StringJunky

The idea of virtual particles being less than a quanta and not being actionable individually has been a key thing for me to learn that you've mentioned recently. Also, fields vibrating into other fields has been useful too that I learnt from the video. I think i shall be watching this a few times as Carroll seems to have painted a nicely coherent picture of the different levels and relationships between all the particles and fields. Seems like a good basic springboard to look deeper into parts of atomic theory which I've wanted to get into for a while. The field thing was always the sticking point for me. Swansont has mentioned Carroll quite a few times over the years and i've read a few things by him, so that video caught my eye and his name piqued me to watch it. I'm minded to get one of his books.

The first 50 mins of this excellent Sean Carroll lecture will give you a good overview of the scientific evolution of the first ideas of particles through to them being seen as fields and how they work, including an explanation of what the Higgs Boson is about that gives things mass. Beyond the 50 minutes he goes into where physics is going. You don't need much prior knowledge to understand what he's saying.

Today I learnt that olive oil is 91% the weight of water and if you tried to swim in it would be like having a lead belt around you that was 9% of your bodyweight.

I learnt today that pedantry is alive and well.

Being on the crest of the wave does mean you fall off more often.

My second link in the thread sorts that out; per annum:

Did you not notice 'US Geological Survey'?

I was kidding really, based on I tend to think of holes as somewhere around vertical.

A lateral 'hole' is a 'tunnel'.

Members here don't penalise ignorance but do willfull obstinance in the face of evidence and bad or uncivil attitude. You don't have to be formally educated to have chats here about science here but if you come up with ideas or hypotheses expect them to be challenged and have citations ready to support them. If you genuinely just want to soak up information, nobody should have any reason to pick on you. welcome to the forum.

It was to Koti.

Interesting facts are everywhere and in the unlikeliest places. I have more than a passing interest in gut science/commensal organisms and that's how I came across it. Today you learned that 'crap' is named after Thomas Crapper, who designed and sold sanitary ware.

from the Wiki references: This one suggests the figure is poo/per annum, I think: Even at 300-odd times higher than it first appeared, it's not to be sniffed at.

I think that's a million toilet sessions.

The poo of a million people can hold $13m worth of precious metals (US Geological Survey).

I can't.

Chips, salt and vinegar; the perfect menage a trois

Yes, it looks that way. About a quarter of the UK is obese, so we aren't exactly a healthy nation. It's a Pan-Western problem and not uniquely American .

Right. Heinz, which is common here is probably the sweetest, relatively, but still has a fairly distinct tang. That's American isn't It? Maybe your version is different in sweetness. Most of the others are more tart. I like the tart, cheek-pulling stuff on my chips. I even sprinkle vinegar with it.

Is it more sweet than sharp, your ketchup?

Wow! 6 sugars in your tea by any chance and sugar mines in your cereal?

Today, I learned that the fastest organism on Earth is a bacterium, Methanocaldococcus, and it can move at 500 cell lengths a second.

It's Galileo's fault for being stubborn... and correct. They all want to follow in his footsteps and stand like a lofty mountain in the annals of human history.

First time I've left an ad on Youtube:

If there isn't any telepaths there won't be any empaths as there isn't a great deal of difference; it's information that's supposedly being transmitted in both cases. JC's post is perfectly sensible and evidential in its own right. There has been at least a hundred thousand years, since Homo sapiens evolved, for it to become common, which it would have if it existed.