this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] gilindoeslemmy@lemmy.world 56 points 3 months ago (29 children)

I don’t get it. Can someone explain?

[–] clif@lemmy.world 99 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (21 children)

First frame is a centrifuge that spins samples at high speed to separate the components in them (I think that's the purpose, not a scientist). But, the samples are on one side making it unbalanced.

Second frame is turning the centrifuge on.

Third frame is a funeral.

I hear that if it's unbalanced, bad things happen, because you're spinning an unbalanced rotor at high speeds.

I honestly was coming to check the comments to see if anyone had experience with it so I could ask how bad it is.

The comic is insinuating that if you do this, you die.

EDIT: an unbalanced weight on a motor is how the vibration function in your phone works... Along with other things that need to vibrate (yes, those things). At least, that's how they used to work.

[–] TonyTonyChopper@mander.xyz 11 points 3 months ago (1 children)

to separate the conponents

Scientist here. That's what it's for. A centrifuge makes the tubes experience very high accelerations, like 100 times the force of gravity, to separate liquids and solids by density. For example you could put blood in there and get a layer of red blood cells and a layer of plasma stacked on top of each other.

[–] k48r@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago

More like 16,000 x g for a normal desktop centrifuge and 80,000 x g+ for an ultracentrifuge

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