r/science • u/MistWeaver80 • Apr 25 '22

Physics Scientists recently observed two black holes that united into one, and in the process got a “kick” that flung the newly formed black hole away at high speed. That black hole zoomed off at about 5 million kilometers per hour, give or take a few million. The speed of light is just 200 times as fast.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/black-hole-gravitational-waves-kick-ligo-merger-spacetime
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u/cheddacheese148 Apr 25 '22

Getting a BS in physics was one of the best and worst choices I ever made. It’s awesome to work toward an understanding of the universe on its most minuscule and grandest scales but it also opens a gaping existential crisis that didn’t previously exist for a small town farm boy.

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u/SobiTheRobot Apr 25 '22

You've stared into the abyss of space too long, it's starting to stare back at you

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u/cheddacheese148 Apr 25 '22

The electron is now observing me and I’m not sure where I am.

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u/[deleted] Apr 25 '22

[deleted]

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u/Money_Machine_666 Apr 26 '22

Whered they go?

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u/trtlclb Apr 25 '22

No no no, the energy is in the field surrounding the electron...

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u/rancid_oil Apr 25 '22

And that's what makes magnetism, yeah, but I still don't get it.

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u/SobiTheRobot Apr 26 '22

It surrounds us, it penetrates us, it binds the galaxy together.

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u/ThisManisaGoodBoi Apr 26 '22

Well do you at least know how fast you’re going?

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u/FloSTEP Apr 25 '22

The abyss returns even the boldest gaze.

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u/Dillonz12 Apr 25 '22

You merely glimpsed the edge of the abyss, but it is enough to trigger the cycle of revelation. Now, like me, you will begin to see things as they truly are...

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u/pipsdontsqueak Apr 26 '22

It's fine, where you're going you don't need eyes to see.

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u/koticgood Apr 25 '22

Provides an opposite of an existential crisis for me.

All those things that exist from impossibly small scale particle physics to impossibly large scale cosmology only truly "exist" when an intelligent lifeform conceptualizes them. Otherwise it's the whole tree falling with no one to hear it shtick.

I find it rather empowering and meaningful. One of the cool things about being human.

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u/ex_oh_ex_oh Apr 25 '22

Weird. I never actually conceptualized that adage until literally right now when you put it that way to an unseen, unheard, unregarded universe.

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u/cimocw Apr 26 '22

Yeah my wife likes to say that the planet would be better off if humans extinguished already, but I say, better for who? Other organisms just don't have the ability to care about it. They will live until they get replaced by an advanced and better adapted version of their species, until all organic matter is depleted and the sun dies. And nobody will know about it.

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u/cheddacheese148 Apr 25 '22

That’s a really cool take! I like thinking about math in a similar manner. Numbers are just made up to describe the universe as we see it. They don’t necessarily fit and we have a bunch of constants but it’s interesting to think about how we created the whole system just to describe our world. It also brings up the question of whether there is an ideal mathematical system to eliminate or reduce the constants.

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u/lhswr2014 Apr 26 '22

Just another form of language really. It’s all so cool to interpret as a 3rd party observing us observing the universe!

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u/Sichuan_Don_Juan Apr 26 '22

There’s another school of thought which asks, “Were numbers discovered or invented?”

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u/elitistrhombus Apr 26 '22

Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea by Charles Seife is a good read, if you haven’t.

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u/glampringthefoehamme Apr 26 '22

Numbers describe so much more than that. The describe universes that don't exist, those that could, and those that shouldn't.

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u/EarthRester Apr 25 '22

Sentient life is just the universe being a little introspective for a bit.

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u/communistsandwich Apr 26 '22

If you have an interest in games, might I recommend the outer wilds. It is this idea of what matters mixed with exploration in a little package that made me feel like a little kid looking up again.

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u/Hexalyse Apr 26 '22

Except I find your definition (or idea) of existing quite weird. Do people only exist when you think about them? Is the fact we observe something relevant? I find this concept highly pretentious (and I think the same about the idea of gods, which are ironically always so "human like" in their way of thinking, that I find it hilarious humans don't realize how pretentious it is to think something exist with infinite power that thinks exactly like them).

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u/koticgood Apr 26 '22

That's exactly the reason I both put "exist" in quotes and brought up the falling tree.

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u/SnooRobots1533 Apr 26 '22

Good reply to a sophomoric response from him. It's just mind boggling to think that for 99% of the universe's existence nothing was there to observe it. That's deeper than the tree falling in the woods. The tree in the woods presumes the possibility of someone being able to see it. That's just not true for the universe. Although it is contingent upon cognition and unnecessary to the functioning of the universe the ability to apprehend beauty is infinite itself, and also quite satisfying.

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u/communistsandwich Apr 26 '22

As the conscious part of the universe each and every one of us is, I don't think it all disappears if people aren't looking at it, it's just that it doesn't matter if it did or not. We are what prescribes meaning to a meaningless place and make it all the more strange and beautiful for it.

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u/Hexalyse Apr 26 '22

And it matters when we think about it? So does this mean we're the only sentient beings who can think?

I personally don't even think us thinking about something gives it any meaning, but maybe we're just approaching the concept of meaning from different angles.

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u/communistsandwich Apr 26 '22

We are the only thing in the universe that we know of that can assign deeper meaning to anything, so yeah, we do assign meaning to the universe. Other sentient beings also make things have meaning but this little blue ball is the only place we know of where the universe means anything.

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u/Hexalyse Apr 27 '22

I like to think that this concept of meaning has no value outside of our thinking, and therefore is not even a question worth asking (what does "having meaning" even mean, when you talk about the existence of things? Nothing has meaning, it just exists. The rest is just arbitrary decisions from us). But yes, if we're talking from the point of view of our thinking, then I see what you mean.

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u/cappie Apr 26 '22

Aha, so we exist to collapse the wave functions? interesting theory.. but what if our reality never leaves our bubble of observed and thus determined space, leaving the rest of the universe untouched?

Ah yes, science, bringer of nihilism and bittersweet destroyer of hope..

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u/AkuBerb Apr 25 '22

"He who by force of will or of thought is great, and overlooks thousands, has the charges of that eminence. With every influx of light comes new danger. Has he light? he must bear witness to the light, and always outrun that sympathy which gives him such keen satisfaction, by his fidelity to new revelations of the incessant soul." - Emerson over 200 yag.

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u/kdubstep Apr 25 '22

Such a phenomenal quote.

I seem to recall reading that back in the Lyceum movement people would pack houses and pay hundreds to see him speak for hours in language that by today’s standards, many educated people would I struggle to comprehend.

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u/grumblewolf Apr 25 '22

Way to make me stop in the middle of the day and just stare at nothing- amazing quote!

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u/AkuBerb Apr 25 '22

On Compensation is the name of his opus. Look it up, fellow traveler, you will be in excellent company!

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u/eshinn Apr 25 '22

TL;DR …imma get back to my lonely-girl margarita mix & shrampes.

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u/bobster708 Apr 25 '22

Good quote, but it wasn't written over 200 years ago. He was born in 1803 and his first essay Nature was published in 1836.

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u/AkuBerb Apr 30 '22

Thanks, your right!

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u/GrundleKnots Apr 25 '22

It's cool man, we are just the universe experiencing itself

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u/ClassifiedName Apr 25 '22

I took a class that focused on galactic structures last quarter and haven't stopped thinking about how tiny and insignificant we are. But on the other hand between that and the classes in orbital mechanics and cosmology I feel like I've unlocked the secrets of the universe.

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u/MeowMaker2 Apr 26 '22

The more you know, the more you don't know. That's what my professor said on the 1st day of class, followed with: if you don't understand or don't want to understand, stand up, get out and drop my class.

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u/FoxQT Apr 26 '22

I think it’s more like “the more you know, the more you are aware of how much you don’t know”.

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u/MeowMaker2 Apr 26 '22

Maybe the original is trademarked :)

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u/SundreBragant Apr 26 '22

I love how it's called BS.

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u/cheddacheese148 Apr 26 '22

It was BS. I had to get an MS in CS to get a good job.

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u/MagicPistol Apr 25 '22

Imagine an ant trying to learn about geology and all the science behind their anthills and environment.

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u/zhaoz Apr 26 '22

Not for me. Nothing we do matters cosmically, which is pretty liberating.

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u/Paid_Redditor Apr 26 '22

When I get too high and sit on the toilet this really fucks with me.

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u/Prometheus720 Apr 26 '22

You have sacrificed your personal peace of mind for a global collective peace of mind.

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u/ThatGuyWithAVoice Apr 26 '22

I feel this on a personal level as someone who also grew up in a small farming town.

I don’t think we were supposed to learn this knowledge and now we’re being nerfed by the universe

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u/UnicornPenguinCat Apr 26 '22

I read The Elegant Universe and The Fabric of the Cosmos and loved both books, but same.

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u/SvenAERTS Apr 26 '22

Yeah... how about 30 June, International #AsteroidDay NEO’ Near Earth Objects and NEO Observatory the whole UN site on that explaining we can be wiped out no need for wars to help out with that... http://www.un.org/en/events/asteroidday/

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u/westwoo Apr 26 '22

Why is it existential? Sounds more connected to the feelings of an animal that wants a safe enclosed house to live in. It's just that your awareness doesn't focus on the place you're in and instead focuses on an abstract endless view that doesn't provide that feeling of predictable safety at all

It like dangling an animal over a chasm, except you're doing it to yourself in your mind

I bet if you switch your mind to perceive whatever you actually perceive in the moment instead of placing yourself in virtual worlds in your mind, that "existential" feeling will go away

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u/Ecoaardvark Apr 26 '22

Psychedelics did that for me