this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
363 points (96.7% liked)

Showerthoughts

30726 readers
1454 users here now

A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted, clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts: 1

Rules

  1. All posts must be showerthoughts
  2. The entire showerthought must be in the title
  3. No politics
    • If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
    • A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
    • If you feel strongly that you want politics back, please volunteer as a mod.
  4. Posts must be original/unique
  5. Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct

If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.

Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report the message goes away and you never worry about it.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
vatlark
forkball
Thekingoflorda
363
Magnetism only feels like magic, because we don't have biological sensors for it (feddit.de)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/showerthoughts
71 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Think about it. Isn't light+eyes and ears+sound just the same in terms of their "influence at a distance"? We don't feel that as abnormal or magic - simply because we've sensors for them and are used to it. But physically speaking light and magnetism are based on electromagnetic forces.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] azurekevin 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

We don't have sensors to directly sense a single magnetic field, but if you've played with magnets a lot, you can definitely "feel" how their forces work and develop kind of an intuitive physical sense.

Perhaps a good example/analogy of something we can feel and understand somewhat intuitively but actually do not scientifically understand is gravity. You can definitely feel its effects / force, even though you don't have a specific gravitational field sensor in your body per say.

We have very good theories and formulas for calculating gravitational effects, but we still fundamentally do not understand what causes it.

[–] cbarrick 25 points 1 year ago

[Y]ou don't have a specific gravitational field sensor in your body per say.

I'd argue that the vestibular system in your inner ear qualifies as a gravitational field sensor.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

The example with gravity is interesting indeed. We have only acceleration sensors behind our ears, but our body notices the pressure of the body tissue pressing down towards the gravity. And obviously, we also feel gravity when moving.

However, the difference to magnetism is, that we frankly don't have any contact with magnets during our evolution - except for the earth's magnetic field.

Even if we are able to sense it, it's definitely far from being able to reliably feel it like we do for gravity.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Instructions unclear, super glued magnets to my body.