Mastodawn

I once told a friend of mine that I'm agnostic about quantum physics because we can't see it or feel it with our own senses and we have to use elaborate rituals conducted by a special class of people who say "we have the esoteric knowledge to interpret all of this" and that that's not that different than religious belief.

He got mad at me.

Emily Velasco Mar 17

I expect some people on here to get mad at me and explain to me that I can do a laser diffraction experiment at home or whatever

@MLE_online I think the standard comment would be more like 'gps doesn't work without it's

#selfFulfillingCommentary

Emily Velasco Mar 17

@furicle "If not for the lord in heaven, the sun would not rise each day"

Marcus Müller Mar 17

@MLE_online @furicle butbutbut :D
Unlike trying to take god away and seeing whether the sun still rises, we can test and every-day experience quantum physics!

Like, do solar cells work? OK, photovoltaic effect; that's quantum physics! Modify the material the solar cells are made of, and it stops working the same. You can test that!

Do LEDs work? yep! Can you test that their current rises exp.ally with voltage? Yep! Do blue LEDs have a higher forward voltage than red ones? Yes! bandgap! QP!

Marcus Müller Mar 17

@MLE_online @furicle while I agree it's hard to look inside what really makes an LED "tick" in an everyday scenario, how's that different from say, friction and lubricants in an engine? Microbes in the air? Aerodynamic lift making planes fly?

I think your friend might not have been right to get mad at you, but you were pretty off about QP.

@MLE_online @furicle I for one like my world illuminated by a mere ball of flaming gas.

Dave bauer Mar 17

@MLE_online I mean, if I was going to guess who would do a laser diffraction experiment at home, it wouldn't not be you.

Bob Jonkman Mar 18

I suspect that if anyone in the Fediverse can do a laser diffraction experiment at home it would be you.

CrankyOldBugger

@bobjonkman @MLE_online I think Bob just dared you.

Emily Velasco Mar 18

@crankyoldbugger @bobjonkman that's fine. I'm still not going to do it though

Steve Pomeroy Mar 17

@MLE_online perhaps a key difference between a religious belief and what you describe is that you *can* attain the understanding if you want to, following a method that's pretty rigorous. Of course that takes a whole lot of work on your part to get there.

But yeah, you hit on Clarke's, "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".

Emily Velasco Mar 17

@xxv That's what priests in 1080 AD would have said about their faith

@MLE_online I would probably not bet against a quantum physicist about the outcome of a quantum physics experiment, which I think means I couldn't possibly be entirely agnostic about quantum physics.

I've heard religion described as "Not even wrong." Quantum physics is at least falsifiable. Which is to say if you did study it, you could figure out if it was real. No amount of studying religion can help you figure out whether their gods are real though. If you haven't studied it though, you have no way to know that, and you're just taking my word for it, which isn't dissimilar to most people's notion of religion.

So basically you don't know that physics is more sensible, because you never checked. Which is fine, but it doesn't mean you can say quantum physics and religion are not all that different. It would be like me saying Milan and Istanbul are not all that different, when I've never been there.

💀 𝓕airchild 💀Mar 18

@MLE_online I hope it was a string theorist. They're my favorite to harangue.

Emily Velasco Mar 18

@tankgrrl no, he's just some guy who really likes physics, more than i realized at the time

💀 𝓕airchild 💀Mar 18

@MLE_online At my old job/position I enjoyed the botheration of making 'there are a lot of good physicists in this building, and also some string theorists' type comments.

Emily Velasco Mar 18

@tankgrrl they were probably so steamed

💀 𝓕airchild 💀Mar 18

@MLE_online They were physicists. Hard to tell. ;) Being a 'lowly engineer' it was still fun,.

Cassandra is only carbon now Mar 18

@tankgrrl @MLE_online Kicking string theorists is an evergreen hobby of theoretical physicists more generally, they're probably used to it by now. Doesn't mean it's not funny as hell to do, though.

💀 𝓕airchild 💀Mar 18

@xgranade @MLE_online 'Oh! Loop quantum gravity. Like on that Big Bang Theory show. You must love Sheldon.' 😈

Cassandra is only carbon now Mar 18

@tankgrrl @MLE_online Oh, the hate from that one is well-earned, heh.

Emily Velasco Mar 18

@tankgrrl @xgranade When I tell people where I work, they say that, too. They are always disappointed when I say I don't like that show