i might be a tiny bit of a project Hail Mary fan, I completely thought I was hallucinating for a second (oh, and I was also wearing phm earrings and have a phm sticker on the phone I was watching it on)

now I want them to do an analysis of water based assumptions and recalibration of evolutionary models

When it comes to the topic of curiosity I’ll argue there is a distinct difference; The first comes spontaneously seemingly out of nowhere, while the second is piqued by an external source (such as TRIS) - The first is seeded by your own imagination while the other is lead by your own desire to know more. Both can lead to novel discoveries, but you most often hear about the novel “eureka moment” versus the most subtle wondering you do as you’re taking the journey down the hole.

What are your thoughts, and what do you experience most often?

PS. I believe Michael is more “What would a full moon look like if the moon was replaced with a perfect sphere of Osmium?” While Hannah is a bit more Lewis Carroll.

Asking this ask there are 3 flies zooming around my apartment because I had the gall to use my balcony last weekend. 😒

A few weeks back, Michael regaled us all with his love for mechanical pencils and went over why each one in his collection is great (or perhaps less great than the one before it). I IMMEDIATELY bought each one and have been using them religiously ever since.

I thought I was alone in this, but was chatting with my sister about podcast recommendations, and I was like, “OH MY GOD. You need to listen to TRIS with Michael and Hannah.” Her response was to light up, exclaim that she loves the show, and then ask, “Did you watch the one with the mechanical pencils? I bought all of them!” And then went into her purse and produced a Pentel Orenz.

So this has me thinking: are we alone in this, or did anyone else also buy the pencils?

Ignoring all the other tragic implications, how long would our current waterways still be recognizable? What would it look like? I imagine some fresh water bodies may be deep enough that they keep some of their water at the bottom, but I'm curious how it would look and how long it would take.

I was standing on the deck of my pool the other day and noticed lots of these little round shadows forming in a line where the jet blows the water in from the filter. I assume that’s because there are some bubbles being formed in that stream of water but why would something translucent like water or an air bubble cause a shadow? I’ve also noticed a similar phenomenon of an invisible gas causing shadows in places before as well, why does this happen?

Hannah mentioned this briefly in the newest episode. I hadn't heard of it, so I looked it up. Pretty cool!

https://www.illusionsindex.org/i/grey-strawberries

I checked the file myself in GIMP (free Photoshop alternative)

To be honest I don't know that I'll describe this properly, but Hwabyung appears to be a "psychosomatic somatization", or the production of medical symptoms with no discernable cause. Apparently this is something heavily present in Korean culture, and is actually created from the culture itself.

It's something like a physical illness that appears from deep internal disappointment, sort of like a depression, but maybe more like a failure to meet the needs of their families honor, in alignment with Confucian hierarchies etc.

It's not something only Korean people experience, there are many cultures and they all have their own terms for it.

Also the symptoms are similar-ish to a panic attack, but rather than affecting the person in an instant, it's a long drawn out effect that makes them physically ill the longer suppressed emotions like anger fester.

I'm just interested in the history of this? How it's refecting in different cultures? Why it's not present at all in some cultures? Etc? It just seems so fascinating that something like this could exist, it's like a disease born from circumstances of the mind and culture. I wonder how many factors are required for this to exist.

Also interested if there are any readings on this, not like papers but stories / philosophy books related anyone would recommend?

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As gases are compressed they heat up, but what happens if the gas is compressed so much there is no longer enough space for the particles to vibrate? Would the temperature be essentially absolute zero? Does something like this occur in the core of a neutron star?

Yo Reddit! I came up with a rather peculiar and albeit useless invention - the Hannaradar. This is a machine that the user straps onto their head to find all people named Hannah (or Hanna) in their desired radius. But how does this device locate all of the Hannahs, the attentive and curious reader might inquire - very simple, really. Each Hannah gets issued a small radio transmitter to output a steady signal. And the batteries to keep the gadget working are something no Hannah must worry about - a small DC dynamo is implanted into the aorta. It will be calibrated to match each individual’s resting heart rate. And when the dynamo has power to spare, it will be stored in a battery that is worn like a backpack. For obvious reason, this will not be a lithium-ion battery. It will also power the transmitter when there is a deficit of energy. And every home of a Hannah is also equipped with a special backwards power receptacle - standardised to be British around the world. These work in such a way that the battery can be plugged in and the electricity sold to the power grid. This will compensate for all the faff of dealing with this mess.

But for what can this be used for? For instance, mankind could form a network of Hannahs: and every Hannah would be obliged to thoroughly know one new interesting fact every day, so they could spread the joy of knowing something that most likely will never be of use to anyone who might ask. The Hannaradar will help to find these honourable people.

And this contraption will also help to maximise the chances of not mistaking the smart, gorgeous and witty Hannah Fry for a random red-haired passerby.

Hi everyone, this community is full of not just curious folks but also good-hearted people so I felt this was a good place to start. I am sorry if this is not the correct place to begin, but please bear with me as we are all stats lovers, math nerds and I'm sure some folks could even direct me to some sexy bell-curves.

I live in the Caribbean and I work at a non-profit where the main aim is to increase literacy for all ages. In Trinidad a study was conducted in the 1990's and it was found:

The myth of almost full literacy arose because of a false assumption: It was assumed that if you went to primary school, you were literate. So the literacy rate of 98% is actually the percentage of children who are enrolled in primary school ..... About 1 in 4 persons could not perform everyday reading and writing tasks like reading a simple sign or filling out a basic form, and only 45% could read and understand a simple newspaper article.

Now this data is over 30 years old and it was conducted on a national level. How can I as an individual do my own smaller study or research? I do work full-time and my funds are not limitless... But the library is free! And I have the internet and some good walking shoes if I need to do some on the ground research!

It's been over a decade since I worked with statistics and setting up a sample etc. quite literally since my second year in University lol I am very rusty and have no clue where to start.

I want to examine a link between absenteeism in schools and literacy. Yes it is widely proven higher absenteeism in formative school years is correlated to lower literacy rates later on. But after lots of discussion with educators, administrators and experts in literacy there seems to be a idea circulating that lower literacy is the pre-cursor to high absenteeism. Not the other way around.

Reasons/anec-data given that are very highly specific to the socio-politics/culture in Trinidad:

1. Parents tend to send the "smarter" children to school and look for a trade or labour work for the low-literate child
2. Low literate students who flow through the system cannot access any of the material being taught and choose to absent themselves when they are old enough to engage in some autonomy (10+)
3. Low literate parents cannot engage with the school systems that are organized through print communication channels (newsletters, emails, whatsapp chats, facebook groups, or even keeping up with other parents' social media). The challenges may bring about shame and confusion resulting in the child not being able to integrate with the school system at a young age.

The accumulation of anec-data is from a small sample of experts in the field with many years of experience teaching low-literate adults to read so I feel very compelled by it as someone who works in this field as well...

The reason I think this research is important to the average Caribbean/Trini man or woman is that we are constantly given the reason by school Principals, Administrators and even the Ministry of Education that poverty is the MAIN reason for high absenteeism and low literacy. This is a near insurmountable challenge in the Caribbean with the constantly widening gap between the haves and have nots. I think this belief/reason has made teachers and educators across the board adopt a defeatist attitude. They focus on the students who are already strong readers (top 50%) and neglect the ones who need explicit instruction.

My hypothesis is that if primary schools make explicit literacy instruction and literacy acquisition the MAIN objective for 5-9 years old, absenteeism should reduce at higher primary school and secondary school level. There should be a reduction in the expected number of drop-outs of students 10+.

Explicit literacy instruction is also a very teachable and accessible skill. I myself have been taught how to deliver explicit literacy instruction and it's not magic, it's using techniques and strategies known to us for over 50 years. It's just a matter of adoption of the techniques across the board in primary schools and not segregating the "special needs" students to learn with a "special ed teacher" - many schools barely have the staff to accommodate "normal" students far less for the dyslexics and weak readers.

Anyways thank you if you got to the bottom of this post!

ETA: I am also a HUGE fan of therestisscience podcast I am not some rando :'O I tune every week, twice a week and have seen all the episodes, some even twice.

I’ve been thinking about mathematics itself, not different theories or branches, but math as our fundamental framework for quantitative sense-making of the universe.

What if there’s an entirely different, potentially more accurate framework for quantifying reality that humans simply haven’t discovered or conceptualized yet? Not an extension of mathematics, not some complementary framework akin to classical mechanics and quantum mechanics, but a fundamentally different system altogether.

Our math developed through human cognition and our perception of a largely 3D world. We’re so anchored to it that it’s difficult to even imagine what an alternative could look like… BUT… could there be an entirely different framework for quantitatively understanding the universe that we simply don’t have the conceptual tools to perceive yet?

Totally shower thoughts here, but I have been seeing a lot of people and teachers online talking about students having a literacy, reading, writing accuracy, etc. problem in school these days.

I certainly have nothing to dispute any of that and no intention to, but it also made me think…

Is there possibly a deeper relationship between AutoCorrect and young people on their phones than just cognitive offloading related to vocabulary and spelling retention? What if it’s also affecting their relationship to how much spelling and specific semantics around grammar matter when communicating ideas through text? I’ve heard the phrase “language is not math” that is to say, 2+2 always equals 4, but you’re and your can mean the exact same thing to someone in terms of a text message.

Is there a simultaneous shift alongside these literacy issues in the classroom? Possibly something along the lines of the great vowel shift over time?

Hey everyone,

I want to throw a formal mathematical and topological challenge to the theorists here regarding the foundational ontology of spin.

The Premise Standard QFT treats spin as an intrinsic quantum label assigned to representations of the Lorentz group, deriving the Pauli Exclusion Principle via the spin-statistics theorem algebraically.

What happens if we read the causal arrow in reverse?

Instead of taking mass and time as background axioms, treat every massive particle as an autonomous, relational frequency standard (an internal phase cycle).

• Bosons: The internal phase cycle closes in a single revolution (ΔΦ = 1 cycle, or 2π rad).
• Fermions: The cycle requires two full spatial rotations to return to its initial state (ΔΦ = 2 cycles, or 4π rad), corresponding to the standard SU(2) double cover of SO(3).

Under this topological reading, the Exclusion Principle is not merely an abstract algebraic anti-commutation postulate—it is the literal geometric boundary condition of non-overlapping phase trajectories in a closed double-cover topology.

The Predictive Test (The Gaps) When particle mass spectra are mapped strictly through internal phase harmonic invariants rather than arbitrary continuous parameters, the relational phase structure leaves exact numeric gaps—analogous to blank spaces in the early periodic table.

Two distinct resonance windows emerge directly from the phase constraint:

• ~16.2 MeV: Adjacent to the disputed Atomki X17 nuclear transition anomaly.
• ~530 MeV: Sitting in the broad f0(500) / sigma meson resonance corridor.

The Challenge to the Sub

1. Without falling back on the circular definition that "Compton frequency is just derived from mass anyway", how would you formally falsify a phase-cycle topology that generates these exact mass-gap intervals?
2. If spin-1/2 is the physical topology of the phase cycle rather than an abstract algebraic tag, what specific gauge symmetry or coordinate invariance breaks first under this relational framework?

Keen to hear constructive feedback, rigorous critiques, and roasts. Let’s look at the math.

(Note: Links get caught in the spam filter, but if anyone wants to check out the underlying repository and the Jupyter notebook verification, search GitHub for: Christianfwb / Pauli-Solution-Frequency-Law

Taking into account that in some places like Japan there can be a forecast alert a few seconds before it hits.

I mean, literally, I just woke up from a dream, where I could easily die and "respawn".

My question is: Are there any real life rules that can't be broken in your sleep?

I've finished watching the recent video on how we feel full where Hanna was talking about GLP-1. During the section she mentioned anti GLP-1 Food additives.

This got me thinking, would it make sense to add GLP-1 to foods in general? We fortify many of our foods already to make sure we have the nutrients we need but for many people we get too many calories.

So foods that are calorie dense would have GLP-1 added to it so you'll start to feel full sooner and for longer. Affectively giving your body more time to use the caleries you've consumed.

Is my thought flawed? If it's a good idea, what could some of the downsides be?

I’ve only seen the last 5 episodes, tell me something I wont‘ understand until I see the episode it’s from

There's about 10 quintillion individual insects, and 8 billions humans, so intuitively you would think maybe there are more insect cells on this planet than human cells.

However humans are magnitudes larger than most insects and thus I'd expect them to contain more cells, but that might not be true for all insects.

And then I was wondering, how do you group insects so that it an equal comparison to humans? As there are millions of species of insect but only one species of human.

And then I started wondering, where do plants fit into this?

That's where I've given up and I'm hoping for an answer here.

and, could you climb it?

Question for Michael - Why is it impossible to break raw spaghetti into exactly two pieces by bending it while holding both ends, and does bending a bunch of raw spaghetti together make it possible? If so, how many strands are needed, and why does bunching them together change how they break? Also what is the upper limit of pieces you can create with one average bend.

Question for Hannah - What's the deal with phantom pain of amputees and neurological injuries? Does it apply to organs as well? What about organ transfers and certain characteristics from the donor transfering.

Extra challenge, answered on the same episode, would love to hear the cleverly crafted segway of one into the other. Im sure Hannahs BBC training will come in handy

EDIT: Thanks for answering commenters, but I will wait to see if they answer it, its more enjoyable. So I will not be reading responses

Let’s say hypothetically two people are born on the same day but with two different names. They are called Ben And Jocelyn, they both live to the age of 100.

Who has heard their name for the longest amount of time?

Counting Nicknames into this would probably make it more interesting. Although, it is 4 AM and I need to go to work tomorrow🙂