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Author | Topic: Counter-Intuitive Science | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 309 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Much of science is counter-intuitive. One could talk here about relativity or quantum theory, but there are examples that are easier to grasp and equally counter-intuitive at first glance. For example, the world being round. (I can still recall my own incredulity when my mother told me about that one.) Or the fact that large stars burn through their fuel faster than small ones.
What are your favorite examples?
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Admin Director Posts: 13029 From: EvC Forum Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
Thread copied here from the Counter-Intuitive Science thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.
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slevesque Member (Idle past 4666 days) Posts: 1456 Joined: |
a red flame is less energetic then a blue flame. (Or infrared is less energetic then ultraviolet)
Although it's not counter-intuitive per se, but it is since in our cultures we represent red as hot, heat, fire and blue as cold, ice etc.
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cavediver Member (Idle past 3668 days) Posts: 4129 From: UK Joined: |
a red flame is less energetic then a blue flame. Definitely, and even more so in the case of stars - I mean, how hot can a blue star honestly look?
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1369 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
Dr Adequate writes: What are your favorite examples? that it is entirely possible to make a vehicle that travels directly downwind, powered only by the wind, and goes faster than the wind.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1430 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
or one that can travel directly upwind, powered by wind.
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Panda Member (Idle past 3738 days) Posts: 2688 From: UK Joined: |
Not sure if it is counter-intuitive per se, but Archimedes' Screw:
I don't why, but it sets off a false-positive on my bullshit meter.It all 'seems wrong'. Edited by Panda, : typo
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CosmicChimp Member Posts: 311 From: Muenchen Bayern Deutschland Joined: |
There are so many, especially the ones I saw as a kid. Anything from Prof. Julius Sumner Miller had me enthralled. But from my teenage years comes the enduring and possibly my favourite example. Prof. Carl Sagan in Cosmos explains the fourth spatial dimension. I should forget it, I can scarcely grasp the premises even now decades later.
And also from university days, that a lungfish has physically much more DNA than a human.
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jar Member (Idle past 419 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
That ice floats.
Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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Larni Member Posts: 4000 From: Liverpool Joined: |
That heavy things fall to earth the same speed as lighter things.
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jar Member (Idle past 419 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
That summer and winter are not related to how close the earth is to the sun.
Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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Tanypteryx Member Posts: 4440 From: Oregon, USA Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
That there are no green stars even though there is green light in their spectrum.
Tactimatically speaking, the molecubes are out of alignment. -- S.Valley What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty Python You can't build a Time Machine without Weird Optics -- S. Valley
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Panda Member (Idle past 3738 days) Posts: 2688 From: UK Joined: |
jar writes:
On a similar vein: the phases of the moon not being caused by the Earth.
That summer and winter are not related to how close the earth is to the sun.
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Iblis Member (Idle past 3921 days) Posts: 663 Joined: |
That water expands when freezing (that home-made slurpees explode rather than implode)
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Jon Inactive Member |
That I exist.
Check out No webpage found at provided URL: Apollo's Temple! Ignorance is temporary; you should be able to overcome it. - nwr
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