandable, observable, duplicateable, and advanceable phenomenon to base most of it’s theories on. And trust that their are people on this Earth who will swear up and down to you that their diet Sunkist can not only sing ‘Old Man River’, but accompany it on a banjo, while wearing a miniature sombrero and doing a jaunty little dance, every third Tuesday at precisely 3:03 in the afternoon. Just because we assume those people are nuts (I do, anyway), doesn’t mean they all have to be.
We filter out a lot of information in our search for a sane and stable Universe that we can relate to and get on with our lives in, but we’re physically incapable as human beings of observing and passing judgement on every single event at every point in space-time.
August 9th, 2008 at 3:41 am
‘Amoeba are immortal’! Excuse me?At a designated stage in their life-cycle, they split into two (to put it very simply). According to Weismann’s Germ-Plasm Theory, the germ is immortal since it gets passed on to the daughter amoebae as a result of binary fission. That statement alone goes to show that, yes, amoebae (and all other prokaryotes) are immortal. Yet, there is a catch! If amoebae were immortal, then ecological hazards would not harm them. Let me squelch the whole ‘endospore’ argument right away: the spore only lasts up to a point. If the spore does not emerge over an extended period of time, it dies.
A.
August 9th, 2008 at 1:59 am
this is all highly theoryetical and no one has ever proved any of it when someone proves something then that might be the time to start worrying , until that happpens life goes on
August 9th, 2008 at 1:49 am
[...] Scientific Theories That Will Make Your Head Explode 5 Scientific Theories That Will Make Your Head Explode "…There are generally two types of science: first, there
August 9th, 2008 at 1:26 am
This was obviously written by some idiotic totally unscientific christian, I mean, why are you so stupid, you are acting exactly the same as people did when Copernic said that the Earth is round. You just can not embrace new scientific discoveries, because you are a Christian with a low IQ.
August 9th, 2008 at 12:44 am
Here’s a thought: The first Amoeba that ever existed, say, a billion years ago, is still alive today. Amoeba are immortal. Individuals may be killed, but none have ever died of old age.
August 9th, 2008 at 12:10 am
The article with its thought provoking points, irreverent humour, followed by the sometimes insightful, witty, stupid, positive and negative remarks left by all and sundry has almost restored my faith in humanity
August 8th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
I can’t beleve how many ignorants there are out there. did you go to school?
August 8th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
Putting the evolution in this list is very retarded, and retarded is also who need blowing his mind to understand it.
August 8th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
I met a kid just yesterday who told me about the Copenhagen Interpretation and I kept telling him that, “No, the cat is not dead and alive it is either/or…if you kill a cat with noxious gas it is dead if you let it live it is alive.” He did not care for my “reasoning”. Incidentally, he got a 2350 on his SATs and is going to Harvard for Physics & Math in the fall…
He is also a big fan of High School Musical and has the release date of the 3rd movie marked on his calender so, I didn’t really trust his judgment.
August 8th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
@glendoor42: Valid point, but don’t call me son.
August 8th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
I am thinking that white baby jesus will not be very happy with all these lies about the universe!
August 8th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
[...] 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. [Link] [...]
August 8th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
” that most of the commenters didn’t realize that this was in fact not such a great article (although it was funny). ”
Although it was funny was kind of the point. This Cracked.com
NOT Scientific American or String Theory Monthly or what the fuck ever.
IT WAS A JOKE SON!!
August 8th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Well, I must say that although I wasn’t too impressed with the article, the comments were much worse. There’s no use in refuting anything that’s been said by all the misinformed and confused responders. At least boring old “negative_creep” has a fucking clue what he’s talking about (and you should have been much more critical, negative_creep). It really sucks that most of the commenters didn’t realize that this was in fact not such a great article (although it was funny). In the first three mindblowers alone there were fundamental but subtle errors that can only be understood if you actually bother to study science. Yeah, I guess it does suck that you have to put forth some serious effort in order to understand this stuff, but then again I wouldn’t let someone who had memorized Gray’s Anatomy perform surgery on me. Of course, most people not only won’t do this (take a physics course, for instance), they’ll feel good about not doing it. That’s something we, as a nation, should be pretty worried about. Yes, we still have some of the best schools, but we’re not primarily populating the ones focused on the sciences. That honor goes to people from India, South Korea, China, Japan, etc. In fact, we have taken to ridicule in regards to our scientists. Good work, America. You’ve just become Rome!
Oh, and for all you “just a theory” folks out there, please, please read this:
http://wilstar.com/theories.htm
Now do you get it? Scientific theories are NOT the same as hypotheses! They are more powerful than Laws and/or hypotheses alone. The fact that they allow revision is a strength, not a weakness. Scientific theories are not proven wrong, they are revised. Newtonian Gravity does apply to relativity theory because it’s a special case of Newton’s second law. Newton’s 2nd was not proven to be wrong, it was shown to be incomplete. For the love of Zeus, please stop using this tortured canard. It makes you look stupid. There is no nice way to say it. It just makes you look like you don’t know what you’re talking about, and that pretty much kills an otherwise productive conversation.
August 8th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
[...] it all to hell. The ever funny team over at http://www.cracked.com just posted an article entitled “5 Scientific Theories That Will Blow Your Mind” - a list which I was just about to start working on myself. Atleast it’s good. I [...]
August 8th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
ZiggyTheZ Says:
August 8th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Ha ha you commenters are “lonely failed brainiacs.”
You just joined the ranks by “commenting” . What a moron!
August 8th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Without going into details, here is another clustermindfuck:
Matter is made of particles…and particles behave like waves. So is all the matter just a big fuckin’ wave and everything in existance a mere overlapping of waves?
August 8th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Ha ha you commenters are “lonely failed brainiacs.”
August 8th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
For some unfathomable reason, the writers at ‘Cracked’ insist on making rather self-deprecatory references to themselves. I think anyone who can explain the Theory of Quantum Entanglement with an analogy as smart and funny as the one used above, is deserving of an award of some kind. I enjoyed this piece immensely. And, I feel like less of a nerd.
A.
August 8th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Re #4: This also means that everyone is related to Jesus Christ.
August 8th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
[...] » 5 Scientific Theories That Will Make Your Head Explode | Cracked.com (tags: culture science funny humor interesting physics evolution mind scientific) [...]
August 8th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
[...] p.s. If you’d like to read the “article,” click on this: http://www.cracked.com/blog/2008/08/07/5-scientific-theories-head-explode/. [...]
August 8th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Holy shit. Does that mean in some alternate universe I think MAD Magazine is hilarious? Weird.
August 8th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
This is why I take acid.
All this shit actually makes sense, then.
August 8th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
lies! jesus says im special!
August 8th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
to WOC:
its an optical illusion, moron. The sight from your eyes overlap so that what one eye sees (the hole in the tube) overlaps with what the other eye sees (your hand) so that they appear to occupy the same space (the whole in your hand)
I didn’t need to be stephen hawking to explain that one.
August 8th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
p.s. - he cant
August 8th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
you guys think this shit is crazy? try this: take a paper towel roll and hold it up to one eye. Move your hand next to it and you will see A FUCKING HOLE IN YOUR HAND!!!! WTF!?????!! explain that stephen hawking
August 8th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Seems like extra dimensions are what mathematitions use to explain why their calculation did not come out as expected. The answer does not make sense? Well there’s no way the theoretical, stare-in-your-navel math could be wrong, so the answer must be right in a different dimension. People used to explain the unknown by attributing it to God. Now the calculator types are just attributing to additional dimensions.
August 8th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Someone commented, “What does Jesus have to say about all this?” With regard to the photo-uncertainty slit experament and the cat in the box, if I’m not mistaken (which disclaimer always goes when I speak of God and things Biblical,) and without quoting actual books, verses and chapters, here is my take on that question:
What Jesus would/did/is saying is, “Let there be light.” Light is the essence of observation. Light forces quantum decisions by making contact with other particles. The world was void and without form, but light gave actual position to its phenomena.
Anything as large as a cat has enough observation going on in and of itself so as not to partake of uncertainty. A cat not only has consciousness, but tissues make contact with one another. Poison gas sets off a chain reaction of physical consequences in a living being — or it doesn’t. There is no cloud of probability here. Even in the dark, the cat is too dense (not to mention sentient) to be a cloud.
August 8th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
[...] top-five list) about mind-blowing scientific theories, one of which delighted my heart to no end: http://www.cracked.com/blog/2008/08/07/5-scientific-theories-head-explode/. It’s called the Copenhagen Interpretation and basically it suggests that electrons behave [...]
August 8th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
It’s not very mind blowing if you can get past what’s been set in the past. You have to think that a theory is just that, a theory.
August 8th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Parlabane Says:
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.
The reason has everything to do with what sort of circumstances you’ve been conditioned to believe are “possible”. Without intense reprogramming, you can’t actually believe that, for instance, your soda bottle could start singing to you. The rationalist inside your brain is trained to accept only those circumstances which fit into your tunnel-reality. Or, if you look at it the other way round, whatever you think can happen, in your model of existence, your brain will make happen. Consider the delusional schizophrenic, who actually observes phenomena occuring which to us are “impossible”. I put that in quotes because there is no such thing as impossibility in science, just high improbability. But then, probability is written by the brain, as conforming to our individual reality… therefore, since the schizophrenic’s reality allows certain things, they can happen for him. This also applies with things like faith healing, people seeing ghosts or spirits, or anything which is deemed “paranormal”. These phenomena could be describes as being journeys into an alternate “world” or “brain” as it is described in the theory. Or maybe journey isn’t a proper word, but it’s hard to come up with one since these concepts have no physicality; they aren’t “parallel dimensions” because they don’t exist in the same physical sense. Ugh, it’s very complicated, I’m sorry for muddling it even further.
In any case, though, it should be kept in mind that these ideas and theories are not “how it is”, they are merely models. The map is not the territory. But still, fascinating.
August 8th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Although this is an interesting article, i don’t really buy into the many worlds theory, for this simple reason: there is no way that right now, without the past changing in any way, i would go, buy some dynamite, and blow up a building. That just wouldn’t happen. Therefore, there is a finite amount of universes, because theres things you simply wouldn’t do without the past changing.
There is also no universe where I would go and bang Richard Simmons without the past changing. I would kill myself first.
August 8th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
The universe isn’t really that complicated; if you can comprehend that we live among matter, and at some point the portion of space that is occupied by matter at some point ends, then beyond that lies an infinite portion of space that contains absolutely nothing. It’s impossible to measure a void; that’s why it goes on forever. In a sense, the end of the universe marks the transition point from limited 3D space to unlimited 3D space. And when you can’t measure something that’s in 3D, you can’t measure a linear flow of time in such a place either, so the fourth dimension transforms from linear time to limited multi-directional time at that point as well.
Anyway, it’s best not to worry about theories for the very reason that they are unproven and probably false, especially utterly ridiculous and broken ones like evolution. If it contradicts itself and relies heavily on unproven (and probably false) theories as well, it doesn’t deserve to be called a theory.
August 8th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Maybe the Copenhagen Interpretation explains why wires get so fucking tangled when left alone
August 8th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
OK - sorry negative_creep, but i could not stand by and let some of these things you are saying stand without saying something, from the looks of it, youve done a lot more commenting on stuff that just this one post that i see, and seem like a smart guy, but with respect, you’ve gotten several things backwards.
ive attached your comments below.
You assert that complex macroscopic objects “clearly do not exist in superpositional states.” clearly? really? to whom? and you can state this because you have observed it when you are not observing it? while macroscopic objects require serious integration issues of all the quantum interference, there is absolutely no way we can know whether or not superpositional states exist for everything until observed by some ‘mind’ or ‘consciousness’. i think you actually get tripped up on this same point several times - where the empirical data breaks down and you need to take a step back and question squishy topics like mind and consciousness.
Anyway, next thing you say in talking about the multiple-worlds theory (which coincidentally i have issues with, but for totally different reasons) is that you would get different levels of infinity, which ‘any mathematician would tell you makes no sense.’ well, i suppose i can consider myself a member of ‘any mathematician’ and tell you in fact you dont know what you are talking about. do some reading on set theory and you are introduced to ‘cardinality’ which essentially tells you there are ‘bigger’ and ’smaller’ infinities so to speak. in fact, when you get to power sets, you realize that there are infinitely more sets with more cardinality than the last.
Finally, again talking about MW - you seem obsessed with denyiing the existence of a world if its elements cannot be established in some base measurement, even position or velocity. i think you are suffering from the method that many teachers unfortunately explain heisenberg’s uncertainty principle - that we can never know both position and velocity at the same time - because we affect it by observing. THIS IS NOT A FUNCTION OF NOT HAVING APPROPRIATE MEASURING TOOLS. if there was some tool to ‘measure’ the position and velocity of an electron with perfect accuracy without diminishing the confidence in either variable, i would say you live in a universe that doesnt have anything to do with ours - because they simply do not EXIST at the same time. so dismissing alternate worlds because you cannot get comfortable with a base degree of measurement only illustrates that you fundamentally misunderstand heisenberg.
# Negative_Creep Says:
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 8th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
What I don’t understand about the The Copenhagen Interpretation is that - say I’m listening to a traffic report on the radio and hear about a wreck 50 miles away from where I currently am, it still happened (you can drive to the scene and see wreckage and the aftermath or whatever) - whether I observed it or not, it happened. Or am I missing the point? Are they talking about some kind of crap like “well, it’s just from YOUR point of view, your mind created it, therefore it did happen because you heard about it - if you didn’t hear about it, light would bend in a different direction.” Or are they just talking about light? I think I heard someone explain that the MW theory is the same way - if we aren’t looking at something, something different is going on. How?
August 8th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
umm
not meaning to nitpick but the schrodinger thought experiment was a hypothetical situation used to attempt to disprove quantum supposition.
he believed the experiment to be ridiculous enough to illustrate the flaws in the theory.
August 8th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
[...] physics people and sometimes it can make my brain cramp up, or as the folks at Cracked like to say, this is stuff to make your head explode. Why worry? It’s all fine somewhere. So fine, in fact, that someone should rap about it — [...]
August 8th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
For some reason this is the funniest image ever to me right now.
Also might be fuckin brilliant ad campaign for Sunkist…
Quote: “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.”
August 8th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
I thought Gladstone had to give Swaim a blowjob for 200 and Swaim “receives” anal for 300.
August 8th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
[...] κοιτάξτε 5 Scientific Theories That Will Make Your Head Explode (από το cracked.com) και γελάστε ή τρομάξτε.Good summer night to all of [...]
August 8th, 2008 at 11:38 am
Unless I’m wrong the Schrodinger’s Cat thing was a thought experiment meant to prove how stupid the idea of the whole “things become a wavelength of probability” was.
August 8th, 2008 at 11:32 am
[...] you click the link to the article, be warned that as this is cracked.com the language is a bit coarse and the pictures are a bit [...]
August 8th, 2008 at 11:25 am
300 comments! Swaim gets a blowjob again!
August 8th, 2008 at 11:22 am
[...] from: 5 Scientific Theories That Will Make Your Head Explode | Cracked.com) This is the famous Hubble Ultra Deep Field image, the most massive photo ever taken: Right [...]
August 8th, 2008 at 11:19 am
How about the 11 dimensional string theory involving ‘Branes’? Talk about drool factor of 1000! The theory is that our universe is one of many universes existing in one of the dimensions (multiverse). It is an offshoot of string theory. Now I’m going to mix my metaphysics a bit. What if our existence (everything in the universe) is simply a holographic projection of the interactions between branes in that metaverse? The strings being simply the intersection point of another brane on the ’skin’ of our brane? Our existence is the result of multiverse branes bumping and grinding together! Another thought is that any point in our universe is right next to any other point through one of the other dimensions (not sure which one though). Talk about faster than light travel!!!
August 8th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Not all of them are completely theoretical. For instance, the Quantum Entanglement theory is currently being used as a means of communication for field units. There are two wonderful advantages to this; first, since you’re not relying on some form of EM signal, you have no signal that can be traced back to the originator. Second, the transmission time is instantaneous, so there’s no lag time. Third, there’s a limited bit of security on the line–you have to have a receiver with electrons paired to the transmitter.
August 8th, 2008 at 10:51 am
mitochondria = midichlorians?
August 8th, 2008 at 10:18 am
“This is the way the world ends- Not with a whimper, but with a bang” LHC will start in Sept, or Crap People will come out of it..
August 8th, 2008 at 10:10 am
Aren’t all of these theories put to paper by scientists that are googly-eyed insane and drunk on theory?
Yet I buy into some of it… then start drooling and become paranoid like a first-time pot smoker…
August 8th, 2008 at 10:07 am
An orgasm of science and sarcasm! You have just gained a fan… or a stalker, we’ll see.
August 8th, 2008 at 10:05 am
I guess I’m just a simpleton because I’m still stuck on milli vanili’s perfect lip syncing preformances. Now that you’ve gone all Men and Black 3 on me, my head is spinning and my xanax prescription needs to be filled. http://www.onblastatlast.com has a few story’s that almost made me pee pee in my pants, very funny.
Hyde D Montage
August 8th, 2008 at 8:54 am
[...] in point, the article “5 Scientific Theories That Will Make Your Head Explode”. It’s written so that any schmuck can understand it. And I love it when people can [...]
August 8th, 2008 at 8:39 am
Given the computational theory of mind, Godel’s infinitely self referencing theorem, and external Darwinistic processes as a structuring medium - and thereby considering the brain as an infinite simulation device that also simulates itself ad infinitum in order to, with increasingly self determinative capacities, realize itself through ongoing events of a larger environment; wouldn’t merely thinking about possible events in other universes come to constitute a form of observing them as such?
In other words, consciousness is both the limiter and generator of parallel universes.
or is this bullshit??
August 8th, 2008 at 8:31 am
You know I have rigged up boxes with cats and poison gas all the time, and I have to say Shrodinger is wrong. The cat always dies, you just have to hit the button a couple of times.
August 8th, 2008 at 8:24 am
[...] moment of birth, just disposable donors here to fuel the everlasting fire of womanhood.” [follow LINK for the other 4 [...]
August 8th, 2008 at 8:15 am
Good job Swaim. Probably the most mind-blowing article I’ve read here since Wong’s ‘Monkeysphere’ piece.
August 8th, 2008 at 8:09 am
Mama Mia, Thatsa spicy meataball!
August 8th, 2008 at 7:56 am
Great article, and mostly correct. However, I feel compelled to point out that NO INFORMATION WHATSOEVER can in fact be TRANSMITTED using quantum entanglement. By performing a measurement you might affect another measurement 10 lightyears away, but there’s no way for you to transmit that information to the other party (that would take 10 years) before they do the other measurement by themselves. In other words, you transmitted no NEW information.
August 8th, 2008 at 7:54 am
That is truly “batshit fucking insane!”
August 8th, 2008 at 7:49 am
@taltamir,
Yeah, of course. Neither quantum entanglement nor the Copenhagen interpretation have experimental facts behind them (I am being ironic). Anton Heilinger has done experiments with that quantum entanglement, using electrons separated miles away. The Copenhagen interpretation is supported by all the experiments done so far. Most people think that it states that particles are everywhere if you don’t look, but IT DOESN’T! This is a consequence of experiments regarding quantum entanglement, since that spooky action-at-a-distance, exists. If experimenting is not scientific, what is?
I must remind you all theoretical physicists who were right in some way were treated like assholes: Newton, Laplace, Maxwell, Einstein, Heisenberg, etc. You’re doing the same with our nowadays theoretical physicists. ¡Bravo, señor!
August 8th, 2008 at 7:06 am
Also, if the multiple worlds was true, it would not mean their were infinite worlds. Everyone who lives, does so for only a period of time. There can only be a finite number of possibilites within a finite amount of time. There have been a finite number of living things on this planet, on the finite amount of time since the begining of the universe. The universe is mind fuckingly large, but finite in space as well. So within a finite amount of years the universe will come to an end, and then there can be no more options. Therefore I propose that there is only a fininte amound of possible universes (albeit rediculously huge number)
August 8th, 2008 at 6:33 am
In one universe I’m fonzy
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH ! ! !
August 8th, 2008 at 6:19 am
» 5 Scientific Theories That Will Make Your Head Explode | Cracked.com…
Nagyon érdekes….
August 8th, 2008 at 6:17 am
Technically, the universes should only diverge where the outcome is a matter of quantum probability. Human decisions, macro-scale movement of objects etc. are all deterministic events (if you posess the necessary information and understanding) and not matters of probability.
August 8th, 2008 at 6:15 am
The book Timeline by Micheal Crichton uses the many worlds theory and the copenhagen interpetation to explain time travel (which is ultimately travel through alternate universes). Its an amazing book if you ever get the chance to read it
August 8th, 2008 at 5:41 am
There is science, done by scientists. And then there is theoretical physics, which is people who went through college, got a degree, and are now making random things up without any basis on reality, kinda like the 4 element theories (which kinda fell apart when you realized that you can’t make a philosopher stone because elementals don’t exist).
Well, the evolution and the big universe one are actually real science. I was referring to the other three.
August 8th, 2008 at 4:57 am
I’m absolutely shocked that Einstein http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_relativity isn’t included!
Surely that is the absolutely most severe brain-fuck you can ever imagine… I have a feeling it’s not on the list as it’s too difficult to understand for the average person. But even if you can just get a weak understanding of Special Relativity, and then you might be able to get a tiny bit of understanding the General Relativity… It just messes with your head beyond anything else!
But anyway, good article boys
August 8th, 2008 at 4:26 am
or years I have been saying that Time, Space and Matter do not really exist. They are merely illusions provided by God for us to live in during our lives.
August 8th, 2008 at 4:26 am
[...] 5 Scientific Theories That Will Make Your Head Explode (via Cracked): I have always been a huge science/mathematics/logic buff and I have this bizarre addiction to reading about science my brain is totally incapable of comprehending. I have read all five theories that are listed here before but I have never heard the famous “Double Slit Experiment” described so gracefully: The Double Slit Experiment shows that an electron, fired at a wall with two slits in it, will 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. [...]
August 8th, 2008 at 4:14 am
[...] Site.. Check it out when you’re really jobless.. And the article about Clearly Confusing Scientific Theories is a must [...]
August 8th, 2008 at 3:52 am
These scientists should go make a cure for cancer or some shit. You’ve got to be fuckin’ shittin’ me, but all in all a good article =]. Read the rest of these comments they’re as crazy as these blow-me fucken theories.
August 8th, 2008 at 3:49 am
At CoolWeasel: Please leave your preconceptions at the door. I, nor anyone with a firm grip on reality, can begin to imagine what other people think besides what they say and do. To generalize and act like you know the deep-seated mental, spiritual, and political ideologies of anyone without actually conversing, at length, on said ideologies exposes YOUR ignorance. If that doesn’t make sense to you, please ask your mother or a coworker to explain it. Then, tell your friends.
August 8th, 2008 at 3:23 am
Even better is the thought that everything is somehow connected. Including all these theories.
August 8th, 2008 at 3:13 am
Wow great articel guys. Now Im going to go outside and explode from amazement, confident in the fact that due to Quantum entaglement some other random bunch of matter will also be exploding, somewhere
August 8th, 2008 at 3:03 am
The Theory of Evolution is not originally about microevolution, which is what most people try to say it is now, it was mostly about what is called macroevolution and Darwin was completely wrong about that. Gregor Mendel completely disproved his theory. Microevolution is pretty much proven in a natural selection standpoint, but completely fails when trying to say that millions of years ago I was a fish that became retarded and somehow managed to pass on it’s genes, that are most likely recessive, to another fish and then the breeding process continued ad infinitum, until these fish can no longer breed with each other. This is also helped along by the existence of millions upon millions of transition species fossils… Oh wait, there are actually about 1 divided by infinty (zero… actually I really don’t like or believe in ifinity in a mathematical concept, mostly because I think that it is ridiculous and not pretinent for me to learn in this gigantic waste of time and money that is the American Collegiate system) transition species fossils.
Not only that, but people just seem to blindly accept evolution without, as with most things, really thinking about how it could actually work. Billions of years ago the sun was larger than it is now and much less stable (flares and other star-things I can’t think of right now), both of these factors are not good for Earth. Add onto that the fact that the atmosphere, if not completely some kind of poison, had very, very little oxygen, it was mostly carbon dioxide (basically poison). To try and tell me with a straight face that bubbles eventually started photosynthesizing and made oxygen and then eventually turned into the previously mentioned fish, while the sun was cooling and the Earth somehow started making water too, I would consider them to be insane.
Basically evolution has no absolute proof, and there are many things that challenge it. And anyone who believes evolution and calls those who have faith in something else simple-minded, are hypocrites.
But at least Cracked and many people who comment on the articles are closed-minded liberal pieces of garbage who get kicks and giggles out of pretending that they are absolutely right and people in the south and anybody who believes in God/a god are retarded. Regardless, we will all find out when we die… in about 50 years… in what I’m going to go ahead and guess will be an awesome a mix of “The Road Warrior”, “Terminator”, and a few bits and pieces from Orson Scott Card books.
Oh and Obama is the Antichrist, jk… I hope.
August 8th, 2008 at 2:37 am
Believe in Jesus.
LOL.
August 8th, 2008 at 2:23 am
You left out all the better theories from http://www.NeilsNotes.com
August 8th, 2008 at 2:12 am
“kingmonkey +1″ doesn’t know the definition of “theory” or “observer”, which ironically makes them the arrogant one!
When the alive/dead cat is “observer”, it isn’t by a human being (making us the center of reality), it is observed by the photons that bounce off it and possibly end in our eyes. The whole theory operates independent of your incorrect definition of what an “observer” is.
August 8th, 2008 at 2:01 am
jeez, thanks swaim, now i dont gots a head
although i must admit the article david wong wrote about Heisenberg and his theory that everything that happens was meant to and that free will is simply an illusion, some side effect of chemical reactions in the brain, that destroyed my first 2 heads in one almighty Kablamo! now i have to go and get another head, thats the 3rd time you have done this to me cracked, in some alternate universe i am hunting your asses down with a meat cleaver
…and in another universe its a cheese doodle
August 8th, 2008 at 1:58 am
Insightful, informative, cerebral, nut-bustingly hilarious, properly fucked shit. Congrats ya’ll. I’m an ex-sideways-glancing-theoretical-physics junkie, and your article perfectly articulated the art of… well shit, I don’t know. I don’t think there’s a term for the sweet beats you be droppin’.
Loved the Richard “Bongwater” Feynman bit. And to the dude that got offended by that: do you in fact believe Feynman, THE “Surely You’re Joking, I can’t believe he did that with a government supercomputer in Los Alamos” Feynman would be offended by that, or is it merely your precious image of the great man that has been forever tarnished?
Oh, and the universe is totally, like, big and stuff. But I don’t feel any smaller… strange that being aware of that doesn’t make me any smaller… it’s because no matter what we learn or think or evidential cypher out of shit, our perspective always remains the same, inevitably, irrevocably, we are who we are to the bitter end. Happy birthday? No such thing…
August 8th, 2008 at 1:51 am
Fascinating.
August 8th, 2008 at 1:43 am
The above said theories of advanced physics and astro physics will ultimately make anyone a philosopher. In India centuries back they called their philosophies as Vedanta mean end of science. Advaita philosophy says that you are the creator and all the things you see are your creation.
August 8th, 2008 at 1:35 am
love the Douglas Adams referance
August 8th, 2008 at 1:13 am
Thanks a lot .. gotta be the best article I have read ever on the net..
August 8th, 2008 at 1:11 am
It would be nice if you didn’t cop your Double-slit experiment shit from rotten.com’s library http://www.rotten.com/library look under religion/quantum physics
August 8th, 2008 at 1:07 am
Incredibly written article! I was aware of all the mentioned theories but the rethoric of the article made it a pleasure (and fun to read)…. CTRL+D ed it!!!
August 8th, 2008 at 1:05 am
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August 8th, 2008 at 1:00 am
@Lala: I dont peticularly subsribe to the MW theory, but I still don’t see how that would make God powerless? For the sake of the argument, is it possible that He understands what an action in one existance would do for another, for all existances? And the effects of the action in one would cause changes in the other, therefore having an effect showing power? Supposing that God is omnicient (all knowing) and what I call omni-always (in all times at all times) he constructs how he acts in one universe to cause the changes he wants in another? I just don’t see how one is mutualy excluseive to the other.
This argument is absurd at best, for one the universe (and possibly the multiverse) is to vast to wrap our minds around, and two God is to infinite to wrap our minds around.
Talking about quantum physics is like danceing about arcitechure.
August 8th, 2008 at 12:54 am
God made all of it
August 8th, 2008 at 12:50 am
I guess on some other universes I understand this.
August 8th, 2008 at 12:47 am
Awesome article =)
August 8th, 2008 at 12:43 am
Best. Cracked. Article. Ever.
’scuse me while I wipe my bleeding nose.
August 8th, 2008 at 12:31 am
im not just a cracked reader! i also happen to know everything about the cosmos because of my extensive research and understandings of complex scientific theorums!
revel in my greatness! ahh the cleverness of me!
i swear i only SEEM like a loser in real life. im really a genius.
swears.
August 8th, 2008 at 12:21 am
I’m getting a headache. I’m outta here!
August 8th, 2008 at 12:20 am
So… how long do I have to stare at the thousands of galaxies displayed in that Hubble picture before I see God’s plan?
August 8th, 2008 at 12:19 am
So…. in another universe, does the Copenhagen Interpretation exist?
August 8th, 2008 at 12:01 am
The fun little mind-blowing nugget from Stepen Hawking is that if the Universe is infinite, and stretches infinitely in all directions, then wherever you are is the center of the Universe.
Gotta love that Señor Gladstone.
August 7th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
If I brush my teeth in this dimension, will a kitten die in another?
August 7th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
what about george bush how do you explain that? and whats on tv tonight anyway
August 7th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
this is bull shit. the universe moves out. not in. ” furniture moving” when you are not around.., it seems to be it the same place when i get home.
now the string theory… that’s different
anyone care to comment?
August 7th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
AUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH
August 7th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
Looks like the Virtual Adepts were spot on with their whole “Correspondence Point” thing :-/
MtA FTW!
August 7th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Hot damn, my writing sure is fast turning into shit. Oh well.
August 7th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
On the issue of us being just a dream or a complex simulation, I have to say I think it’s possible. Cogito ergo sum only applies iin the conext of logic, which in turn is something the universality of which we can’t for obvious reasons prove. Besides, even if logic as we understand it does apply, there’s no reason that couldn’t be part of the illusion, as well, and outside the illusion a whole different ruleset exists.
Time travel, on the other hand, is a whole different bag of poatoes. Alien simulations aside, even tho physicists may be willing to accept some pretty counter-intuitive stuff (as the article aptly proves), most all draw the line on breaching causality, which is the immediate consequence of time travel. Even tho general relativity gives rise to the possibility of time travel, the scientific community at large writes this off as a fault in the theory or our interpretation of it, or thinks there exists some so-far unknown factor that will in practice make time travel impossible.
August 7th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
Hah! Proves why we women only keep men around for pleasure. We could just keep you locked up and only bring you out when we feel like it. Of course, I’m sure many of you would like that.
in52, “A Little Princess” was the FIRST thing that sprang to my mind. And I was also raised Catholic and feel the same about God v. science. You’re an awesome gal.
August 7th, 2008 at 11:13 pm
Yes, Zombiecharro, but there’s also a universe out there where you did her, but she was really a transvestite named Mel that gave you the clap, sooooo… nice job on that.
August 7th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
Props to BearMan for bringing in scissoring into a discussion on grand scientific theories.
August 7th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
[...] Read here. No Comments, Comment or Ping [...]
August 7th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
[...] mind-boggling that I can’t find any other reasons why it should not be brought up at a party! Read here. No [...]
August 7th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
@mcchickenflakestoast: That still isn’t technically sexual reproduction, since there is no actual fusion of DNA from both parents. The offspring are clones, so the reproduction isn’t truly sexual. However, I don’t know much else about these lizards other than what I read from the Cracked article you link, but if the offspring are clones, it’s not a truly sexual reproduction. But I guess it does count as lesbian sex. Do they scissor or what?
August 7th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
Those images are scary!
August 7th, 2008 at 10:58 pm
@ R B
“You know why time travel is impossible?
Because, no one from the future has visited us yet! Sorry to bust your bubble”
How do you know this?
@ thahellmouth
“It’s impossible that we are a hollogram or an alien’s video game, if that were possible we would not be self aware.”
Again how do you know this?
August 7th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
It’s impossible that we are a hollogram or an alien’s video game, if that were possible we would not be self aware.
August 7th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
You know why time travel is impossible?
Because, no one from the future has visited us yet! Sorry to bust your bubble.
August 7th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
I saw a great documentary ‘Parallel World, Parallel lives’ about the Many worlds theory that was put together by Mr of The Eels. Apparently his dad Hugh Everett is the dude who came up with the theory. However he was shunned by his peers of the day who held onto the Copenhagen Interpretation.
August 7th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
@ SpecialSteve
Well, there’s wormholes and wormholes. The ones that’d be of most interest, namely the kind you can travel thru without being utterly destroyed in the process, are the ones hardest to construct. Most wormholes you run into in the context of general relativity are the kind that connect our region of spacetime (in practice, our entire Universe) to other, topologically similar but disconnected regions of spacetime. Charged and/or rotating black holes give rise to infinite number of such regions, connected to each other by infinite amount of wormholes.
No one really knows what to make of these supposed other regions of spacetime, or other counter-intuitive weirdness GR gives rise to (such as rotating black holes enabling de facto timetravel). Some regard them as mathematical misunderstandings, while some hold they are produced by fault in the theory itself, while a few hold that there in fact are infinite amount of other Universes. Personally, I tend to think we’re taking the theory too far beyond its proven limits, and wormholes and the like are a result of the incompleteness of the theory.
@ agenteighty
I’ve got to ask, even tho it kinda has “bad idea” written on it with neon-lit letters… “boring riposte”? Isn’t that a bit of an oxymoron? :O
August 7th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
So what are you all sayin’? Is there a spoon or isn’t there?
August 7th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
I fucking love this. I’ve read up on almost all of these theories and experiments (except the one about infinite dimensions), and have found them so fucking mind blowing that I’ve explained them to my friends in the same fashion. Great stuff. I can’t wait until we can build a giant fucking telescope on the moon and look around the universe even more.
August 7th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
WOW.
man… this is crazy.
lol.
my head didn’t explode, but still…
wow.
August 7th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Sarah Tonnin, you need to realize that consciousness has 2 components (at least) - The soul, the psyche, etc is the 1st element and reality or the perception therof is the 2nd element.
Essentially a receiver and a program to be received, ie a radio and a song.
Atop or entwined in the consciousness is the character or personality, this defines how one reacts to a given set of stimuli.
Is it this that we perceive as the soul, or is this merely a filter that modifies the soul to make it more or less perceptive to certain elements of its environment?
Reality is our interpretation of our surroundings based on a set of sensory samples that are set at a very high sample rate. as well as a perception engine that interprets these incoming samples and assigns values and priorities, so that we don’t fall over when we chew gum and walk at the same time.
Amazing these tasks are mostly handled by chemical reactions and are scalable so that they work well on a range of lifeforms from the size of a flea, to the size of me. And we are recylable, as we are mostly made of dead stars and water.
In an infinite universe the only thing we seem to be short on is curiousity.
August 7th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
(MICHE not Iche. Apologies.)
August 7th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
Tony Schlub: ‘cuz you get mitochrondria from your mother, so it’s only traceable up the maternal line.
Gemini iche: what asshole? Nonetheless, thanks for your support.
And as a bonus: common descent =/= genetic bottleneck (something that took me ages to figure out). It does not mean that there’s anything particularly unique about the common ancestor. It just so happens that it’s the most recent ancestor who’s lucky enough to have all her progeny survive, and at that time there were thousands (if not millions) of the same species that were equally uninteresting.
Like everything else related to evolution, it’s the counterfactual that’s actually harder to swallow. No common ancestor would mean that there are at least two human beings out there whose evolutionary ancestry traces back to the beginning of life without intersection, and it just so happens that these ancestors undertook convergent evolution to the point of being able to have sex with each other despite not sharing any common descent.
August 7th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
I no longer have a head.
But where are the Wormholes? Those are pretty mind blowing.
In physics, a wormhole is a hypothetical topological feature of spacetime that is basically a ’shortcut’ through space and time. A wormhole has at least two mouths which are connected to a single throat or tube. (Just think of space and time as a flat piece of paper. You are currently residing at the header of the page, and where you want to go is at the footer. To get there you would have to walk all the way down the page. But with a wormhole all you have to do is bend the piece of paper so that the header touches the footer, and then just step over.)If the wormhole is traversable, matter can ‘travel’ from one mouth to the other by passing through the throat. While there is no observational evidence for wormholes, spacetimes-containing wormholes are known to be valid solutions in general relativity.
August 7th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
@Metalbrainsurgery: Well, if that were the case, he would exist within the same universe.
August 7th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
@Gemini Miche: Not everyone has a blog you know.
August 7th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Wtf this was such a waste of time
just by putting retarded irrelevant pictures does not give a readable article
August 7th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
” CDinJapan Says:
August 7th, 2008 at 7:20 am
What does Jesus think of all this?”
Well guys, I hate to sound cliche…
but…
42.
August 7th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
And here we are in the one universe where Carrot Top is a fully ripped muscleman. Proof of the Many Worlds Theory fo sho.
August 7th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
I think I just pood a little.
…and, dispite the grand scheme of things, it still stinks
August 7th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
Damn you, Bob Feeney!
August 7th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
@negative_creep, mcchickenflakestoast, kingmonkey+1, Metalbrainsurgery, seratonin, kelvin: *unabashedly adding u guys to my friends list*
@Real Pysi-sissy: Did u drink the water out the of bong again? OMG, shut the hell up.
@Bearman, no link? Shy?
@Kelvin: what asshole?
@everyone else, thanks for a stimulating, insulting, depressing, inspiring read.
*scrapes brains off wall, uses to make bloody mary, heavy vodka*
everything makes more sense now.
August 7th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
Bloody hell…
This reminds me why i’ve felt insignificant since i loaned a physics book from the library. lol
August 7th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Hemingway has only one m.
August 7th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
“Wow, lots of comments.”
Wow, lots of pointless bitching too.
August 7th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Wow, lots of comments.
In case someone hasn’t said this already: this article was fucking awful. Did you learn physics from reading Omni?
August 7th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Effort to dispel # 2:
Dark matter just means “matter we haven’t seen yet that must be there to prevent the known universe from exploding”
Dark energy just means “energy that we haven’t seen yet that must be there to drive the universe to be constantly exploding”
“dark matter” and “dark energy” are voodoo used by scientists to explain why their theories don’t reflect reality.
August 7th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
awesome article, swaim. hilarious and incredibly interesting- similar to what david wong used to write. what happened to that old chap, anyways?
August 7th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
[...] The article: http://www.cracked.com/blog/2008/08/07/5-scientific-theories-head-explode/ [...]
August 7th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
great, interesting article. the whole observable universe=quarter/rest of universe=earth theory is pretty fucking crazy.
August 7th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
Science is fucking awesome. we should get more of it.
August 7th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
PS: A single extra dimension would constitute an “infinite number of universes” across all the other dimensions. Throw that out next time someone talks about infinite universes.
August 7th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
# Negative_Creep Says:
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”.
——————————————————————————————————–
Don’t worry Negative_Creep. No-one would have read your boring riposte after the first few lines anyway, so not only is there no need to proof read anything, there is even less need to be all humble and grown up and correct yourself.
With regards to the article, I love reading about these crazy theories and stretching my mind a little bit. The Hubble photograph is just incredible, I never get tired of looking at it. Its comforting to me to know that not only will I never know ‘The Truth’ but that one day we will all be reduced to our constituent atoms and be blasting through Space for ETERNITY. Its going to be brilliant good fun.
August 7th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Hey Surgemix,
I don’t know whether this was covered in your textbooks but;
You are an ass-hole.
August 7th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
The Copenhagen Interpretation is a load of croc. What happens is that they’re firing a photon at the electron immediately before it goes through the slit, collapsing the wave. There is no other way to observe something except by affecting it. They know this happens because it’s the “quantum” behind “quantum mechanics”. That’s why observing it affects it, not because there are an infinite number of universes or because of probability cloud bullshit.
Every time waves interact, they collapse, quantize, become discrete, digitize, whatever - then they interact - then they carry on being waves.
If it were a probability cloud, a single electron wouldn’t create a ripple effect when fired through unobserved.
The question to me is why shit does this quantification. It’s like it’s being run through an Analog Digital Converter every time two (limit) variable numbers get any math done on them.
(think think think)
August 7th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
Or maybe I read that correctly after all…
fuck it, my mind isn’t working too well right now. I’m off.
August 7th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
oops, misread that as two DIFFERENT genders. Damn me and my adding words that don’t exist!
August 7th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
“You are also correct that for reproduction to be sexual, it must be between two genders. Lala hasn’t a clue.”
Ever heard of the whiptail lizard?
Look, cracked did an article mentioning them too!
http://www.cracked.com/article_15926_p2.html
August 7th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
Time is a total mind fuck.
August 7th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
So…did anybody else get confused and just start counting which of their nipples had more hair?
FYI, Righty won by a ratio of almost 2:1.
August 7th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
That’s not an actual picture of Richard Feynman and if you read any of his work, you’d know better than to use his name in that context.
Next time, try doing some research on some of the guys you purportedly know about instead of doing a google search for “physicists.”
Dicks.
August 7th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
hisownspace and to anyone else who may apply: Just because it is common knowledge that the universe is big and evolution occurred does not make it any less fascinating and, yes, even MIND-BLOWING, when we actually step back to think about it. Let those of us who possess the qualities of being human engage our imaginations at these implications, as “irrelevant” as they may be, while you and the rest of your ilk kindly bugger off with your soul-destroying selves elsewhere, kthxbye.
August 7th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
@ Kylink
Madness?! This is SPARTA!
Sorry, couldn’t resist. ^^;
August 7th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
@ Metalbrainsurgery
I think you misunderstand.
God is defined as omnipotent (all-powerfull).
If God is omnipotent then God would be able to control all of reality (and all of the alternative realities).
If MW theory is correct then that means there are infinite versions of reality infinite times.
In MW theory if God ever produced a change in one reality, there would allways be another reality where the change never occurred. Thus God is powerless to change anything, he can only have a power of a subset of infinity.
If God tries to make the infinite, finite (say by making sure all murders goto Hell in every reality), then MW theory doesn’t hold true anymore.
So it’s either MW theory is true and it’s impossible for God to exist.
OR
MW theory is not true and God may exist.
August 7th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
L-Links? Cracked.com actually put links at the bottom of the page? Kill me now, god. This isn’t reality…this is some sort of madness!
August 7th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
I feel like I just did some really good drugs.
August 7th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
First: Evolution isn’t a theory. The theory of evolution is about how evolution occurred - not if it occurred. We have proven that to the scientific standards that all other scientific laws are upheld to.
Second: The Copenhagen Interpretation is not exactly depicted correctly in the image, as the waveform of protons is collapsed when they’re observed - as evident by the scientist watching it (before having his mind blown, apparently - even though I, myself not being any close to being a scientist, quite easily accept the idea that things can have different states depending if they’re being observed or not).
Third and last: Time travel in the sense mentioned in this article is, quite likely, wrong. Assuming we live in a multi-layered universe, traveling in time is actually a case of traveling to a different layer where the time flow (eg. rate of entropy) is either slower, faster or started at a different time compared to ours. Think of it as the ever-expanding string of choices system where each time there’s a choice between two things happening - all happen, but lead in different directions.
That is all, class is concluded.
August 7th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
as much as i hate you swaim (see the comic-con comments by “deimudda” as proof for that),
this article seriously R-A-W-K-E-D!!
accept my humble apologies please!
August 7th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
@ Seriously?
Well, I HAVE been studying this stuff for 5 years now, so I’d hope to have some grasp of it by now. Or: lol wut?
Anyways, too much new stuff to comment on. Someone mentioned that quantum entanglement doesn’t enable FTL communications, tho, and this is true; While local realism doesn’t apply to quantum mechanics, the no-cloning theorem gives rise to a no-information theorem: No meaningful data can transmitted faster than light. This is basically because you don’t have control over which pure state the entangled state collapses into upon measurement, so the data the two parties share is ultimately random. Furthermore, the measurements by one party give no indication whatsoever as to whether the other party has completed their measurements, whether the entaglement was preserved or if the complimentary particle ever even reached the other party.
Novel ways to practical make use of quantum teleportation have, however, been developed. One form of quantum encryption, for example, makes use of the inherent randomness of the data shared and uses QT to securely share an encryption key between two parties. Of course, the protocol is derived from classical QM, which is known to be an incomplete (or at least inaccurate) theory, but so far experiments seem to fall in line with the theory beautifully. If no theoretical breach is found (which certainly isn’t written in stone), quantum cryptography could potentially provide perfect security in data transfers. ^^
(Sorry for the weird English… I just woke up, and it’s not my native language, to begin with. :P)
August 7th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
The universe may be infinite, but the chance of us meeting alien life is gradually diminishing; Galactus is steadily devouring many inhabited worlds. It’s sad, really.
August 7th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Buckaroo Banzai knows the truth!
August 7th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
@BearMan:
Normaly I would agree with you but for the sake of debate, Imagine that there is another dimention that encompases all dementions, that only an truly infinite being can travel through. So that he can exist in all times, in all places, in all realities.
Its basicly like a 3d being working with a 2d world, only more like a 10d being working with a 9d world. If that makes any sence.
August 7th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Why is there a Mitochondrial Eve but no Mitochondrial Adam, is she a whore or something?
August 7th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
tl;dr
August 7th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
You are also correct that for reproduction to be sexual, it must be between two genders. Lala hasn’t a clue.
August 7th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
@Metalbrainsurgery: I agree that Lala’s attempt to disprove God falls flat. However, if God were to exist outside of the universe, there would be no way of God being able to influence it or even create it. In order for an object to influence another object, they must exist within the same universe.
August 7th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Ok, so what you’re telling me is that as long as my girlfriend never observers me screwing my ex, then in her universe it hasn’t happened? Excuse me I a have some guilt free sex to arrange…
August 7th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
@Seratonin: Well, I don’t think it is very definitive. Because the basis of the theory is the assumption that consciousness is merely a product of the brain and body itself. But there really is no proof that describes the origin of consciousness. The cause and effect relationship between brain chemistry and mood/thought is largely not understood.
Take depression for example. It is determined by neurotransmitters - like a serotonin or serotonin receptor deficiency, but research has also shown that the longer a mind stays in a depressed state, the more serotonin receptors it will lose over time. Neurological pathways in the brain are constantly changing throughout your lifetime. Pathways that are more often utilized are strengthened, and those not utilized are weakened. Simply put, if a mind is constantly depressed, over time the “happy” pathways will degenerate since they are not being used. Do not take this as saying depression is the victim’s fault, because it is certainly not. So, in essence, conscious thought can in turn alter brain chemistry/structure. It is precisely what happens in successful psychotherapy without the use of drugs. Additionally, meditation - when practiced diligently and properly - can alter the physiology of the body as well. This is also well documented.
As for my personal belief of the theory, I like to think that free will does exist (though there would be absolutely no way to prove it). Because of this, I think that because of consciousness, not everything in the universe is necessarily predetermined. A conscious decision, like a particle, I think exists as a probability of outcomes and is not necessarily predetermined.
August 7th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Wow… so, im basically nothing in the universe… thats interesting. Great article! And good idea with all the screenshots of Scanners!
August 7th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
@all of you
-all just theories; thought provoking, and fun, but only valid until disproved. so what’s with all the passion about so much 21st Century mumbo-jumbo. relatively speaking, non of yous have a clue
peace, out
August 7th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
@ Seriously?
Yeah, because everyone knows that every single person in the entire world is obsessed with sex, and they become smart only to impress chicks.
Wow. That’s depressing… just that you’d think all guys do is to impress women. It is also worrying how you think anyone smarter than you is repulsive and a social reject.
But there’s always the chance that you were kidding, in which case, never mind.
August 7th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
What the hell? I already knew all this stuff, and I’m an idiot. And the Quantum Entanglements thing is still useless until we can gain a practical understanding of the factors that cause the “direction” of both electrons - understand the constant state of flux that is behind the random chance in Schroedingers at Thought experiment.
August 7th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
@ Negative Creep
You have no idea what the f**k you’re talking about, do you?
Too bad there aren’t any “chicks” to read what you’ve typed that could “totally bang you” because of your “knowledge.”
Get out of your parent’s basement. Work on some of that personal hygiene. And most of all, get a life.
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 have anything to do with the eating habbits of people from across the universe? Secondly the bible does not condem eating shellfish. it was part of the levitical law, mostly due to the fact that shell fish were unsafe to eat at the time.
And creating a bible for every world? Why is that implauseable? I’d immagine for a God who existed outside of time and who created all things in existance, writing a bible for each world would be relitively easy.
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 4:24 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 4:23 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 4:21 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 4:13 pm
im terribly disapointed that no sexual jokes jokes were made about the double slit experiment.
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 4:06 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 4:06 pm
This article reminds me of “The End of Mr. Y”, a book everyone should read because it’s awesome.
August 7th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
What, no double entendres about the Double-Slit Experiment?
You’ve changed, man… you’ve changed.
August 7th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
oops..I forgot the space in far fetched…my bad
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 3:55 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 3:53 pm
[...] http://www.cracked.com/blog/2008/08/07/5-scientific-theories-head-explode/ [...]
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 3:48 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 3:40 pm
As Arthur Dent thought the morning before he was confronted with the infinite and strangeness of the universe…
Yellow.
August 7th, 2008 at 3:30 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 3:28 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 3:27 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 3:26 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 3:22 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 3:22 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 3:20 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 3:16 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 3:16 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 3:14 pm
GREAT article. I love this type of stuff, and I thought it was really funny.
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 3:09 pm
Digital watches blow my mind.
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 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 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 2:53 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 2:52 pm
…its things like this that make me love being a physicist!
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 2:43 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 2:40 pm
did anyone mention the penny project yet?
This one helps you understand “big”:
http://www.kokogiak.com/megapenny/
August 7th, 2008 at 2:37 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 2:33 pm
Also, you should tell that to all the fucktards who follow “The Secret” like it’s their damn bible.
August 7th, 2008 at 2:31 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 2:31 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 2:29 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 2:20 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 2:19 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 2:07 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 2:07 pm
This seems like something David Wong might write. Still hilarious and enlightening though.
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 1:47 pm
Read up on the Casmir effect. It’s fucking nuts.
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 1:39 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 1:39 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
And you retards that buy this shit, mock Christians for their beliefs.
Iz can haz Hipocrisy?
August 7th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
[...] Make yer head asplode. [...]
August 7th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
oh my god my head hurts
August 7th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
we’ll my day’s ruined
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
best. article. ever.
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 1:21 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 1:19 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 1:15 pm
It’s been said before, but the MWI is junk science.
String theory is dubious as well.
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 12:45 pm
I believe the right hand pictures are from the movie Scanners.
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 12:41 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 12:28 pm
One more question: Boobs?
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 12:21 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 12:20 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 12:19 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 12:19 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 12:14 pm
Douglas Adams: You finally make sense!!
Great article!
August 7th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
This is absolutely insane, one of the best articles on the site.
August 7th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
hey kingmonkey +1, did you get my email?
August 7th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Wow. I misspelled Intelligent! Holy Irony Batman!
August 7th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
I’m taking Physics this year…
*facepalm*
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
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 12:00 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 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 11:52 am
I’m glad I don’t kill insects!
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 11:45 am
Swaim you live in Socal now you can say “Disneyland”
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 11:39 am
Did you just say “mind bottling”?
August 7th, 2008 at 11:29 am
[...] Traduzido de: Cracked [...]
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 11:24 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 11:23 am
Great article.
What is the source of the pictures to the right of every article heading?
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 11:18 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 11:15 am
That Richard “Bongwater” Feynman photo was hilarious.
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 11:03 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 11:00 am
[...] From Cracked.com. [...]
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 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 10:43 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 10:35 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 10:31 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 10:30 am
“People think I’m smart ’cause I talk in a robot voice.”
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 10:24 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 10:23 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 10:20 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 10:20 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 10:16 am
I wanna know what movie those stills came from. Looks great.
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 10:04 am
Hmm. I should really read the damn article before commenting on the shiny photos . . .
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 10:01 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 10:00 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 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 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 9:56 am
Honestly, none of that blew my mind. All it did was give me a boner.
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 9:49 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 9:46 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 9:44 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 9:41 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 9:36 am
So there’s an universe where i score Angelina Jolie?….. awww yeah
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 9:16 am
hehe, brane! Good joke! I can use it on Danica McKellar in my dreams.
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 9:13 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 9:09 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 9:06 am
Oh, well, Negative_Creep has answered a lot better than I have. I was only focused on classical concepts.
August 7th, 2008 at 9:05 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 9:05 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 9:00 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 8:57 am
If only I existed in the universe where I was working instead of reading this…
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 8:52 am
Whoa, shit… This is one big mindfuck…
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 8:45 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 8:39 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 8:33 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 8:31 am
Eh, should take time to proofread what I write… oh well. Meant to write “it should NOT surprise us”.
August 7th, 2008 at 8:29 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 8:18 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 8:15 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 8:13 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 8:12 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 8:10 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 8:10 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 8:09 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 8:07 am
@ Bars, no that is Rosie O’Donell and her new haircut.
August 7th, 2008 at 8:02 am
“disposable donors here to fuel the everlasting fire of womanhood” - hell yes!
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 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 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 7:54 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 7:47 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 7:41 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 7:41 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
Good thing I’m related to Zaphod Beeblebrox. Otherwise that would have sent me over the edge.
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 7:40 am
Jesus Christ.
August 7th, 2008 at 7:39 am
Thank you, Mr. Swaim. One of the best articles on this website ever.
August 7th, 2008 at 7:35 am
Of all the people I could be related to, it had to be Hitler
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 7:27 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 7:25 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 7:24 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 7:23 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 7:20 am
What does Jesus think of all this?
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 7:15 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 7:14 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 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.