A ufo? A ghost? A monster?

What's the strangest thing you've ever come across? :comfy: :specter:

  • cosecantphi [he/him]
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    edit-2
    2 years ago

    Magnets. Magnets give me this magical feeling every time I see them doing anything at all. I'll often marvel at a pair of magnets, pushing them together against like poles to get a sense of the shape of the field, seeing how close they can get together before opposite poles overcome the friction of the surface the two magnets sit on, etc. They're excellent fidget devices!

    Anyway, the common scientific explanation is that they are made of microscopic magnetic domains all aligned in the same direction, but that's just saying magnets work because they are made of a bunch of little magnets. And then those domains are explained by electrons all spinning in the same direction, but once again we've just reduced it to saying those little magnets are made of even smaller, subatomic magnets!

    Apparently there's some quantum mechanical explanation involving the gauge symmetry of phase shifts in the wave functions of particles which together with special relativity apparently implies the entire electromagnetic force, but I certainly can't understand that and therefore can't explain it. So to me magnets (and also electrostatic forces) remain magical!

    • nat_turner_overdrive [he/him]
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      2 years ago

      :gigachad-hd: using magic to hold pieces of metal together temporarily so that I can use magic to permanently fix those metal pieces together with wire that is converted into the join between the pieces by electricity (another magic)