Press J to jump to the feed. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts

Found the internet!

Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations.

Discuss, learn, teach. Follow the tangents.

r/AskScienceDiscussion

15

Posted by8 hours ago

What If?

Does an infinite universe invalidate the fermi paradox?

It seems logical to think that life should either occur zero times, or multiple times, but if the universe is infinite, couldn't the answer just be that life is rare enough to only form once every ten thousand billion light years or something crazy like that?

Edit: I have concluded the answer is yes https://youtu.be/wHskqdjw3iw?t=236

15

41 comments

24

Posted by1 day ago

General Discussion

Is the immense grief displayed by many parents after loss of offspring unique to humans or has this been demonstrated in other animals? Does it depend on R/K-Selection?

24

13 comments

19

Posted by1 day ago

General Discussion

How coincidental is the existence of atmospheric rainbows on Earth? Would they form on exo-planets?

Is the existence of rainbows in the sky one of those things that’s astonishingly unlikely, like how the apparent size of the Moon is the same as the apparent size of the Sun? And how much does our ability to see rainbows depend on particularities of our eyes? In other words, would aliens consider rainbows a novelty or would we expect rainbows to be more mundane?

19

8 comments

91

Posted by2 days ago

General Discussion

Knowing more than one language delays dementia by 4.5 years. Do we know this is causative? Just correlation?

91

14 comments

2

Posted by2 days ago

Is there a process that determines exactly what bits of genetic data go into sperm or egg cells during their formation?

Among children we can see some similarities with some very obvious differences. I would assume these are because each egg or sperm is somewhat different one from the other regarding the genetic information they carry. Is there a process involved in determining exactly which genes will go into the reproductive cell, or is it all there, but it expresses differently each time?

2

1 comment

77

Posted by3 days ago

General Discussion

"The speed of light isn't about light, it's the speed of causality." How does the speed of causality set the values of the vacuum permittivity and permeability that equate to the speed of light?

The vacuum permittivity and permeability factor into Maxwell's equations for the wave propagation of light. But in relativity, that constancy and value of c is a constraint of the kinematics.

𝜀_0 𝜇_0 c2 = 1

So the product of these two electromagnetic constants is a spacetime constant. If one goes up the other must go down. But does spacetime care about the particular individual values or only the product?

So, while I realize fundamental constants are not really explainable at this time, is there something in the vacuum of space that governs their relative ratio?

Does QED offer insight?

77

17 comments

2

Posted by2 days ago

Why is ocean acidification a concern with respect to CO2 if warmer water cannot hold as much CO2 as cooler water? Shouldn't warming oceans become less acidic as they expell CO2?

I've been watching lots of cool videos about the ice ages and one of the primary feedback mechanism cited for raising and lowering the earth's temperature (after insolation change due to the Milankovitch cycle) is the offgassing and absorption of CO2 by the oceans as the oceans warm and cool, respectively. This idea seems in tension with the idea that rising CO2 levels would acidity the oceans, since CO2 also ultimately warms the atmosphere and oceans. Am I missing something? Is it a difference of time scales and response times of the earths systems?

2

6 comments

About Community

Here you can ask any question you have about being a scientist, what's new in a field, what's going to happen in a field, or are curious about how we got to this point.

Created Nov 19, 2012

r/AskScienceDiscussion topics