this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2025
1063 points (98.2% liked)
Science Memes
17229 readers
6749 users here now
Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!
A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
- Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
- Keep it rooted (on topic).
- No spam.
- Infographics welcome, get schooled.
This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
Research Committee
Other Mander Communities
Science and Research
Biology and Life Sciences
- !abiogenesis@mander.xyz
- !animal-behavior@mander.xyz
- !anthropology@mander.xyz
- !arachnology@mander.xyz
- !balconygardening@slrpnk.net
- !biodiversity@mander.xyz
- !biology@mander.xyz
- !biophysics@mander.xyz
- !botany@mander.xyz
- !ecology@mander.xyz
- !entomology@mander.xyz
- !fermentation@mander.xyz
- !herpetology@mander.xyz
- !houseplants@mander.xyz
- !medicine@mander.xyz
- !microscopy@mander.xyz
- !mycology@mander.xyz
- !nudibranchs@mander.xyz
- !nutrition@mander.xyz
- !palaeoecology@mander.xyz
- !palaeontology@mander.xyz
- !photosynthesis@mander.xyz
- !plantid@mander.xyz
- !plants@mander.xyz
- !reptiles and amphibians@mander.xyz
Physical Sciences
- !astronomy@mander.xyz
- !chemistry@mander.xyz
- !earthscience@mander.xyz
- !geography@mander.xyz
- !geospatial@mander.xyz
- !nuclear@mander.xyz
- !physics@mander.xyz
- !quantum-computing@mander.xyz
- !spectroscopy@mander.xyz
Humanities and Social Sciences
Practical and Applied Sciences
- !exercise-and sports-science@mander.xyz
- !gardening@mander.xyz
- !self sufficiency@mander.xyz
- !soilscience@slrpnk.net
- !terrariums@mander.xyz
- !timelapse@mander.xyz
Memes
Miscellaneous
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Both meters and seconds are units of Earth specific measures of space and time. Pretty sure at a cosmic scale god would give fuckall about how we measure and name our shit
If a god existed and gave a so much of a shit about our masturbatory habits he’d be at least tangentially aware of what the fuck a meter was.
collapsed inline media
For a second i thought you were calling the metric system masturbatory and then i remembered that christians really do think god watches them jork it. Kinky
There's a Family Guy episode referencing that.
It's neat to think about what units an alien civilization would come up with independently. Like the Plank Distance is fundamental to physics, so they'd probably have something for that.
Degrees Celsius is based on freezing and boiling point of water, so if they came up with a base 10 numbering system and water is key to their biology, then they'd probably come up with that.
A calorie is the energy needed to increase the temperature of 1L of water by 1C. A liter is a volume of a cube 0.1m on each side. The meter was originally ten-millionth of the distance between the equator and north pole (and subsequent redefinitions are based on that original measurement). They wouldn't come up with the meter, and they wouldn't come up with liters or calories, either.
Water’s boiling point and freezing point depends on the pressure of the local atmosphere unfortunately! But I like your logic.
Hopefully they'd come up with a better numbering system than base 10. Base 10 is the worst part of metric tbh.
Every base is base 10 dumdum
0, 1, 2, 10, 11, 12, 20, 21...
e: starting at 0 to not shame programmers.
That's true. It should really be referenced by the number before 10 (e.g. Base 9 for 0-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10).
Woah, I had never considered that. To think, all these years I was on the side of "initial index is 1." I've unknowingly been using "initial index is 0," since I started using numbers.
oh-my-god-i-get-it-now.jpeg
IMO it should be called "base 9+1". It is a "base 10" system because each order of magnitude is 10x as big as the previous one. But, the key thing is to know which digit is the last one before you roll over.
Is your issue with metric, or with the fact that everything in life uses a base 10 (which should really be called a base 9+1) system?
Waters boiling point isn't a constant though... it's dependent on the atmosphere.
Hell there's also no telling if our preference to base 10 is relative to our number of fingers so neither of those are givens.
Base 10 is also cultural. Babylon used 60, ancient Egypt had 12 (they counted on the bones in their fingers), Rome had 5, and my wife just spent 10 minutes arguing for 8
What were digits 10 to 59 like in Babylonian?
All maths is done in base 10.
Because of Al-Kwarazimi. Hindu-Arabic math is base 10 and Al-Kwarazimi developed a really good method for doing math as well as inventing algebra. Base 10 spread with his methods. It looks like the Chinese were also using base 10 as far back as during the Shang dynasty. Meanwhile Europeans and their cultural descendants still use base 5 for ceremonial purposes (yes, even in MMXXV)
As an engineer life would be easier if we all thought in base 12, for my wife as a computer scientist life would be easier if it was in 2^n. 10 is a really convenient sized number for arithmetic and algebra though. Babylon was insane i genuinely can't imagine trying to teach children the name and order of 60 digits to the point of instinctive mathematical understanding
No no, ALL MATHS is done in base 10.
K
You might enjoy the book Project Hail Mary if you haven’t read it!
Also "in a vacuum" would be assumed, since almost the entire universe is a vacuum.
i've just figured out how the religious universe ends. some physicist explains to their god that a lot of their assumptions were based on something being in a vacuum, and then their god says "what vacuum? you mean all that sparse hydrogen?" so the physicist says "let's find out what happens when you have a real vacuum" and then the universe ends at the speed of dumbassery.
Ah so THAT'S the resolution to the false vacuum hypothesis
Except all the gases and dust. What we know as space vacuum is not empty. Go to a great void for real vacuum.
Wait, maybe C would be 300'000 km/s there?
I think that is the joke of the posted image.
People always forget about the rest of the universe. Drives me nuts sometimes
Technically a second is an arbitrary measure of a proprty cesium133. Now, anyways