this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2026
481 points (98.6% liked)

Science Memes

18599 readers
1590 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.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



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
 
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] bandwidthcrisis@lemmy.world 8 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

While we're at it, is a compass needle's North pole actually a South so that it points North? Or is the Earth's North pole actually South so that the needle's North pole points to it?

(I know that I could look this up, I just want to confuse people.)

[–] mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 2 hours ago

But that's by design, while this is a convention problem

[–] j4yc33@piefed.social 6 points 5 hours ago

OMG-O-S-H every circuit designed with conventional current just exploded because of your revelation here.

/s

My friend, this is the same branch of science that got us to space with calculations assuming spherical cows.

[–] bleistift2@sopuli.xyz 233 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (3 children)
[–] howrar@lemmy.ca 51 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Turns out Benjamin Franklin had it right, and it was this time traveler that caused him to flip it to the wrong direction.

[–] OpenStars@piefed.social 7 points 5 hours ago

Damn time travelers, ~~always~~ ~~never~~ messing things up!

[–] SLVRDRGN@lemmy.world 17 points 10 hours ago

Man, this one is a good one.

[–] orbitz@lemmy.ca 9 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Always love their comics but since I don't know crap about this stuff it's amusing to see how this one is relevant to a meme. Wish I knew more but only so much I've learned so far. One day perhaps but not today.

[–] helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world 18 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

The contributes on this site do an excellent job explaining the comics. Not really ELI5, but more ELI15.

It's okay to not understand every comic, someone else out there figured it and explained it to us.

[–] orbitz@lemmy.ca 3 points 9 hours ago

Very much appreciated, thank you I'll never understand everything but I'd at least like to have a bit of an idea.of what I can.

[–] ThomasWilliams@lemmy.world 39 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

The current does flow from positive to negative. Electricity is not the flow of electrons - they just generate the field that the electric wave flows through. The electrons don't actually move very far. The wave flows outside of the wire, not in it.

Electricity is not a real-concept, it is a qualitative aspect and the elec-root is what defines that aspect. There is no such thing as electricity, but there is current and in analog current, those particles flow as historically, that was the first convention for current. Also, electromotive force is what causes the movement of electrons, the magnetic field is just a componenent and does not induce EMR and the energy generated by it is akin to mechanical "work" caused by kinetic forces. It boggles my mind how even modern electrical engineers sometimes get this wrong.

[–] umt@lemmynsfw.com 4 points 8 hours ago
[–] Console_Modder@sh.itjust.works 82 points 13 hours ago (3 children)

You just have to ignore the existence of electron flow. Conventional current flow is all that matters, and the only people who use electron flow are those who design integrated circuits and lunatics

[–] JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 14 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

You mean to tell me that there are people out there whose job it is to design lunatics?

That's fucking awesome. Like a real-life comic book author.

[–] Track_Shovel@slrpnk.net 6 points 8 hours ago

Let's eat grandma

[–] ch00f@lemmy.world 68 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

You forgot science enthusiasts who are desperately trying to impress people.

[–] Console_Modder@sh.itjust.works 85 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

They get lumped in with the lunatics

[–] RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world 24 points 12 hours ago

We don't want 'em.

[–] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

You mean the writers fpr "IFL Science"?

Yeah, we don't want them. They're idiots

Stupid meme sharing fuckers.

[–] ThePyroPython@lemmy.world 11 points 12 hours ago

It's also useful to think of the "ground" plane as a sort of well of potential charger carriers that the conventional current model overlooks. Aside from simultaneously visualising what's happening inside simple ICs like BJTs / MOSFETs and the circuit diagrams I've found it a useful way for checking for common mode noise in circuit and PCB design.

I guess this makes me a lunatic? Don't know until we test it;

Someone give me an ~~asylum~~ makerspace to takeover!

[–] morto@piefed.social 47 points 13 hours ago

"all models are wrong, but some are useful"

[–] TheRealKuni@piefed.social 52 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

And that’s why we have positrons instead of the much-cooler-sounding negatrons.

[–] MajorMajormajormajor@lemmy.ca 42 points 13 hours ago (3 children)

Man, they have positrons and negatrons now? The Transformers franchise is wild.

[–] Assassassin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

We gotta keep them out of sports, they are too strong.

[–] MajorMajormajormajor@lemmy.ca 2 points 9 hours ago

The south^of Cybertron^ will rise again?

[–] TheFogan@programming.dev 9 points 12 hours ago

Oddly when it came time to negotiations, they somehow realized actually calling yourself a Decepticon, was not a good name for inspiring trust.

[–] SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 3 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

For some reason every Negatron in the last Michael Bay movie was black.

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 5 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

I have a feeling that in antimatter circuits the positrons would move the same way as the electrons in equivalent matter circuits

[–] TheRealKuni@piefed.social 5 points 10 hours ago

Well sure. And in that universe, electrons might be called negatrons.

[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 13 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

Couldn't you fix this by also defining electrons as positive? Imo the physicists and electrical engineers should fight it out.

[–] veroxii@aussie.zone 2 points 5 hours ago

All words are just made up.

[–] Console_Modder@sh.itjust.works 4 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

The physicists are absolutely right. However, I reject their reality and substitute my own

[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 5 points 10 hours ago

That sounds like the electrical engineers I know

[–] _druid@sh.itjust.works 21 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

But then I get to talk about all those holes flowing.

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 14 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Uhhhh......pornhub is that way ----->

[–] _druid@sh.itjust.works 17 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

Wait, no, but first, imagine marbles in a straw!

[–] takeda@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Pornhub is that way ----->

[–] SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 8 points 11 hours ago

Imagine a chain getting tugged back and forth

[–] IntriguedIceberg@lemmy.world 10 points 12 hours ago (3 children)

Could someone explain what makes one pole negative/positive? Like, could we have named them Alice/Bob or is there a specific reason we went with +/-?

[–] sbeak@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Since they are quite good opposites, the smart people who figured how all this worked decided on that and we stuck with it based on convention. Like how "Alice" and "Bob" were used in Computer Science since they are generic names beginning with the first two letters of the alphabet (it could have easily been any A and B name, but this is the convention!)

Similar can be said for magnets, the "North" and "South" poles are good opposites. If other people started the trend, we could have easily gotten something else, but this is the convention.

[–] sbeak@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 hour ago

Another example, the use of "abc" and "xyz" in Mathematics. Or "ijk" as index variables when programming loops.

[–] Dalvoron@lemmy.zip 9 points 11 hours ago

Guessing here, but +/- is good for describing them as binary opposites as that system already exists. This is a good thing assuming there are two types of charge/pole which behave in opposite ways (Eg move differently in a field). It's also just good to use numbers so that we can describe the amount of + and the amount of -, which numbers already do. It also allows us to describe neutral as neither + nor -, but 0. Again, we already have a scaffold there for numbers and it's easy to copy it for new things when that makes sense.

[–] Donjuanme@lemmy.world 5 points 11 hours ago

Magnets.

If there's no field there's 0, if there's a magnetic field clockwise it makes a positive charge, if there's a magnetic field rotating counterclockwise it makes a negative charge,

Likewise if there's a positive charge it makes a clockwise magnetic field and if there's a negative charge it makes a counter clockwise field. (I may be backwards +/- clockwise/counter clockwise, something about the thumb on my left hand..., but really it's all arbitrarily named, but the reason you just say negative or positive is that those are scalable measures, you can't have half a Bob or 2 Alice. )

[–] WolfLink@sh.itjust.works 4 points 10 hours ago

There are situations where the charge carrier is positive (e.g. a positive ion flowing in a solution)

[–] fleem@piefed.zeromedia.vip 3 points 9 hours ago

so like, on my old car stereo system, the positive was actually coming through the frame of the car? scrape a little spot under the bolt of a seat?

[–] takeda@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 12 hours ago

True, but most of laws, equations etc still work and only specific fields need to adjust for this.

[–] Zacryon@feddit.org 5 points 12 hours ago

Doesn't matter in a lot of cases. Just state the flow direction and convention once and then stick with it.

load more comments
view more: next ›