AIBU to question the popular belief that there are more stars in the sky than grains of sand on earth?

[Tryingtryingandtrying]

How can this possibly be true? Tbh I'd question if there were more stars than grains of sand on my local beach? I've read a bit around it and still is impossible for me to comprehend. Any other facts or theories that just don't make sense to you?

The wiki page on atoms starts pretty comprehensibly with the history of how atoms were discovered.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom

As well as TEM being able to 'see' individual atoms, electron microscopy can be used to visualise the detail of larger structures. A widely used alternative is X-ray crystallography. X-rays have wavelengths similar to the interatomic distances in crystals, and the regular structure allows crystals to act as a 3-d diffraction grating, yielding a pattern of spots of varying intensity. Using a lot of maths (nowadays of course, computers do the hard work!) this pattern can be interpreted as a map of the atomic structure.
Seeing individual atoms is cute... being able to 'see' the structure of proteins is incredibly useful.

Seeing individual atoms is cute... being able to 'see' the structure of proteins is incredibly useful.

I only just learned that errors in transcribing DNA are an artefact of quantum states, and inevitable. Basically evolution is an emergent property of chemistry.

Kewl.

@AStudyinPink

you are massively derailing this interesting thread for posters like me, who doesn't have a science background beyond a biology O Level.

I’m sorry. Maybe you could also speak to those people harassing me for my perfectly reasonable opinion?

Nope, it's all down to you. I'm interested in what they're saying.

I'm interested in what they're saying.

Good for you. But either we (all who are engaging in this ‘derail’) are responsible for it, or none of us is. It’s not a one-sided conversation.

Thank you to the great minds of @BobbinThreadbare123 and @ErrolTheDragon - I will need to sit down with a cup of tea, with no distractions and silence, to even begin to decipher what you’ve both so eloquently put.

Is it similar to knowing there is a planet out there in the great big universe, one you can’t see but you know something is there, by watching the stretching and pulling of what surrounds it? It’s not is it

It’s so interesting and I WISH I had a bigger understanding and a much more knowledgeable brain to be able to take it all in.

For now, I enjoy reading about it (and then have to go for a lie down).

Apologies for my part in derailing - and sorry if you felt you were being harassed. I find the nature of communication, in particular the (over) reliance some place on verbal communication interesting.

@AStudyinPink

I'm interested in what they're saying.

Good for you. But either we (all who are engaging in this ‘derail’) are responsible for it, or none of us is. It’s not a one-sided conversation.

Whatever. I'm leaving and hiding this thread because of you.

Ah, don't go, anyone - we're on the much easier ground of chemistry now.

ErrolTheDragon

It’s not an over-reliance. If someone uses the word ‘infinite’ to describe the universe, and that doesn’t make sense to me, I am going to ask them to use more words to describe what they mean. If, when asked for those words, they can’t provide them, and they admit that it’s a theory, not a fact, I am going to use my knowledge of the word ‘theory’ to infer that there is something we can reasonably call ‘doubt’. As we all know there is anyway.

Anyway, thanks.

CheviotEwe

Okay.

@JanieLane in effect, yes. It's all to do with using wavelengths in a canny way. We can 'see' other planets around faraway stars because of the blip in the amount of light we get when we look at the star. A periodic blip tells you that there's something orbiting that star. How big the blip is will tell you how big the planet is. So we can assemble a picture of a planet - usually this is the method for Jupiter-sized ones. All done with wavelengths of visible light in this case, instead of the de Broglie wavelength of electrons in the TEM.

@BobbinThreadbare123 thank you. It’s so interesting.

@janielee - your example is somewhat similar to the X-ray diffraction case in that you can correctly infer the presence of something you can't see from something that you can see.
Imagine a murky sea with a row of posts just submerged so that you can't see them but they can affect the waves on top. Do you remember in physics lessons experiments with waves where you can get interacting waves reinforcing or cancelling each other out, leading to distinct patterns? So, by seeing that on the surface of the water you can deduce where the posts are.
Now just imagine that in three dimensions, a lot smaller and with 'light' not water.

@DGRossetti

Seeing individual atoms is cute... being able to 'see' the structure of proteins is incredibly useful.

I only just learned that errors in transcribing DNA are an artefact of quantum states, and inevitable. Basically evolution is an emergent property of chemistry.

Kewl.

But I like genetics and not chemistry

Someone talk to me about floods

@AStudyinPink -

You are flouncing. All. the. time. Might not really be important, but seeing that English and its use and understanding is so very important to you and all..

Definition - The internet slang term flounce means “to leave an online group in a dramatic manner,” and may or may not involve burning a few bridges or stirring the pot on the way out.

What about floods?

PumpkinPieAlibi

The slang term can be whatever it likes. The word actually means to storm off in a huff, which I haven’t done even once. Sorry.

@AStudyinPink

It’s absolutely fine to say, as scientists do, “our work doesn’t yet definitely prove our theory, though this, this and this piece point to this conclusion.”

And it is absolutely fine, where scientists say this, to call the theory ‘unproven’, and express doubt. Which is what I’m doing.

And if you grasp the concept in English, feel free to explain it, because I bet you can’t make it make sense either.

The two states are totally different, and you are attempting to make them equivalent.

The scientists, through years of work building on work building on genius say, “Although this is not 100% proven, all this evidence suggests the universe is infinite and space is expanding.”

You, on a whim, or a hunch, or because you don’t understand, say “I doubt that’s gonna happen. The two words mean different things.”

Their doubt is based on understanding. Your doubt is based on ignorance.

Your ignorance goes so far as to not even being able to grasp the concept that some things can only be explained through the language of mathematics. No, I can’t explain it in English. It can’t be explained in English.

You, on a whim, or a hunch, or because you don’t understand, say “I doubt that’s gonna happen. The two words mean different things.”

I think you are confused. You are confusing doubt with rejection of an idea. When I say ‘I doubt’, I don’t mean (because it doesn’t mean) ‘that’s impossible’. I mean there is doubt. I can’t accept it as definitely true.

Which, in the case of an infinite universe, is consistent with the scientific position anyway, because nobody knows. You are every bit as ‘ignorant’ of the truth of the infinity (or finiteness) of space as I am. You’re just too arrogant to admit it.

If all you were positing was an agnosticism to anything that cannot be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, that would be true, but you’re not.

You are suggesting that anything that cannot be explained to you in a way that you can understand is somehow suspect.

I don’t personally understand the intricacies of the mathematics of cosmology. That doesn’t affect either my acceptance of the reality of what it reveals or the truth of the universe itself.

• If all you were positing was an agnosticism to anything that cannot be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, that would be true, but you’re not.

You are suggesting that anything that cannot be explained to you in a way that you can understand is somehow suspect.*

I am claiming agnosticism about anything that cannot be proved to me beyond what I consider to be reasonable doubt. Including when it (apparently) can’t be explained in English to a person with a fluent understanding of English.

I don’t personally understand the intricacies of the mathematics of cosmology. That doesn’t affect either my acceptance of the reality of what it reveals or the truth of the universe itself.

You’re saying you don’t understand it but you uncritically accept it? That’s... up to you, I suppose.

@ErrolTheDragon thanks, that makes sense and a great way of helping me to understand.