wedrifid comments on Open Thread: November 2009 - Less Wrong

3 [deleted] 02 November 2009 01:18AM

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Comment author: wedrifid 02 November 2009 08:41:05PM 2 points [-]

I followed the link Silas provided. Rather than seeing a list to be memorised my brain started throwing up all sorts of related facts. The pieces of physics I have acquired from various sources over the years reasserted themselves and I tried to piece together just how charm antiquarks fit into things. And try to remember just why it was that if I finally meet my intergalactic hominid pen pal and she tries to shake hands with her left hand I can be sure that shaking would be a cataclysmic-ally bad idea. I seem to recall being able to test symmetry with cobalt or something. But I think it's about time I listened to Feynman again.

Point is, being able to find the list of elementary particles more overwhelming than, say, a list of the world's countries requires a certain amount of knowledge and a desire for a complete intuitive grasp. That's not modesty-signalling in my book.

Comment author: DanArmak 02 November 2009 08:43:32PM 1 point [-]

Everyone knows what a country is. Few people know what the term "elementary particle" means. (It's not a billiard ball.)

Comment author: wedrifid 02 November 2009 08:50:31PM *  0 points [-]

Few people know what the term "elementary particle" means. (It's not a billiard ball.)

It's not a billiard balls from the movie they showed? Then surely 'elementary particles' must refer to those things on the Table of the Elements that was on the wall!