A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
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This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
Feynman actually did try to explain it, and could do the math and other work to show why magnets attract one another. Having watched the Todd in the Shadows video about Miracles, I kind of find the question wholesome - he's not asking out of willful ignorance, but rather that it's something he knows is beyond his grasp but amazes him (and wants to share that joy in the world with his kids and family).
Trump is just willfully ignorant and small-minded.
To everyone saying "Feynman did explain it" you're missing the point - his answer is that there isn't really an answer to why magnets attract; he never says in that interview that there is, other than that is how the universe works.
He can explain the precise way in which they attract each other, can explain what properties of materials give rise to magnetism, and so on, but this is all ultimately a description. The only way science can answer a "why" question is with a description of general behaviour that encompasses what is asked about, so: why do magnets attract, because of spins and magnetic fields and so on. But why do spins and magnetic fields cause the attraction? There is no known general behaviour that encompasses that behaviour, and if there were, it would be subject to the same questioning. Ultimately, all "why" questions reach an end.
Ultimately, all "why" questions reach an and.
I see you have not recently interacted with a toddler in the "why" phase.
Never discourage that phase, imagine if our population never grew out of questioning the world. Just don't be afraid to say "I don't know, maybe you will figure out why and can teach me someday."
I work with kids, including a bright little boy who told me that "Why?" is his favorite question. I explicitly tell him that I hope he never stops asking it. His questions challenge the depths of my knowledge and compel me to look up questions I never thought of before. I love it.
I call him my "little scientist." He's only 4 and he teaches my coworkers new things all the time. I feel so lucky to get to work with a little knowledge-sponge that's as curious as I am!
"Hmm, I'm not sure honey - why do you think metal stick to magnets? Maybe there are some books at the library we can read to find out more..."
I generally say things like "it's complicated, but let's see if we can find out.". Unfortunately when my daughter said "Why are your parents divorced," I had to leave it at "It's complicated." Basically, magnets.
"Sweetie, there's just no easy way to say it: your MeeMaw is an unrepentant cock goblin. Wait, I guess that was pretty easy, actually! Sleep well, pumpkin!"
But once again, those will explain how, not why.
The secret to this, which works on all children, mine included, is to turn it and ask them what they think. Leads to more fun answers as well. Not right, but fun.
Are you able to answer all their why questions satisfactorily? No? Then that's where they reach an end...
So he answered 'how do they work'. No one was asking why.
The interviewer in the referenced clip did actually press Feynman to explain the "why", which led Feynman into an explanation about how "why" is impossible to completely answer, which is what OP is talking about.
To clarify: Feynman could explain it, but can't dumb it down enough for us mortals.
Magnetism is complex and difficult to reduce down succinctly, but the real issue is that at the very base level, "why does magnetism exist" is no more explainable than "why do particles have spin?"
They didn't know it, but ICP were asking an epistemological question.
I looked for a non-yt source, but the best explainer for how magnetism in everyday objects is built up from quantum mechanics that I could find easily was this by minute physics: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hFAOXdXZ5TM
I think it’s more fundamental than that. He could talk about relativity and electrostatics and particle spin, but at some level the electromagnetic force is called a “fundamental force” because it’s one of the postulates we just kinda accept about the universe, and any explanation he could give would depend on that assumption.
Fair point
That line was actually Trump being his narcissistic self. In context he's saying, "Nobody knows how important magnets are but me." And then he mumble fucks around about magnets being in everything.
Somebody whispered in his ear that China halting rare earth exports is going to fuck up a broad range of industries. His dementia locked onto, "Magnets good. China has magnets. China no give magnets." He then goes to mumbling how he's threatening and begging Xi.
That also explains his idiot rant to our Navy in Japan week before last. He's explaining that we need to get away from magnetic aircraft and ordnance lifting systems and go back to steam.
He's trying to explain all this without admitting that he poked the tiger and the tiger poked back.
Someone better give him a new sound byte before he tries carving up the Gerald Ford for maga fridge magnets
Insert that clip of him from years ago saying that you drop magnets in water, they stop working...
What's funny is I think he was thinking of electronics (remember the shark vs electric boats dementia babble he did?) but if he had said fire instead of water it would be correct wrt magnets.
I like how the guy who was elected because he says what he thinks always has to have his comments put into context. He didn't literally mean that nobody knows what a magnet is (despite literally saying "nobody knows what a magnet is"), he meant something totally different!
To drop my reply from a similar post:
To be fair: "A magnet works because negatively charged electrons repel each other. "
"Why do negatively charged electrons repel each other? "
"..... Well .. Ok, so hear me out. You're going to need to understand quantum mechanics and then the fermion principal. Then you'll know that the electrons aren't allowed to occupy the same space, and the easiest way to avoid being in the same space is to not touch each other. The electrons know they aren't allowed to touch because they've studied fermions."
"Look man, shit just be doing what it does because it is what it is. If weren't that way everything would be soup or darkness."
Physics at any point when you ask "why" enough.
If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch...
You must first invent the universe. - some nerd no doubt
Pretty much. You get towards the bottom and on a fundamental level, there are some things that science just doesn't know. We really don't know how magnets work, when you get down to it.
To be fair: "A magnet works because negatively charged electrons repel each other. "
This is the Coloumbic (electrostatic) force, which is related to magnetism but this explanation would be insufficient to explain magnetism.
"..... Well .. Ok, so hear me out. You're going to need to understand quantum mechanics and then the fermion principal. Then you'll know that the electrons aren't allowed to occupy the same space, and the easiest way to avoid being in the same space is to not touch each other. The electrons know they aren't allowed to touch because they've studied fermions."
This is the Pauli exclusion principle, which does act like a force, but is not the same as the electrostatic force or magnetism.
Magnetism is moving electrons repel/attract/affect each other depending on the direction they are moving.
The simplest explanation for that I know of is that force needs to exist alongside the electrostatic force for the motion of electrons to be consistent with relativistic time and space dilation effects.
And no, that’s not a simple explanation, and it requires explaining relativity, and at the end of the day the best explanation we’ve got for the electrostatic force is more or less “electrons repel each other because they do”.
All models are wrong, some models are useful. A model that is 100% correct is just reality. Science and physics boils down to observation followed by explanation which comes in the form of modeling.
New physics started when plank discovered quantization while integration raleigh-jean and weins laws for blackbody radiation. Schrodinger proposed a model among several proposed models and his fit the best.
Anyone who is surprised by science not knowing all the answers had fundamentally misunderstood science.
Finally, five fields: electromagnetic, gravity, strong, weak, and higgs. Magnetism is just an effect of leptons interacting with the electric field. That's the model, one day when we can explain more with another model there will be more questions.
Bonus points for anyone who knows the quote "who ordered that?"
Except Feynman did answer in the end, or at least gave us an idea of what's going on without diving into the hard physics. The journey there was to teach us that asking questions doesn't always lead to a simple answer, and can lead to more questions.
Trump probably got two of those very strong neodymium magnets together and can't get them apart, so now he's confused and pissed at China because that's where they were bought.
Year 40,000 - Light some incense to beseech the magnets to attract.
The beast of metal endures longer than the flesh of men.
Those that tend the beasts of metal must labour long to learn its ways, for a single beast must suffer the mastership of many men until ready to shed its vorpal coils.
Those that seek apprenticeship must attended closely to the runes of mobilisation, the rites of maintenance, and the words-of-power that describe the parts of a beast.
Nor must they neglect the tutelage of the Adeptus Prefects, nor the casting of the proper roboscopes.
Confirmed magnets cause Chaos rifts to spread.
From what I've seen Feyman was more than a little pedantic and he liked to emphasize that science doesn't answer "why" it answers "how". So if ICP asked that question Feyman would say "take an undergrad physics course because its not easy to explain in a soundbite"
He was fully conscious that science models behaviour but doesn't - maybe never will - give the purpose behind it.
Magnets aren't even real. Have you ever actually SEEN one? Of course not.
Birds are magnets
All I know on the fellow feynman - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwKpj2ISQAc
I knew which video that was going to be before even clicking. And same, lol.
Great video. I mentioned it in a discussion about the strangulation porn ban in the UK; specifically the “women strangled by a partner are 750% more likely to be murdered by said partner” statistic. Someone chimes in with “that sounds like a completely fabricated stat”. I have to assume due to the name that came after Dr. That magnet interview wasn’t particularly flattering either.
Magnets work by pulling all the God from our brains to create the God rays so that life can be sustained on earth.
(Feynman does not, in fact, rule)
ICP Stock Prices going to the Moon with this presidency
I tried a game that came free with my GOG account years ago, MagRunner.
Overpopulation, huge zaibatsu that is into digitizing people and they develop an incredible new technology in space: MagTech! Magnetic technology!
I guess the devs were being tongue-in-cheek at the time, but now it's not funny anymore.
Terrible Portal wanna-be, by the way.
