this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2026
862 points (97.3% liked)

Science Memes

20722 readers
1765 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.


Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] mrsemi@lemmy.world 35 points 6 days ago (21 children)

no science teacher would ever say that.

Careful with those absolute statements there buddy. I was told the same by a teacher, who challenged the class to come up with natural examples of either straight lines or perfect circles. He talked about how such things cannot exist because at high enough resolution/magnification there will always be interruptions.

Your own example of light traveling in straight lines doesn't account for the fact that photons are waves and absolutely do not travel in straight lines.

[–] IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.world 25 points 6 days ago (10 children)

they do tavel in a perfectly straight line though.

space time is curved, not the light path.

[–] SystemDisc@feddit.org -1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (5 children)

I don’t think that’s right because they are affected by gravity, even if ever so slightly

[–] Maldreamer@lemmy.world 20 points 6 days ago (1 children)

But isn't the gravity bending the space, so the light itself is travelling straight but seems curved to the observer?

[–] SystemDisc@feddit.org 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Hmm, I’m not actually sure. Are we also ignoring refraction and reflection because the path is straight between those? If we’re talking discrete photons, you may be correct about each segment in its path being perfectly straight, but I’m not a theoretical physicist.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (7 replies)
load more comments (17 replies)