Dear sci-fi writers,
You can't be weirder than reality. I dare you.
@LexYeen Is this in response to something in particular?
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@Felthry I looked up Oganesson and saw that it was formerly thought to be a gas under normal conditions, but now the prediction is that it's a solid due to relativistic effects.
And that just made me go "...nature is weirder than anyone realizes."
@LexYeen relativistic effects are also why mercury is liquid!
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@Felthry This reality never fails to astound me.
@LexYeen the alt text on https://xkcd.com/1489/ is just, emblematic of how *weird* physcis is
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@LexYeen also the fact that electromagnetism and the weak force are actually the same thing. and it's suspected the strong force and gravity are also actually the same thing, it's just that the universe hasn't been hot enough for them to be the same thing since a femtosecond or two after time started
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@LexYeen oh yes also also despite being probably the same thing, our best current explanation of gravity (general relativity) and our best current explanation of literally everything else (quantum electrodynamics and quantum chromodynamics) just flat out *do not* play well together. as in, trying to do the math spits out things that are blatantly nonsensical and i don't mean huge numbers i mean actual nonsense, nothing converges, infinities everywhere
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@LexYeen it's probably going to need new math to figure it out though
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@Felthry I've always dreamed of what might happen to society once someone figured out how to reconcile that.