The Most Misunderstood Concepts in Physics

[@johnhawkins2717]

Scientists are still trying to calculate how many YT channels simon is a presenter on.

[@DimBeam1]

No you are wrong.

[@Bacopa68]

I think he peaked at eleven, but is down to fewer. There are a couple he ditched that are still around, like Visual Politin EN, a russian propaganda channel. A couple others failed and are gone.

[@livinginvancouverbc2247]

And Simon also has his Blaze channels where he shouts, jumps around and waves his arms a lot.

[@Bacopa68]

@@livinginvancouverbc2247Since his second kid he doesn't do the Blaze standing. Nor does his space heater talk to him. But we have a mix of writers and two editors now, and stories of his son's giant dump.

[@johnhawkins2717]

@@DimBeam1 oh, ok.

[@ShootAUT]

Simon himself is the next best thing we have to an actually observable quantum particle - talking about any and every topic simultaneously, existing on all channels at once, with varying degrees of probability.

[@scottmccrea1873]

I think Simon's writer(s) deserves a lot of credit he or they aren't getting.

[@mrcryptozoic817]

I try to imagine footnotes by Richard Feynman. I sure wish Simon could have interviewed Richard.

[@tompraisan7642]

He’s the proof that there is multiverse

[@phantomechelon3628]

Whenever we observe any of Simon's videos we are bombarded with Whistler particles, which have been demonstrated to effect the parts of the brain associated with humour.

[@Snowboard420]

@@scottmccrea1873 Dude, they did so bad. They think light slows down in a medium. It just takes a longer path - electromagnetism/waves don't change speed.

[@ailivac]

Heisenberg's wife was unhappy with their marriage because when he had the time he didn't have the energy, and when he had the position he didn't have the momentum.

[@MitchLJay]

I love this ❤

[@ToddRodSkimmins]

He’s here all week folks, try the veal. 😂😂😂

[@mikehunt3688]

Nah she was just pissed because of the meth he was making

[@jamesinhenley]

Is this the same as ED?

[@JubeiKibagamiFez]

Good one.

[@NKA23]

Heisenberg gets pulled over by a cop, because he is driving 50kph over the speed limit. "Do you know, how fast you drove?" the angry cops asks him. Heisenberg shrugs his shoulders and replies "No, of course not....I knew exactly where I was the whole time."

[@alexk3088]

I remember awkward comparisons in macro-world and micro-world in a book, when I was a teenager. Something along the lines of how an egg, once broken, can't be returned to prior unbroken state, but in micro-world things could (but the explanation was incomplete). Then I remember when we had quantum mechanics (as part of a chemistry course, taught by a college professor). She threw out some phrase about electrons in energy levels of an atom and when I tried to ask specifically what it meant, she was puzzled and couldn't explain. With this video I at least understand what is meant, even though, admittedly, it's still impossible to visualize or experience. Thank you for the explanation. I also didn't know that Schrodinger was trolling with his cat analogy.

[@Itsthatoneguy371]

Up until about my early 30’s, long long ago, I thought there was an actual cat in a box and that’s it. That’s how it was explained in our 8th grade science class. No one touched on it after that. Then watching a series on the universe on discovery channel or history channel they talked about the radioactive substance but again that was it. This is the first I heard of the hammer and poison even after I learned there was no actual cat after listening to Neal Degrasse Tyson explain it.

[@halibaitor]

​@@Itsthatoneguy371 You're right about there not being a cat. The animal in question is actually a skunk, and he's really ticked off, so you had best NOT open the box to look. 🤪😱

[@Itsthatoneguy371]

@@halibaitor lol! I’ll leave it closed

[@RobertHawthorne]

I remember seeing an interview with one of the Star Trek Next Gen writers. He said they had had received question from someone that asked how the transporter could properly map the structure of a person being transported because of the Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. So the writers just added to the shows cannon a reference to a Heisenberg’s filter being part of the transporter system. I remember hearing that filter being mentioned in a couple of shows. The writer said he got a question from a physicist once wanting to know how a Heisenberg’s filter worked. The only answer the writer could come up with was, "Very well".

[@TheIronSavior]

Or Heisenberg "Compensators"

[@KaiHenningsen]

@@TheIronSaviorShould have said "if I knew that, I'd be a theoretical physicist with a Nobel prize".

[@MadScientist267]

"That's still uncertain"

[@seantlewis376]

I was going to mention that, but to my memory, it was called the Heisenberg Compensator in the episode Relics.

[@RobertHawthorne]

@@TheIronSavior You are correct. Thanks

[@dorsk84]

A past Physics Professor told me, and I quote, "Quantum Physics is the dreams that stuff is made of!". I never forgot that and still get a chuckle out of it.

[@ignitionfrn2223]

0:35 - Chapter 1 - Theory vs hypothesis 3:55 - Chapter 2 - The unbreakable speed of light 7:20 - Chapter 3 - Schrödinger's cat 10:45 - Chapter 4 - Heisenberg's uncertainty principle

[@uneducatedguess6740]

Bunch of nonsense, better check Medium story about burning time (like by Cherenkov effect) lab experiment from 50s, when the speed of light exceeded, and the next outcome from that on what was instead of Big Bang: BURNING TIME IN LABS AND IN GALAXIES Galaxies, Not the Big Bang, Are Birthplace of Matter

[@andie_pants]

👍

[@Nupetiet]

Thank you, I hope wonderful things happen for you on wednesday

[@MadScientist267]

​@@NupetietPeculiar specificity there 🤣

[@mikaelbiilmann6826]

Heisenberg’s uncertain cat named Schrödi.

[@bgclarinet]

As a musician, I feel like an analogy for Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle is that if you hear a note, it is impossible to determine what kind of note it is (quarter-note, eighth-note, etc.) until you hear the note after it, and have a scale against which to measure both notes (tempo).

[@ewen666]

That’s actually a genius analogy, brilliant. Thank you.

[@MitchLJay]

You just made me understand physics.

[@starrywizdom]

EXCELLENT summation of Heisenberg's principle. "Uncertainty" makes it sound like there are properties we humans can't be certain of, but the actual principle is that there are properties that tiny particles DON'T EVEN HAVE. Good job!

[@AdrianBoyko]

The actual principle is that particles don’t even exist, just wave functions. People think QM is “weird” because they expect it to answer questions about “particles” but the theory really only describes wave functions.

[@bramvanduijn8086]

@@AdrianBoyko They're more like interaction probability blobs than waves. Until they hit something, at which point the probability of one of the interactions becomes one and the others become zero, which looks exactly like a particle, which is defined by already having been a single possible interaction. Symmetry would request that interference would make them stop being probability blobs, but that isn't how that works. The fact that there is a non-uniform distribution of probability is what makes it look and act exactly like a wave, so in that sense you're right: They do look and act exactly like waves until you force them into a particle-esque interaction by observing them.

[@AdrianBoyko]

@@bramvanduijn8086 They NEVER look like a particle. What kind of particle has an INTRINSIC constraints on position & momentum?

[@edwoodsr]

@@AdrianBoyko The uncertainty principle is concerned with the confidence intervals of a measurement, not the particle itself. What measurement device doesn't have intrinsic limitations on accuracy?

[@AdrianBoyko]

@@edwoodsr The uncertainty principle has nothing to do with measurement devices.

[@SassePhoto]

Our physics professor had a very appealing explanation of quantum physics: Understanding is nothing else than getting used to things. Our classical world just makes sense because it is all we know.

[@Riin_Rio]

That’s true ! My dad, who got into relativity late in life, couldn’t quite accept the idea that there wasn’t a universal "now". I was exposed to the subject at an early age and am quite comfortable with the concepts involved. Hoping to get there with the quantum mechanical view of reality

[@droidnick]

​@Riin_Rio your dad sounds awesome

[@bsadewitz]

We can get used to something that is wrong. It happens all the time--even in the sciences. I understand (or I think I do! Lol) the spirit of your professor's remark, especially in the context of teaching physics. But I don't think it's consistent with the history of science.

[@AR15andGOD]

that's a nothing statement for fools to feel smart

[@claywest9528]

After centuries of study by humanity's finest minds and observations from the most sophisticated equipment that are available, we can honestly and confidently say that the Universe is going to behave as it damn well pleases!!

[@cpuuk]

As the James Webb Space Telescope has recently proved.

[@ridethecurve55]

Quantum physics is complicated and NON INTUITIVE, Simon. But YOU'RE Weird!

[@juzoli]

Our realistic goal is not to control the universe, but predict it.

[@bryanpetersen1334]

Not bad, I enjoyed this video, and I appreciate that you didn’t associate the decreasing speed of light to climate change.

[@juzoli]

@@bryanpetersen1334 You just did associate it. Why?

[@kacheek9101]

That's got to be the best explanation of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle I've ever heard. Absolute props to the writer and editor

[@Alphabunsquad]

It is very good, though I feel he should have emphasized how it is more or less an exaggerated version of how things do actually seem to work based on the math even though it started as a joke. Like with Einstein a lot of early thinkers on quantum physics made a lot of breakthroughs sarcastically

[@bencollier9423]

I learned a classical analogy - To know the speed of an object you need to measure how long it takes to get from point A to point B. IF A an B are close together the uncertainty in the speed gradient is higher, in an instance you have no gradient. If they are far apart you don't know where the object was doing exactly the average speed you measure. This is not entirely accurate, but is a good starting point before learning about quantum weirdness.

[@JohnDoe-dp8ji]

“I am the danger” - Heisenberg

[@DrDeuteron]

@@bencollier9423I don’t like it. HEP has nothing to do with observers, it’s that the thing can’t physically exist in known states of both observables at the same time. Which why the uncertainly in position has nothing to do with the actual velocity. Even at zero velocity.

[@DrDeuteron]

I just got to it….it’s pretty good, but if you really want to understand it, you need to use complex waves, not real ones. It simply doesn’t work with out a complex phase. But still, it was well done.

[@jimglover6448]

It is appalling how frequently some of these concepts are misunderstood, even by people trusted to provide authoritative information. Bravo for getting it right AND with such clear explanations. Very well done.

[@HeatherHolt]

I love the crossroads of physics and philosophy. It’s the stuff that causes me existential dread at 3am (like now).

[@AR15andGOD]

There isn't a crossroads, physics is philosophy; crystallized math and rules

[@TheNeonParadox]

Just a couple of corrections that fall into my particular wheelhouse. Dark matter and dark energy aren't really hypotheses. They're more place-holders that are there to explain a couple of phenomena that don't make sense under our current understanding of the universe. Another correction is a common misunderstanding. It's not that matter cannot travel faster than the maximum speed of light in a vacuum, it's that matter cannot accelerate past that speed. Many things in our universe travel faster than light because of the expansion of the fabric of the universe itself. A good way to think of it is that your car under no circumstances could accelerate to over 66,000 miles per hour. However, even when it's sitting still, it's traveling faster than that because of the speed of the earth is traveling around the sun. Then we could tack on top of that the fact that our entire solar system is rotating around the center of our galaxy at about 448,000 miles per hour. Then on top of that our galaxy is moving through space at about 1.3 million miles per hour. And so on, and so on... It's best to think of speed as being, um... relative.

[@racamacafo8069]

Well, that's where Einstein comes in. But what is dark matter?

[@lesterpittenger5992]

Does it matter? ​@@racamacafo8069

[@halibaitor]

​@@racamacafo8069 YES

[@ripleyhrgiger4669]

@@racamacafo8069 No one knows for sure yet. But we're working on it.

[@ripleyhrgiger4669]

The universe is indeed expanding, and in a sense, parts of it are expanding away from us at speeds greater than the speed of light. This doesn't violate the laws of physics, particularly Einstein's theory of relativity, which states that nothing can move through space faster than the speed of light. The key here is "through space." The expansion of the universe is the expansion of space itself, not objects moving through space. The speed at which galaxies recede from us is proportional to their distance from us, a relationship described by Hubble's Law. For galaxies far enough away from us, this recession speed exceeds the speed of light. This doesn't mean these galaxies are traveling through space faster than light; rather, the space between us and those galaxies is expanding so rapidly that the light from those galaxies takes increasingly longer to reach us, and beyond a certain distance, known as the Hubble length, the space expands faster than light can traverse it. So, in summary, the universe's expansion does lead to galaxies moving away from us at an effective speed that exceeds the speed of light, due to the expansion of space itself, not because objects are moving through space faster than light. This concept is a cornerstone of modern cosmology and is well-supported by observations and theoretical models. Dark Matter and Dark Energy: The statement that dark matter and dark energy are "place-holders" rather than hypotheses might not fully capture their role in physics and cosmology. Both dark matter and dark energy are indeed hypotheses proposed to explain observations that cannot be accounted for by our current understanding of the universe. For example, dark matter is hypothesized to explain the "missing" gravitational forces observed in the rotation curves of galaxies, which cannot be explained by visible matter alone. Dark energy is proposed to explain the accelerated expansion of the universe. These are not just placeholders but are based on a substantial body of indirect observational evidence. Scientists are actively trying to directly detect these phenomena and understand their nature. Matter Travelling Faster than Light: The clarification provided in the argument about matter not being able to accelerate past the speed of light is essentially correct and aligns with the theory of relativity. It's accurate that no massive object (something with rest mass) can reach or exceed the speed of light in a vacuum due to the relativistic effect of mass increasing with speed, which would require infinite energy to achieve. Expansion of the Universe and Speed: The analogy given to explain how objects can have superluminal (faster-than-light) recession speeds due to the expansion of the universe is helpful but needs a bit of precision. While it's true that due to the expansion of space, distant galaxies can recede from us at an effective speed greater than that of light, this doesn't mean they are moving through space faster than light. Instead, the space itself is expanding. This distinction is crucial to avoid misunderstanding how the speed limit of light works in relativity. The analogy of the car, Earth's rotation, the solar system's movement, etc., serves to illustrate that speeds can add up depending on your frame of reference, but the expansion of the universe is a different phenomenon where space itself expands. Relativity of Speed: The final point that speed is relative is fundamentally correct and is a core principle of Einstein's theory of special relativity. The speed of any object is always measured relative to some other object or frame of reference. However, the universality of the speed of light in a vacuum remains constant in all frames of reference, which is a unique aspect of light's speed and not applicable to speeds under non-relativistic conditions (like the movement of cars or planets). In summary, while the argument presents a generally correct view of certain complex astrophysical and cosmological concepts, it blends some analogies and explanations in a way that could be misleading without careful distinction between the phenomena being described (e.g., expansion of space vs. movement through space). So, no, the video is correct.

[@OptimiSkeptic]

Fact: We observe Simon hosting an infinite number of channels in the Whistlerverse. Theory: Simon is both host and not-host until you click on the thumbnail. "Schroedinger's Simon," if you will.

[@HarryNicNicholas]

you might be interested in "A Subway Named Mobius" is a 1950 science fiction short story by American astronomer Armin Joseph Deutsch." about adding a new connection to the subway system that results in trains going into another dimension...

[@zegermanscientist2667]

And when he watches one of his own videos, things get REALLY complicated.

[@jonharvey6277]

In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of the cat, although in this case there were three determinate states the cat could be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious. Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies

[@Bacopa68]

An IRL cat would have tried to escape. This would have put the detector closer to the radiation source, thus making the cat more likely to die, moved the detector and source farther away, making the cat certain to live, or knocked over the poison, killing the cat.

[@halibaitor]

Furious is the correct state, but rather than a cat, the animal is actually a skunk. I advise NOT opening the box. 🤪😱

[@nathanielacton3768]

I know not many people here would have a good answer, but one thing that always bends my mind is the relationship between light speed and the size of space. Lightspeed is a measure of 'time'. The distance quotient is relative to the universes scale. So, when the universe was half the size, the speed of light was half the speed. Of course, that means that for this to work, time ran at half the speed otherwise in the early universe the speed of light would have easily have outpaced the expansion. So, this infers an asymptotic relationship between time and space... which kinda means that there is actually no beginning if the beginning is an asymptote. I'm open to comments here as I've held this idea for a few years now.

[@Snipergoat1]

The interference explanation was the idea that first created the uncertainty principal and was first used to calculate Planck constant. It turned out to be a far deeper principle even though using it get you a remarkably close approximation of Planck constant. (much like the speed of light is far more than just being the speed that photons travel in a vacuum)

[@scottmccrea1873]

The speculation is about going around the light speed barrier. Most of it hinges on some variation of multiverse concept. I don't really care how we do it, but if we don't we're not going to the stars. At least not quickly. And I also think there would be a psychological effect. Finally found a barrier we cannot pierce. So I very much hope the science hippies figure this one out - warp, wormholes, Einstein-Rosen bridges, interdimensional. Whatever.

[@the-chillian]

I took a class in quantum chemistry in college as an undergrad. It was essentially quantum mechanics, only taught by a chemistry professor and with attention to implications for chemical behavior of elements. The class consisted of solving Schrodinger's equation over and over again with incrementally more accurate versions of the potential function, which is a component of the Hamiltonian (the Ĥ term.) It wasn't easy.

[@Ryan_Harkin]

So it was just a maths class.

[@RafaelRodrigues-rx9ry]

​@ryanharkin9893 What, do you think physicists just sit in a cafe philosophizing about cats in boxes?😂

[@DBZHGWgamer]

@@Ryan_Harkin yes, like all physics classes... Math is the tool that lets you do science.

[@CharlsonCKim]

sounds like you spent the entire chemistry class going over the first week of a physics quantum mechanics course. physicist quickly found "easier" ways of computing quantum mechanics than the differential equations you were probably grinding on.

[@CharlsonCKim]

yes, just like other classes are just reading classes.@@Ryan_Harkin

[@euttdsiggh2783]

Jokes on you, i dont understand most of the things.

[@peterwoods8299]

Take my damn like

[@jonathanaddle9317]

I was thinking the same 🤔

[@gracefulkimberella]

But even with this fact, to whom the joke is on is uncertain. 😊

[@infigrins]

Sometimes that's not a bad thing, with any knowledge comes power. Just imagine if most people understood things like this, how many would blow their selves up or those next to them?

[@V3RTIGO222]

​@@infigrins let's not confuse knowledge with recklessness...

[@NanoBurger]

A police officer pulls over a partial physicist for speeding: Do you know how fast you were going? No, officer, but I know exactly where I am. You were going 83 miles per hour. Great, now I'm lost. Just a little uncertain humor.

[@diercire]

That explanation of wave and position was exceptionally good. It also explains how things are particles and waves at the same time. I've always struggled conceptualizing that one. Now, it's so easy to explain, it seems stupid to have struggled with it.

[@Verlamian]

It wasn't at all good and things most certainly are not particles and waves at the same time. That idea - "wave-particle duality" - is a long obsolete (but regrettably still prevalent) misconception arising from what was quickly understood to be an untenable interpretation of [the nature of] the quantum state (aka "wavefunction"). Ironically, Schrodinger himself used his cat to debunk it in his famous 1935 "cat paradox" paper. In fact even earlier, in 1928 in a lecture to the RI, he pointed out an even worse problem with the naive "quantum state as physical wave" ideas characteristic of some of the first attempts at interpreting QM. Similarly, the idea that superposition means "and" - e.g. that the particle _is_ in two (or more) places at once - is simply wrong. If it were true then it would also be true of classical objects! Classical mechanics can be written in the exact same Hilbert space and operator formalism as quantum mechanics ("Koopman-von Neumann classical mechanics") - superpositions included. Interference between the superposed components of vector states ("wavefunctions") and nonclassical correlations (entanglement) are the two phenomena that quantum physics exhibits but classical physics does not.

[@bobshaw2232]

@@Verlamian all i know is if i roll a pair of dice down a craps table, it can be thought of as a wave of probabilities until they come to rest and the point is determined and the tumbling wave of probabilities collapses

[@vencik_krpo]

About the speed of light… Actually, nothing in Einstein’s theory says that “nothing can move faster than light”. It only says that nothing can be _accelerated_ beyond it. But it’s not (necessarily) “the fastest speed there is”, it’s just that we have no knowledge of anything that would or could move faster _in space_ (that’s important to emphasize).

[@kevintedder4202]

I totally agree. I've always said that the statement should be "no two objects of mass can travel away from each other faster than light." This does not exclude travelling faster than light. It just means that to do so would result in time running backwards, according to GR. Then, these particles have no way of knowing that each other exists. Beyond the edge of the expanding visible universe, galaxies are moving away from us faster than light, but we cannot see them. We can only hypothesise their existence.

[@vencik_krpo]

@ Pretty much, except I’d be careful with “moving away from each other”. What’s happening, strictly speaking, is that the distance increases at rate greater than speed of light _but_ not because of motion but because of the universal expansion. You may define “movement” as the distance increase (and it really is probably the only reasonable definition)… But it sounds a bit misleading, IMO. Also the rate at which their distance increases itself increases (i.e. universal expansion accelerates)-but these objects don’t actually *feel* (measure) any acceleration-that already shows you how misleading these words like “move” can be…

[@jackvos8047]

Having a condition that causes hand cramps after a short period of writing,I took a lot of classes in highschool that had more practical aspects than writing. One word Filled me with dread in those classes when I heard it "Theory". It meant that I had to write down whatever it was we were learning about. My takeaway from that experience was that a theory is a statement of how something is meant to work. My first reaction to people saying a theory about something isn't real, is "I know the theory of dovetail joints does that mean they're not real"

[@jackvos8047]

@@jappp3105 you don't know much about carpentry I see. I bet you use Butt joints in all your woodworking.

[@onegreenev]

@@jappp3105 Birds aren't fake and they have arms that we call wings because of the way they work.

[@jackvos8047]

@@RockBrentwood whilst I appreciate the suggestion, using short hand uses the same fine motor skills as long hand when it comes to writing things down. Typing is the way to go for people with Dysgraphia like me.

[@hherpdderp]

I'd be more crude. Gravity is a theory... test it .

[@jackvos8047]

@@cropduster123 none that were affordable and convenient. The most advanced recording technology of the day was a cassette tape and portable cassette players were a banned item at my school.

[@mikep3226]

I'm reminded of a joke I heard a while ago: Two quantum physicists are out driving when they get pulled over by a cop who comes up on the driver's side and checks their papers. He then asks "Dr. Heisenberg, do you know how fast you were driving?" The response is: "No, because I knew exactly where I was." At this point the officer asks them to pop the trunk and he walks around the back. Then approaching the passenger side he addresses "Dr. Schrödinger, do you know you halve a dead cat in a box in the trunk." The response being: "Well, it's dead now, you looked at it."

[@abhir7823]

Cop: Dr Einstein, do you know how fast you were going ? Albert: Depends how fast YOU were going.

[@satanicmicrochipv5656]

Heisenberg and Schrodinger are driving down the road when they get pulled over by a cop. The cop asks Heisenberg... "Do you have any idea how fast you were going?" Heisenberg replies... "That is uncertain, but i know where I am." Heisenberg's answer makes the cop suspicious so he tells Heisenberg to pop the trunk and walks to the rear of the car. The cop looks in the trunk and yells... "Hey, did you know there's a dead cat in here?!" Schrodinger yells back... "Well I do now!!!"

[@JohnnyJohnny-f5o]

Not exactly knee-slapper

[@jjbenjamin8488]

@@JohnnyJohnny-f5obecause they told it wrong. They mixed two different jokes. Poorly

[@darkgalaxy5548]

A few days later they get pulled over by another cop. "I clocked you doing 80mph in a 65mph zone", says the cop. Heisenberg replies "Great, now we're lost".

[@ilionreactor1079]

12:04 It's not that you can't make predictions with perfect data, it's that you can't have perfect data. You can't know both location and momentum at the same time.

[@Games_and_Music]

Exactly, i think PBS Space-Time had a video on that recently. If you know the momentum, in this case could be the speed of light, it will be pretty much impossible to have an observer flying along with the particle/object to determine it's location. And vice versa, it is just not possible to measure both at once as the physics involved go way beyond our capabilities.

[@hugegamer5988]

@@Games_and_Music it goes beyond the fundamental principles of being able to measure in the first place. It’s like trying to measure a single gravaton

[@DrDeuteron]

No, everything here is wrong. It’s not data or measuring that makes the HUP, unless by measure you mean apply an operator to a state.

[@Erik-rp1hi]

I've watch hours of this stuff on you tube. Good effort Simon, you covered a lot of topic in a very short period of time.

[@Swooper86]

My high school physics teacher explained the Uncertainty Principle like this: Let's say you look out the window, counting how many cars pass by in an hour. But because you had to start counting at some point, you don't know how long ago a car passed by before you started counting, thus your frequency calculation can never be completely accurate. I guess that was a pretty good explanation after all.

[@bramvanduijn8086]

I would say more like "You look out the window, counting how many cars pass by in an hour. You write down the number after the hour is over. Then you see the second question on the exam: Where is the first car now? So you hop into your timemachine to find out. You hop into your car and follow the first car around. You fail the first question on the exam because there is now 1 car more."

[@Virtuous_Rogue]

I took quantum chemistry (P Chem 2) and that might be the best explanation of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle I've heard. Short, simple, and a consequence of reality rather than a result of some math or experiment.

[@ThatWriterKevin]

Why thank you!

[@Nathan-vt1jz]

Yes and no. It’s based off of data we’ve gathered, but it still includes several interpretive elements or conclusions that are not so definitive. There’s still a lot we don’t know even what we don’t know in quantum physics that will have an effect.

[@Virtuous_Rogue]

@@Nathan-vt1jz True, but at that point he'd be writing a textbook, not a simple and succinct explanation.

[@hugegamer5988]

@@Nathan-vt1jz the problem is the more precisely you identify the theory the more it’s place in the big picture becomes uncertain. The universe is conspiring against us all!

[@kiabtoomlauj6249]

SR & GR are theories. Dark Matter and String Theory are hypothesis. Anyone who thinks he has "found dark matter" is a fool, regardless where he got his multiple PhDs from. Dark matter has been postulated in the early 1900s, by Caltech odd ball Fritz Zwicky, around the same time Hubble started looking at the Universe via the largest telescopes that could be constructed in the early 1900s, using the most advanced ideas and technologies. And while the Hubble's observations have been distilled into a "Hubble Law" gas become actual basic, testable science --- which concluded roughly that the farther away a galaxy is away from the Milky Way/Earth, the faster it "moves away from it" ... with the "Hubble Constant" saying, at the best estimates, that, in general, for every megaparsec or ~3.26 light years that a galaxy is away from Andromeda, it is "receding" from it roughly 70 KM per second --- Dark Matter and these other Ether or Planet Vulcan things (that are SUPPOSED to be needed to explain this or that cosmological or astronomical issue)... are still 100% assertions. Think about it: If "Dark Matter" is supposed to be the SCAFFOLD --- the 95% or so of gravity that's needed, in addition to normal/Baryonic matter's mere 5% ---- that forced the COALESCING of matter, so molecules could form from atoms... to allow the formations of large things and structures like stars and galaxies, local clusters, super clusters, and sheets of super cluster structure filaments that extended hundreds of millions of years, or billions of years.... why, AT THE SAME TIME, go on to say utter nonsense like, "but galaxy" X or Y doesn't seem to have dark matter? If one or two galaxies didn't need these invisible hands to grab hold onto them, to "keep them in place, to allow their FORMATION IN THE FIRST PLACE... WHY ON EARTH would any other galaxy need this imaginary Zwicky-proposed stuff? How do we know it's not Black Holes, or what's included in General Relativity, or other large-&-presently-unknown structures... that's keeping galaxies & large structures of the Cosmos... from "flying every which way into the darkness of space"? Every major, regularly shaped galaxy has at least one major central black hole and millions to billions of star-sized ones around it... enough to distort space-time tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of light years around them... And all the irregular ones ---- e.g. the Large and Small Magellanic clouds --- have hundreds of thousands to millions of star sized black holes, too, from supernovas and/or neutron collisions. Why shouldn't such natural existences be more than enough to nail down matter in and around a galaxy, so it wouldn't go "flying every which way" into the darkness of space? The Sun and Earth are roughly 25,000 light years from the Milky Way's center and its large black hole. We aren't going around and around the Milky Way because we were given free tickets but could get off the ride any moment we wanted to. Instead, we are STUCK where we are, 25,000 light years away from the Milky Way's center --- as per Einsteins GR --- because we are in a "gravity well" created by the central black hole of the Milky Way. The Sun/Earth is orbiting around the Milky Way at roughly 230km/second. If we want to go "flying every which way" into space, we need to be almost TRIPLING our orbiting speed. THAT is why stars don't flying every which way from their galaxies.... Some invisible hand like this 95% extra gravity from Dark Matter (faulty calculations based on faulty hypotheses: it's what Freeman Dyson's old boss, Enrico Fermi told him)... has nothing to do with it...

[@charlesdalton985]

Thank you for highlighting the difference between Hypothesis and Theory. Now if we could only get people to understand the difference between "Reading" (for bias confirmation typically) and "Research". Beyond that - well done - thank you!

[@onegreenev]

Research requires reading and we are all bias.

[@UnicornsPoopRainbows]

Those people would have to expand out of their Facebook groups first…

[@onegreenev]

@@UnicornsPoopRainbows LOL

[@stordarth]

Another name I've heard used colloquially for cherenkov radiation, in keeping with the sonic boom, is the photonic boom. Quite a catchy name, I think.

[@sydhenderson6753]

I love that, and it's actually kind of true.

[@R3_dacted0]

I've explained the concept of a theory a few times in the past and twice I've received hateful DMs proclaiming how I was wrong. It's so strange how people just attach themselves to concepts and refuse to let them go. I think the biggest issue is that if there is anything that scientists, as a whole, are really bad at, it would be naming things. Scientists are notoriously bad at naming things. And not because they uniformly lack the ability to name things, but rather they simply don't put a lot of thought or effort into it because they don't think the names matter. It's like you saving your thesis paper as "Untitled Document," or that one art layer in photoshop as "Layer 7." There is no naming consistency because the meat of the study is in the paper, not the name. But since so many people rely on things like names and headlines for their information, it starts to propagate incorrect information when the names of things are shared as being factual insights into certain studies.

[@TrollCapAmerica]

Its like on a small enough scale of information only for scientists things work differently on the macro scale for regular people then?

[@siritio3553]

​@@TrollCapAmericaIt's weird how I understood your comment with no trouble after the first read, but it increasingly loses its meaning with subsequent reads.

[@normansimonsen1203]

True. Cat lovers are probably not happy with Schrodinger.

[@bsadewitz]

I was just leaving a comment that the philosopher who originated this "simulation theory" 20-some-odd years ago actually called it "the simulation ARGUMENT" (because it is not a theory, though he considers the HYPOTHESIS in the paper) and does NOT believe we are living in a simulation. The argument is about what we could possibly know about something which one would think we could never know ANYTHING about. The misrepresentation of this drives me crazy. What he was arguing is that one of the following is true: civilizations never reach a point at which running simulations is possible/it isn't possible, civilizations reach such a point but choose not to, or that we are almost certainly living in a simulation.

[@bsadewitz]

Think about it: consider ALL OF TIME in the whole @#$ universe. If it were possible, there would be way more simulations than realities! You only have one "actual reality", lol, and basically infinite time and space in which to run simulations. The argument is more complex and rigorous than that, but that is at least something resembling what it actually is. And then in those simulations, at least some of the civilizations would get to the point in which they could run simulations ...

[@dune6699]

I am hobbyist physicist and also rubbish at math, so you can probably see the irony of my passion. I'm usually more intuitive with the visual and graphical forms of advanced quantum Mechanics like a Penrose diagram illustrating how black holes and singularities could lead to other dimensions given you could pass the infinities of the event horizon. I digress, the way you visualized the uncertainty principle in the end of the video is in a way I've never seen explained before. It really helps me to connect the "fuzzy" nature of quantum particles to the thought idea itself. Thank you! It's amazing to think about these people at the dawn of advanced physics and math, visualizing the particle in a way i can only barely understand, and giving such simple and elegant examples so everyone to could find a way to it,

[@afischer8327]

The most amazing thing that I was taught at school was quantum tunnelling, where a particle can pass through a limit or barrier that would not be predicted in classical physics.

[@adamredwine774]

Yup. If you watch the recent Kurzgesagt video on "the last thing that will ever happen," they talk about how quantum tunneling in dead stars will... eventually, cause them to implode.

[@OptimiSkeptic]

I once read that a high school physics teacher gave this real world illustration of quantum superposition: The instant you put one of a pair of socks on your right foot, you instantly know that no matter how far away your other sock is, it's your left sock.

[@WaywardVet]

Rotate your socks after each wash so the stretched out toe goes on the pinkie toe. Then I don't know where the other one is, I just know it must be one with the opposite stretch and so it could be anywhere. So yeah, I guess I know it's somewhere. I never go out without two.

[@preppen78]

@@WaywardVet Well, he never stated he put the right sock on the right foot. It seems to be more of a decision that the remaining sock must be a lefty. If I'm always right, I can't be wrong.

[@WaywardVet]

@@preppen78 😆

[@The_Canonical_Ensemble]

Thats an illustration of quantum entanglement, not superposition.

[@ilionreactor1079]

That is a description of the "hidden variables" interpretation, which has been disproven by Bell's Theorem.

[@tomholroyd7519]

Part of the confusion is the word "theorem" which is used in maths (which is NOT a science) to denote something that has a proof. That's the difference between science and mathematics. In mathematics you can prove things, in science you can only show that something is not the case (it gets interesting when that something is very carefully designed to have a dual).

[@Deepscience_tv]

This is most of the times the case

[@oldyogi23]

There is a problem with calling math not a science. It is both a science and an art. An art of science if you will. It is also a part of formal science. So it can be considered its own category, but it is generally used to create scientific theory and laws which in the literal definition of creation is what one does in art. Mathematics is the backbone of science, and in turn the backbone of some forms of art mainly architecture. Consequently the study of mathematical equations is a scientific adventure. This is a long-winded form of saying that math falls in the middle of a Venn diagram between art and science. Conclusively making math both an art and a science.

[@maxshea1829]

And Eric, being such a happy cat, was a piece of cake!

[@michaelnash2138]

I never seen so many bleedin' aerials.

[@dkajj]

Einstein's answer to Schroedinger was awesome. Like asking someone if they are a biologist to answer the question of "what is a woman?"

[@unotechrih8040]

As a scientist, thank you so much for clarifying the difference between "theory" and "hypothesis". This one drive me absolutely crazy and your explanation was spot on. Nice work!

[@ThatWriterKevin]

You're welcome, and glad you enjoyed!

[@wefinishthisnow3883]

He also needed to explain a law though, e.g. law of thermodynamics.

[@FTATRWSY69]

The real issue comes down to two points: 1. There are more hypotheses than there are theories. 2. It is much easier to speak or write theory than it is to speak or write hypothesis. And that, I assure you, is an untested fact.

[@hhf39p]

With all due respect to @ThatWriterKevin, what is given here it is more laymen's definition than a scientific one. A hypothesis is a testable proposition, while a theory is a model for a phenomena. Experiments are used to test hypotheses. Theories have as a purpose to predict the outcomes of observations. If you wanted to, you could hypothesize that string theory will never be modified to successfully predict current observations, though the outcomes would be either wait longer, or the hypothesis is wrong. Presentations of 'Simulation 'Theory' I've seen thus far lack a model. Most models are given as mathematics to be evaluated to compute the prediction. Thus 'Simulation Theory' indeed is not a theory. Nor is the statement 'We are in a simulation.' a hypothesis, as there is not enough information for the statement to be tested. Thus it is correctly called 'speculation'. (No insult to Mr. Babbage, Konrad Zuse, Ed Fredkin, Dr. Wolfram, or Dr. Bostwick' intended .. actually Zuse and Wolfram both posed finite automata models, but didn't say where we would find them. Mr. Babbage asked us to imagine a 'divine legislator' which was before computers, and he went on to invent the modern computer architecture, so his meaning seems clear enough. Still he didn't say how we access this computer to test if it is there.)

[@dangerfly]

A lot of people were taught theories "graduate" to become laws. TED-Ed has a video titled "What's the difference between a scientific law and theory?" because it's so common. Simply, a law answers WHAT and theories answers WHY.

[@cabanford]

It's actually the speed of Causality that can't be exceeded, not light (hence the C in Einstein's equation)

[@alaska4joe]

Right. Causality incorporates all energy, matter, and information. The bundle of goods that make “the world go round.” Just don't be the guy at the party who explains physics around the punch bowl 😂

[@stigrynning]

Some say it's the speed of information.

[@leandercarey]

Other things subject to discussion, thank you for making the very specific point that the term 'theory' does NOT mean what most people seem to believe it means. People will frequently use the term 'theoretically' when they mean 'hypothetically'. I have spent an inordinate amount of time in my life explaining to people that a 'theory' has tested, testable data behind it whereas a 'hypothesis' is a guess, opinion, or postulate. The next most common misconception I spend a lot of time on is when 'math' is used interchangeably with 'science'. MATH is NOT SCIENCE. It is symbolic logic. It can be a tool used in science or it can be studied scientifically but in and of itself it is NOT science. It can be frustrating when you see actual scientists, physicists, astronomers, and so on, otherwise smart and educated people, making this mistake (I'm looking at you, string theorists 😉). Or the problems that arise from research being dominated solely by specialists who are unfamiliar with anything outside of their specialty. I've seen electrical engineers absolutely shut down astronomers who made assumptions and extracted conclusions in their research that were painfully incorrect simply because they couldn't be bothered to walk down the hallway and ask someone who knew more about the subject of those assumptions to review their findings. Anyway, before I write a paper here myself I'll bring it to a close.

[@bpdmf2798]

Theory is used colloquially as hypothesis. Unless you are talking science there's no reason to correct somebody using the word theory.

[@dlee645]

A quote by Inigo Montoya comes to mind: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

[@volkris]

Have you considered that maybe when scientists use scientific terminology differently from you, perhaps they're not in the wrong, and you should reconsider your understanding of the terms? It seems funny that you're talking about correcting experts on their own fields of expertise without doing anything to recognize how that's at least questionable.

[@leandercarey]

@@volkris It never occurred to you that I AM a scientist? I am intimately familiar with the 'terminology' scientist use. I was sharing some of my experience and recognizing someone for having a similar experience or, at least, pointing out that such experiences occur. Would you like to add to the discussion by sharing some of your experiences in physics, astronomy, mathematics, engineering, biology, or any field of scientific research? Or teaching, perhaps? The truth is that most 'scientists', with perhaps a few exceptions, know the difference between 'theory' and 'hypothesis'. It's the rest of society who seem to confuse the two which leads to a lot of misinformation, misunderstanding, and students having to be corrected. In creative writing, poetry, literature, the arts in general one can use artistic license and get away with stretching and redefining terms. In science precision is paramount. Everyone must agree on the definitions of terms and measurements or there can be no accurate testing and reporting of findings. You can't arbitrarily decide a word means something else because you feel like it should. If scientists in New York decided to use the term "velocity" instead of the term "direction", scientists anywhere else on earth would, at best, be confused by their experiments, HYPOTHESES, and results. They don't get to change the definition of the terms simply because they're 'scientists'. It's possible to have different terms with similar definitions, like 'speed' and 'velocity' but when engaged in scientific research the terms must be specifically chosen and defined and used consistently for their experiments and data to be reviewed and/or FALSIFIED by other scientists. 'Theory' and 'hypothesis' have very specific and EXCLUSIVE meanings. ESPECIALLY to scientists. The 'scientific method' doesn't START with a 'theory'. It, hopefully, concludes with one that brings us closer to understanding the universe in which we exist. A scientist wants one of two outcomes: either their research leads to or validates a 'theory' OR it is falsified or it falsifies an existing 'theory'. Before the research begins is the 'hypothesis' stage. The 'educated guessing' stage. The hypothesis can exist in a vacuum all by itself. The THEORY can only exist where observation and tested data validate it.

[@volkris]

@@leandercarey Oh it definitely occurred to me that you might be a scientist, one completely unfamiliar with the way we use that terminology in our field.

[@CharlesBurnsPrime]

This was an unexpectedly great video (many summary videos on KZbin are not so excellent) but it does need a couple of corrections. I especially liked the description of theory vs. hypothesis, and plan to reference it in conversation. 1. Photons *always* travel at C and can never slow down regardless of medium. This makes sense if you consider that they are passing through mostly empty space at a quantum scale. Light or EM radiation induced from charged particles it passes near yields destructive/constructive interference. The apparent group velocity appears slower, but the light itself is not. This may seem pedantic, but consider the title of the video. 2. Quantum physics does apply to objects the size of a baseball, or a planet. The effect in individual particle effects may be so tiny as to be negligible, but macro physics is the sum of probability distributions. Probably -- I don't actually understand quantum physics. True, not all effects likely appear at this scale, such as your superposition example, but it is not accurate to say that quantum physics is negligible, in general, at a macro scale.

[@EdwardChopuryan]

Good points. One thing regarding the 1st one: Not only the group velocity slows down due to the induced EM fields but also the phase velocity, thus the light itself (combined wave) slows down. The group/phase velocity doesn't appear slower but is slower. Unless you are defining light differently this means that light does indeed slow down in a medium. If I remember correctly, there have been many experiments done, namely foucault experiment that showed light travels slower in water than through air. Looking Glass Universe has 2 part video where she talks about the math/theory as well as conducts a basic test that one can do themselves too confirm the phenomenon.

[@davidmartensson273]

Its amazing how much easier something is when the one telling is good at explaining.

[@carloshenriquezimmer7543]

Schrödinger was misunderstood about his thought experiment because he has forgotten to quantifie the only relevant variable: DOES THE VIAL OF POISON IS LOCATED ON A TABLE? If it is, the cat would certainly trow it on the floor WAY before the hammer even has a chance to break it.

[@mickmccrory8534]

In Quantum Mechanics, the cat can be both dead & alive at the same time. In General Relativity, cats have 9 lives.

[@n00bnetrum]

Thank you for explaining the difference between a theory and a hypothesis. I'm ESL so this was really helpful.

[@autonomouscollective2599]

Unfortunately most English speakers get the difference between theory and hypothesis wrong. Outside of science, anytime someone uses the word “theory,” they almost always mean it as a hypothesis.

[@stigrynning]

@@autonomouscollective2599 But is it wrong, though? Many words have several different definitions depending on the context. The word theory has at least three meanings, one for science, one for law and investigations, and its meaning in everyday speech. The real meaning of a word is found in how the word is used in the language by the population. As long as "everyone" uses the word "wrong", it's not wrong.

[@autonomouscollective2599]

@@stigrynning I replied to the OP in a scientific context, which is what the video is about and what the OP was referring to. I specified that “outside of science” the 2 words are used synonymously. You’re not wrong, but it isn’t what we were talking about.

[@ascensionindustries9631]

I'm willing to bet cats have totally mastered quantum physics. I did have one known for its teleportation capability. 🙀

[@OptimiSkeptic]

We have 1 of those. She self-observes and collapses her own wavefunction at will. She's the emobidment of the felinopic principle.

[@DrDeuteron]

True, cats have a 9 dimensional internal symmetry that’s unobservable.

[@worldaviation4k]

*I always wondered in high school why i have to write theory and hypothosis, I just repeated the same thing for each it was so annoying not knowing the difference*

[@vikj1255]

Your delivery on the cat was priceless Simon. Good work.

[@markosskace514]

Finally someone who logically and correctly explains the role of the Geiger Counter and even the Cat in Schrödinger's Cat thought experiment. I had to think a lot and very hard sometime in the 1990s (as a non-physicist, but with all the knowledge I have about Quantum Physics) to get to this conclusion.

[@BillAnt]

If the vial contained crack, the cat would still be alive twitching like a crack-head. lol

[@Alacritous]

And THANK YOU. For the Schrodinger segment. People don't get it when I tell them that the Universe knows if the cat is dead even if you don't. It's just a thought experiment, it was never meant to be a real thing.

[@NexxtTimeDontMiss]

It’s not about the universe knowing it’s about the interaction itself not the information, obviously the cat is either alive or dead but the interaction of observation having an “effect” is what’s important

[@Alacritous]

@@NexxtTimeDontMiss Did you not watch the video? People think that the experiment, the cat in a box experiment is meant to be real.

[@NexxtTimeDontMiss]

@@Alacritous who? What people? It was ALWAYS a thought experiment based on the data. Who are these people?

[@sheep4521]

Why does it have to involve dead animals?

[@sekaramochi1944]

The universe knows in advance if the (let's change the name we love cats) Putin within the said box is in fact Dead as you say the universe already knew this ( sorry Carl Sagan says it the best ) millions, billions,millions, billions, billions and millions of years ago. Speaking of millions and billions, we made a cake with hundreds and thousands on top, we're hungry you hungry too

[@sjzara]

It’s not commonly understood that Schrödinger’s experiment would work equally well with a dog. It’s just that where Schrödinger lived had a cat problem and Schrödinger wanted to sell boxes.

[@ih4286]

Cats like boxes so it's a win win

[@Rkolb2798]

Everyone’s happy 😂

[@David-dl6zg]

one problem with using dogs for experiments is that dogs can't go into MRI machines............ ......But cats can.

[@randomthoughts9463]

Let's not be too hasty on scrapping Schrödinger’s cat experiment. My neighbour's cat is volunteering, let me know, I will pay for travel and living expenses. Anywhere.

[@MB-rn4ul]

There is no such thing as a cat problem.

[@alexispeyton649]

What a great explanation of Heidelbergs uncertainty principle! I understood it conceptually before, but i didn't understand it in the context of a wave. You also cleared up how light can act as a particle and a wave at the same time. BRAVO Sir!

[@centariprime9959]

The speed of light has only been measured on earth. We do know that gravity influences the speed of light as light bends around our Sun. Further, black hole theory indicates that light cannot overcome the gravitational pull. So the question is, what is the speed of light in interstellar space? What is the speed of light in intergalactic space?

[@hernerweisenberg7052]

I believe you misunderstood gravity and light. Regardless of its speed, light travels in a straight line through space. But it can refract of matter. So its average speed can be different in different mediums depending on its interaction with the stuff in its way (if it refrects around a lot, its path between two points might be more like a zig-zag, so its average speed appears to be lower). The reason gravity influences its path tho does not have to do with it interacting with anything. Gravity curves space, so the light following a straight line through space only appears as if it were bending because space itself is bend there.

[@buxeessingh2571]

If they changed the "Schrodinger's Cat" thought experiment to the "Foghorn Leghorn just might be in the feed box" thought experiment, I bet people would be less confused.

[@DrDeuteron]

I better not check, I just might be in Thar.

[@NotreDanish]

3:41 Small correction; Dark Matter is not a theory, it’s an observation of data. We expect a certain amount of matter in the universe based on special and general relativity and/or quantum mechanics, but the result we actually measure doesn’t line up with those theories, and the name given to that result was Dark Matter. We have theories trying to explain what dark matter is, but dark matter itself is an observation of the data, not a theory.

[@NotreDanish]

@acollierastro has a great video explaining that misunderstanding

[@davemuckeye1516]

‘Dark matter’ is the result of a gap theory, because they have no actual idea how else to interpret their data…

[@AR15andGOD]

It's absolutely a theory. You even called it dark matter, when it could be the result of some other phenomena like the interaction between fields not being entirely understood and thus producing different results than expected, meaning there isn't actually an imbalance. That's just spitballing, but referring to it as matter when we don't know if it's matter at all is just a presupposition

[@peteconrad2077]

Who else is here to watch Simon misunderstand concepts in physics.

[@russc788]

He is just reading a script from someone who misunderstands concepts in physics.

[@peteconrad2077]

@@russc788 maybe, but it’s up to him to have some comprehension and ability to not be made a fool of by an incompetent writer.

[@russc788]

@@peteconrad2077 His audience is people like me who also don’t understand the speed of light. Not because we are stupid, but because it’s a field requiring specific study. I probably will not pick up his errors.

[@peteconrad2077]

@@russc788 if you’ve watched this, you still don’t understand the speed of light. There are hundreds of videos by people who know what they’re talking about that will tell you what you want to know accurately and easily.

[@russc788]

@@peteconrad2077 I do like stuff from Simon, like the Casual Criminalist and Mega projects. It’s entertaining but NOT learning

[@dunkel429]

I’m so glad you explained what a theory is in the scientific method. So many people use ‘theory’ incorrectly to explain just an idea, and think it is scientifically viable bc they call it a theory.

[@ForgeMasterXXL]

For example conspiracy theories. And if I get told one more time that ‘scientist’ x proves conspiracy theory y but deep government covers it all up to suppress knowledge of z… I’m either going to scream, implode or explode. I would try and do all 3 at once but hey science.

[@portfolio91]

EXCELLENT! I go around debunking people who make these mistakes. Simon got it right.

[@alexbowman7582]

The fastest thing in the Universe is gossip.

[@forestlightfoot6750]

This is really well done. Simon does a good job. I'll be on the look out for more from this guy.

[@ericvulgate7091]

It might be hard to find!

[@DaxxTerryGreen]

He's on a TRILLION channels!

[@Tenly2009]

This is my theory: What if it’s not particles that act differently occasionally - but it’s the space they are passing through that contains a difference? For a particle that decays - perhaps it’s not some random amount of time that causes the decay, but it’s encountering space that has a specific property? We always assume that the fabric of space time is smooth and consistent and this piece here is the same as that piece there - but we can’t see it - so how do we know it’s the exact same everywhere? Maybe it’s not completely smooth and consistent - but bumpy - and when a particle encountered a specific type of bump, that triggers the decay. We know that space time bends due to mass/gravity. Maybe it also has other invisible properties and isn’t as smooth or resilient as we think. 🤔 This would be insanely difficult to test since it would be impossible to keep track of one specific quanta of space between 2 successive tests on a spinning rock that’s orbiting a star in a galaxy that orbiting a huge black hole while all of that orbits an even bigger black hole - but maybe at one of the Lagrange points? 🤷🏻‍♂️ Was just kidding at the beginning when I called this “my theory”. It’s obviously just a hypothesis - and not a really well thought out one at that - but either way, I’m going to call this idea my contribution to physics and just go back to selling T-shirts. 😆 👕

[@nade5557]

This is great 👍

[@bramvanduijn8086]

But they're not particles, they're wave-like probability blobs.

[@calutuu]

We can measure the speed of light inside our solar system, but we are not able yet, to measure the speed of light outside our own solar system. You could be right about smoothness of the space. We need to send outside our solar system more probes like Voyager , to do measurements and have more data to compare. But to do that we need to be more unite and stop killing each other.

[@Augcliffe]

Thank you for your opening message. I’ve been saying this for a long time and i get shouted down from folks on the internet.

[@wayneyadams]

10:50 Heisenberg was driving along a highway speeding when a State Trooper clocked him on radar and pulled him over. The Trooper walked up to his window and said, "You were driving 83 in a 65 zone." Heisenberg immediately exclaimed, "Ach! Now I am lost!" On a more serious note, it does not say you cannot know both quantities simultaneously, as you said in your first statement, it gives a limit on how precisely you can measure both quantities. The more precisely you measure position the less precisely you can measure momentum, and vice versa. The first pair of quantities are position and momentum; the second pair are energy and time.

[@marekjakubicki5795]

It's Maria Skłodowska-Curie. I don't think, she ever introduced herself differently.

[@Bacopa68]

True, and her daughter and her daughter's husband both used hyphenated last names. But most textbooks say Curie. I guess in a video you have to keep it simple. But you are right. It's "skwoh-dov-ska" for anyone out there who wants to say it.

[@marekjakubicki5795]

@@Bacopa68 most textbooks are incorrect then :) Maria Skłodowska-Curie is as simple as it's gets :)

[@Bacopa68]

@@marekjakubicki5795 I agree, and we do learn in the US that Marie S-C did name Polonium because she was a Polish nationalist.

[@KasumiRINA]

@@Bacopa68 let's just admit that this bit is just accepted casual racism Westerners have towards Central and Eastern Europe, when literally unpronounceable names like Schroesdignerbergs or Heisengburgelander are considered "normal" but Sklodowska is "exotic". (No, I am not installing another layout to cross the "L")

[@stevoplex]

The speed of light. It's not just a good idea. It's the Law.

[@jcook693]

Schrodinger's cat is an example of when the tool is harder to understand than the actual fact

[@owlredshift]

.........nah

[@---do2qd]

Evolution is a hypothesis by your definition. Would have been a good one to include

[@michaelribeiro5777]

this explanation of waves and knowledge of speed and position is brilliant visual representation. I haven't seen it before.

[@tiffanynajberg5177]

I think schrodingers cat goes over a lot of people’s heads because people just dont want to understand cats.

[@julianaylor4351]

Meowrr. 😆

[@FrancoDFernando]

One thing the helped me wrap my tiny brain around theories and thought experiments involving the speed of light is to think of it more as the universe’s bandwidth. 300,000 km/s is the fastest speed in which information can travel within our universe. And when scientists measured the speed of light, they’re technically measuring how fast a photon can go. And since it’s massless, it can reach the universe’s limit.

[@ToyokaX]

THANK YOU. Finally someone brings this up!. Since when did we start calling hypotheses, theories? I was taught that theories are generally established knowledge and hypothesis are untested ideas, and I keep seeing the word "theory" thrown out there like it's candy. The majority of modern "theories" are actually just hypotheses that have yet to be adequately proven to be false.

[@smartworld6137]

Light don't travel, doesn't have speed. It's just the instant of expanding.

[@ostlandr]

Schrodinger and Heisenberg were on a road trip, and Heisenberg was driving. They got pulled over for speeding. The officer said "I clocked you going 85 back there." Heisenberg said "Impossible! You can not have measured my speed and position at the same time!" Suspicious, the officer decides to search their car. He opens the trunk, and finds a dead cat. He goes back to the window and said "Do you know you have a dead cat back there?" Schrodinger: ((facepalm)) "I do NOW. . ."

[@MojoPup]

As to the statement that the Speed of Light "is a speed that we can never reach"....As an elderly Scientist once said "Never say Never". A more factual statement would be..."at our current understanding of Physics and level of technology, the SoL is a speed that we can't reach". It's a pet peeve when supposed intelligent people make 'absolute' type statements as if we know everything there is to know.

[@samuelpeinado1267]

I love this video. So many misconceptions about what most people think we “know”. How science works.

[@adamredwine774]

My respect to the writer here. I'm a couple months from getting my PhD in nuclear engineering doing work in high energy physics. I didn't see any major problems with any of the descriptions. Yes, physics is crazy hard and extremely confusing.

[@akaHarvesteR]

That explanation with the sine wave, and asking 'where' exactly that wave is (which clearly has a frequency) is IMO the best visualisation of the uncertainty principle. It's not a measurement thing, it's a wave thing. It's the same as playing a note on an instrument and having to answer where exactly that note is in the air. You can pin down one peak of sound wave exactly, but in doing so, you can't tell what the pitch of the note is anymore. OR, you can find the exact frequency to insane accuracy, but you'll need countless wave peaks to do it, so 'where' it is even doesn't make sense anymore.

[@shea455]

"Science proves XYZ" - a professor I learned physics from corrected any such statement. Science DISPROVES competing theories, and what ever is left is presumed (but not proven) to be true, until another theory fits the data more closely. "...therefore science does not prove." Math proves, other things can prove, but science is always in question. This was something that literally took me years to get my head wrapped around.

[@triplec8375]

Excellent video. I'd add a couple more items to Simon's list: (1) The concept of Nothingness. See Robert Kuhn's article, "Levels of Nothing" or Sabine Hossenfelder's video on the same subject. (2) The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics as it relates to entropy is nearly always (and often by scientists) phrased as "the entropy in any (closed) system will always increase", but it can also stay the same. This has been demonstrated in experiments with simple closed systems that increase in entropy, but return to their original state. As outlandish as it may seem, there may be a Law of Conservation of Entropy in the universe in which entropy increases along a timeline, but the timeline changes sign (travels in the opposite direction) and entropy increases along that timeline (which appears to be decreasing entropy from the original timeline), resulting in a net change in entropy of zero. Of course, that would require a FEW more speculations involving spacetime topology, the nature of the time dimension, and antimatter. Nevertheless, it may be important to keep that phrase in our descriptions of entropy.

[@SpaceGeek2161]

THANK YOU for explaining the difference between a hypothesis and a theory. I also want to note that the existence of dark matter is very very close to being a theory (and some of my astrophysics professors have cited it as a theory) due to an increasingly large and diverse body of evidence supporting it. What exactly it IS is still being hypothesized, but the existence of dark matter is reasonably well established -- at least well enough for it to be taught in graduate level astrophysics/cosmology classes (we even used some data on galactic rotation to find the ratios of luminous matter to dark matter in several galaxies as a class exercise. It was very interesting!).

[@stevenallan5822]

I hope everyone was paying attention and taking notes for the upcoming test(s).

[@LandonAshworthDirects]

Jokes on you- I have my PhD in astrophysics and I understood all this

[@Lleanlleawrg]

Yes I do. Quick edit to clarify. I understand that it's not really about the speed of light, but more about the constant 4-velocity everything moves at through spacetime. Being massless, light is moving through space at C, and as a consequence, to a photon time doesn't really exist. What I don't know is why C is the exact speed it is.

[@MrNikolidas]

The Uncertainty Principle was explained to me as trying to observe a game of pool through a camera with very limited memory card space. You can only record one high resolution picture or one low resolution video at a time, and subsequent observations nullify the previous ones as the next shot is already taking place.

[@Patiboke]

I like to explain Heisenberg like this: Suppose you measure the speed of the car. You install two detectors, a fixed distance apart, each made of a lazer and a photodiode. The car will trigger the two detectors and speed is distance divided by time. Now let's make a 'Flinstone' detector, a slingshot that shoots 500 lbs rocks into a funnel, again, two of them at a fixed distance. A passing car would catch a rock, so you can use it to detect the car, but the car will be considerably disturbed by the rock, it will skid sideways and so on. The first system is precise because the tiny photons have negligible influence on the car, but when you're measuring subatomic stuff 'there are only rocks'.

[@vacation_generation]

Great video. Thanks for reinforcing this foundational distinction between hypothesis and theories. It is somewhat overlooked and therefore misunderstood.

[@gclishe]

I want to expand a little bit on the uncertainty principle. Position and momentum are examples of quantum operators. If we represent two quantum operators as A and B, and if we want to measure them at the same time, then we can only do so if they commute. That is to say if AB-BA=0, then A and B commute and we can measure both A and B at the same time (in quantum lingo, we say that A and B have simultaneous eigenstates). Position and momentum are two quantum operators that do not commute, In fact, we find that if x is position and p is momentum, xp-px = i hbar (this is called the canonical commutation relation) where i is the imaginary number and hbar is the reduced planks constant. There is a generalized version of Heisenbergs uncertainty principle that works for all non-commuting quantum operators, but im not gonna bother writing it in a youtube comment.

[@davidknisely3003]

At 14:57: The Schrodinger wave equation and its applications are routinely taught to junior or senior level Physics undergraduate college students.

[@safetycar-onboard]

I thought that once proven a hypothesis doesn't become a theory straight away, it becomes a scientific law. Theory is a comprehensive and consistent explanation for a wide range of phenomena that integrates many laws, observations and hypotheses.

[@David_Baxendale]

Schrödinger's cat was perhaps the most famous (maybe first documented) example of someone saying something and people not only misunderstanding it, but then using it in the complete opposite way it was meant and running with it for so long that everyone now associates it that way.

[@mikaeljohansson6188]

You mean like "I doubt, therefore I think, I think therefore I am" by René Descartes?

[@bramvanduijn8086]

Two things about the uncertainty principle: - Every measurement is an interaction. This counts as an observer. - A quantum wave/particle is a range of possible interactions. You cannot interact with it without changing the range of possible/probable interactions. So you would have to recreate an identical wave/particle to make a new measurement, but when you do it is not the same particle! So while it has the same range of probable interactions, it will not have the same position or momentum. And you cannot create two particles in the same position with the same momentum, because then they would interact, collapsing the wave function!

[@Sonicgott]

The only thing that is certain about science is that we are uncertain. The path to knowledge isn’t precise, and is a road leading into the horizon, going on forever. The more we learn, the most questions need to be asked. It is unending.

[@andybradwin]

I don't even know if I love, or hate physics more after this! I definitely thought this was leading up to the double slit experiment. I love this channel!

[@patdolan7418]

Uncertainty is a misnomer and adds to the misunderstanding. The principle is indeterminacy. Not that there is uncertainty, but to put it in simple terms, position and momentum cannot be simultaneously determined. If one is determined regardless of method, the other cannot be.

[@tylerdurden3722]

When the phrase "speed of light" is used, it is typically referring to the "Speed of Causality" ("c"). In simplified terms, this means that an Effect cant happen before the Cause of the Effect. Cause happens before Effect. And when the Cause and Effect happen in different locations, the influence of the Cause can't travel faster than C to the location of the effect.

[@vmajorhawk]

Thanks to this video I have finally comprehended the Heisenberg uncertainty principle! Great job!

[@Kneedragon1962]

Another extremely common misconception, is about the speed of light. A massless particle travelling in a vacuum moves at the maximum possible speed of causality. Light (a photon) is one particle that observes this limit. But as shown in Relativity, the limit has nothing to do with light. It has to do with relativity. This thing, this object, this quanta of energy, can't have an effect on this other one 300 million metres away, in less than a second, because that would break the rules of causality. That would break not only time, that would break the logical laws of cause and effect. One result of this is that light moves at that speed in a vacuum, but the limit has nothing to do with light. We talk about C and The Speed of Light because that's by far the most common and simple example of it, the easiest to remember and communicate, an easy title or tag or nickname.

[@wayneyadams]

7:22 Thank you for pointing out the origin and intent of Schrodinger's cat.