/sci/ - Science & Math

There's a lot of MS and PhDs on /sci/ - including a lot of folks in active research, and a lot of folks who were partly motivated by /sci/ to go into the sciences in the first place - but
a) they're obviously not here all the time because they're busy with other shit
b) most of them can't really risk discussing their research in any level of detail without doxxing themselves, especially if you're in a niche field, and
c) we've also been flooded by schizos and qanan boomers like a lot of boards the last few years, and that seriously dilutes the quality of discussion here

Is it true that /sci/ is the smartest forum on the internet?

>>12515407
The best way to understand curved space-time is Einstein's way in 1907. Imagine all of space is filled with clocks which are held in place, but they need tick at different rates in order to stay simultaneous with each other. Near a massive object, the clocks tick slowly, away from masses, they tick faster.

Particles travel through space so that they locally take the path of maximum time between fixed endpoints, so that between endpoints which are close to a massive object, their path curves out a little, meaning that they are bent toward the massive object.

This is a statement of the Einstein 1907 theory of gravity, which he knew then would be the weak field, slow velocity approximation to Genera Relativity. It is counterintuitive for a few reasons:

1. In geometry, straight line paths are minimum distance. In relativity the path is a local maximum. This is a consequence of the minus sign in the Pythagorean theorem in relativity. In relativity, unlike in geometry, the sum of the length of two legs of a triangle (when these are not imaginary) is always less than the third, so that straight lines maximize proper time.
2. There is only one function which describes the curving of space time, and this is the clock rate. The curvature is determined by this clock rate, but it is purely a time curvature. Space is not curved at all.
3. The geodesic motion is not trivial to see from the clock-rate description. You might naively think that to maximize the proper time you need to move away from massive objects, because time ticks slower near them. But the maximization is holding the endpoints fixed. To give an equation of motion without the concept of maximum proper time, you can just say that objects feel a force of attraction towards regions of slower clock-tick, and leave it at that. But this doesn't look like a geometrical condition (although it is).

I don't believe that there are two pictures of a phenomenon, one for laymen and a separate one for physicists.

>>12479186
optimum theory will live forever in the annals of /sci/ history, for what it's worth, I hope you never leave

>could you give me a quick overview of this board
/sci/ is 4chan's Math and Science board
>Are there any tripfriends worth talking to?
tripfags are the cancer killing /sci/. ignore them.
>can you characterize this board in one image?
not really

/sci/ culture

/sci/

>>9806569
>correct and incomplete description of reality

Underage popsci reading faggot detected. Science is about modeling reality. It's not about being correct or complete but usefulness in a domain of parameters.

>>9229343
maxwell was the guy who found the final part to the laws of electrodynamics, namely [math] \mu_0 J [/math] and then just presented them nicely (stokes' theorem) to get his name on them

They're empirical laws so i'm not sure what the problem is. they also shoot out relativity when looking at retarded potentials using these equations

other posters are pic related btw

>>8896258

>>8641835

>>8602095

>>8389937

>>8329899
this is just typical /sci/

>>8255536
See for yourself how many cancerous shitposts you have done

>>/sci/?task=search&ghost=yes&search_text=ssshhh

You are pure cancer with zero argumentation skills, that spams pure shitposts like a retard. Good job!

>>8240114

Depends.

>>8175994
BEHEAD THOSE WHO INSULT STRING THEORY

>>8161949
You have to be 18 to post here.