gistfile1.txt

achin: any weider than gravity?
[4:56pm] agrif: less weird
[4:56pm] agrif: gravity is insane
[4:57pm] agrif: so did you know that electromagnetism is what pushes back on you when you push on a wall?
[4:57pm] agrif: it's the same force
[4:57pm] achin: yes, i think i did
[4:58pm] agrif: it's just that in a magnet, everything is aligned just so, so that all atoms are working together
[4:58pm] achin: well, i could have said that, but don't really *know* what it means
[4:58pm] agrif: so you feel it farther away than you do normally
[4:58pm] agrif: constructive interference
[4:58pm] agrif: in normal materials it's destructive
[4:58pm] achin: but i think the notion is that, at the atomic level, there's not much that distinquishes us from everything else.  just the strength of the forces that hold atoms near each other.  or something
[4:58pm] agrif: so you have to get reaally really close to a single atom
[4:59pm] agrif: yeah, on the atomic level everything *looks* like magnetism
[4:59pm] agrif: there's no collisions
[4:59pm] agrif: like, the way we think of collisions normally
[5:00pm] achin: which, if that's an accurate way to view things, is fairly mind-blowing
[5:00pm] CounterPillow: I, for my part, like pooping.
[5:00pm] agrif: Feynman was asked why magnets are different, and he basically said "no, that's normal. we see it all the time, it's just the distances are too small so we think it's different"
[5:01pm] agrif: and so he was asked for an anology, and he said he could use rubber bands or something, but that's a false analogy because rubber bands are springy precisely because of electromagnetism
[5:01pm] agrif: and he didn't want to get into a circular loop
[5:01pm] brownan: CounterPillow
[5:01pm] brownan: I totally got your chocolate
[5:01pm] CounterPillow: :O
[5:01pm] CounterPillow: :OOOO
[5:01pm] agrif: :o
[5:02pm] agrif: is it good?
[5:02pm] achin: yayay
[5:02pm] brownan: openinng now
[5:02pm] ion: Ooh, physics talk.
[5:02pm] CounterPillow: Also notice the paper towel I stuffed in there so it doesn't shake around too much
[5:02pm] achin: has it melted or been eaten by mice during it's epicly long voyage?
[5:02pm] box-bot: Definitely
[5:02pm] brownan: seems okay
[5:02pm] achin: take a picture!
[5:02pm] CounterPillow: \o/
[5:03pm] CounterPillow: I hope I removed all the price tags :c
[5:03pm] achin: so we all can seeee
[5:03pm] ion: agrif: So… what did Feynman say?
[5:03pm] agrif: basically that EM is so fundamental you can't really explain it in terms of other things
[5:03pm] agrif: there's no underlying mechanism, not unless you want to get into electroweak and mediating particles
[5:03pm] agrif: which he mentioned then brushed aside because it was too technical
[5:03pm] CounterPillow: "I didn't choose the thug life. The thug life chose me." -- Richard Feynman
[5:03pm] aheadley: !fortune feynman
[5:03pm] EmceeOverviewer: aheadley: command failed
[5:03pm] aheadley: aww
[5:03pm] aheadley: !fortune science
[5:03pm] EmceeOverviewer: aheadley: Base 8 is just like base 10, if you are missing two fingers. -- Tom Lehrer
[5:04pm] achin: woahhhhhh
[5:04pm] CounterPillow: Floodkill imminent
[5:04pm] agrif: ?
[5:04pm] CounterPillow: wait
[5:04pm] achin: agrif is super laggy
[5:04pm] CounterPillow: did you... wow
[5:04pm] agrif: yeah
[5:04pm] CounterPillow: that was lag?
[5:04pm] agrif: little bit
[5:04pm] achin: we got like 20 agrif messages all at once
[5:04pm] agrif: I'm on a super tenuous connection
[5:04pm] CounterPillow: You just spit out all the lines since "it's the same force" at once
[5:05pm] agrif: wow that really re-colors the conversation I was having with (apparently) myself