Infeel like this gets reposted here at least once a month, but this one has a different t pic, and way more likes
this post was submitted on 02 Jan 2025
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Science Memes
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- Number of hydrogen atoms in a single molecule of water (H2O): 2
- Number of stars in our (ENTIRE) solar system: 1
That's the joke.
Thanks, I never would have been able to understand 2>1 if you hadn't written up that amazing power point slide.
There are fewer hydrogen atoms in a single molecule of water than there are fingers on my hand.
Check and mate.
Me: That doesn't seem right. OH. Oh, I am stupid.
*OH~2~
I am impressed by how clever that was. Well done.
It's almost impossible to see the last two words because your brain is already reeling from the rest of the statement. It took me a few tries to finally parse it.
Not stupid. Our brain can just get tripped up sometimes and read what it expects to read instead of what's really there. The sad part is that there are educated people in the US even today that would be surprised or even argue against you if you stated the other version (more atoms in a glass than in our galaxy). Our science education is woefully lacking now.
What blew me away that I learned not too long ago is the notion that if the galaxy was the size of the US, our solar system would be the size of a fingerprint. Try to even visualize that. (reference is the Epic Spaceman YT channel)
We had a young, hippy science teacher through 70s grade school. Looking back, that woman made more impact on my life than any other teacher.
Every year, every fucking year, she'd start with the difference in fact and opinion. "Yeah, I get it already. Can we move on?" Apparently not many others got that bit of education.
She taught the scientific method and how it works, she taught how to experiment, how to measure. I still set a beaker down and wait for it to settle before moving on. And I'm not in science!
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(3 replies)
The glass of water is a bit misleading. Your brain starts thinking about all the water molecules inside. That's all.
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(5 replies)
Iits not a lot, but it's crazy that it happened twice.
My autopilot brain kept skipping over molecule and missing the joke lol.
It's 2 > 1, so correct two hydrogens versus one star: Sol
O sole mio!
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(2 replies)
Ken M made a similar joke a while back right?
Click here if you don't understand
There is only one star in our solar system - the Sun.
And if you somehow still don't get it, click here
Meanwhile, there are two hydrogen atoms in a water molecule - H~2~O
If you're still having trouble, click here
2 is greater than 1
And if all of this continues to elude you, click here
You just lost The Game^TM^.
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(18 replies)
I really need to read better, I still thought it said galaxy.
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(4 replies)
I skipped reading the word stars, and I thought it was deliberately wrong to rile people up.
There are more memes estimating the size of the universe than there are stars in the galaxy.
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(2 replies)
Most people have more balls than there are stars in our solar system.
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(13 replies)
Obligatory "what about Jupiter"
Okay, I'll bite. "what about it?"
It's a Y-class brown dwarf star. Saturn likely is as well.
Today, the International Astronomical Union places the dividing line between brown dwarfs and planets at 13 Jupiter masses. This is the minimum mass required to ignite deuterium fusion.
IAU is well known for coming up with shitty arbitrary classifications about nomenclature that many astronomers don't agree with. They are wrong here because they don't take into account post-Cassini/Juno understanding of gas giant morphology. The IAU definition is outdated and highly misleading.
Copied from another reply I gave in this thread:
I've seen 13 MJ argued as a boundary, but it's selected somewhat arbitrarily and based around idealized models of Deuterium fusion, which has never been observed, and which is a process these brown dwarves would only undergo for a brief flash in their early life. Deuterium isn't abundant enough for its fusion to significantly alter the stellar morphology that has already become established for objects larger than Saturn. Saturn is our solarsystem's example of an object that does not fit cleanly into one side or the other of a mass-based binary classification scheme for determining a hard boundary between "planet" and "star". To understand what is a planet vs what is a star, study Saturn.
Ok, that's interesting! I didn't realize there was controversy around this definition.
The planet definition that excluded pluto was decided upon at the end of an IAU conference after most planetary scientists had left. As a result, only dynamicists are happy with it. Planetary geologists in particular HATE it and have always vocally pushed back.
And if you want more, check out what I said last time this meme was posted.
As someone who worked as an astrophysicist for 9 years, I assure you that the question of "what is a planet?" is a nuanced discussion with a lot of diverse opinions and no clear answer that gets endlessly debated by students as they learn that these definitions aren't as cut and dry as irresponsible science communicators made it seem during the disastrous and highly politically motivated demotion of Pluto to dwarf planet.
I'd say Jupiter would need to be about 3 times massive to count as one. And more realistically around 10ish.
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(1 replies)
So do we not count the mini suns being created at places like Livermore Labs? 🤔
We can't make plasma dense enough to have significant convention over radiance, and the longest active run is only a minute or so. We're a good way away from plasma stable enough to be called a star, although it's getting closer. Hydrogen bombs are probably the closest we have so far.
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