Ratio Scientiae
Ratio Scientiae Blog
  • Home
  • Meet the Author
  • Ratio Scientiae Blog
  • Random Science
  • Writing & News
  • Nonfiction Books
    • Science Can Be Right Because It Can Be Wrong
  • Fiction Books
    • The Sun Zebra
    • Spirit Women
  • Science Cat (Mascot)
  • Contact

1/1/2018

Our Misleading Experience

0 Comments

Read Now
 

We often frame the way we react to and interpret reality based on what we experience. This perfectly reasonable approach, however, is not always accurate, and science can explain why. I will present some examples today and try not to sound too pedantic while doing it!
 
Consider sunrises and sunsets. For millennia we have basked in the splendor of the spectacle of the sun rising in the morning and setting in the afternoon. That is our experience, right? The sun goes up and then down. How many poems and paintings and songs have been inspired by sunrises and sunsets? How many metaphors? The mere sight of the orb of the sun clearing the horizon or sinking below it has had a profound influence on the psyche of our species. The problem here is, of course, that the sun doesn’t “rise” or “set”, it is the Earth that turns! “Sunrises” and “sunsets” are just an illusion created by the fact that we are living on a rotating planet.
​

Picture
When drinking a beverage through a straw many people will claim to be “sucking” the liquid. If pressed to explain how the liquid gets from the container to their mouths, they will probable add that they create a vacuum inside the straw with their mouths and the vacuum “sucks” the liquid. This is not true. You have several hundred miles of air on top of you which generates a pressure at sea level of 14.7 pounds per square inch. This tremendous pressure is applied to everything including the drink and the air inside the straw. When you “suck” on the straw, your lungs expand creating a low pressure area inside them which is transmitted to the cavity inside the straw, and air moves from high pressure areas to low pressure areas. But in this case, the beverage is between the inside of the straw and the atmosphere. Thus the atmosphere pushes the liquid up the straw and into your mouth. The same happens with a vacuum cleaner. The motor creates a low pressure zone inside the machine by blowing air out, and the atmosphere pushes the air towards the inside. Sucking a liquid with a straw or operating a vacuum cleaner inside a room where the air has been removed (i.e. where the effect of the atmospheric pressure has been eliminated) would not work. Vacuums don’t suck. It is the atmosphere that pushes.
 
How many people have asked others to shut a window or a door because they are letting the cold in (winter) or out (summer)? Here “cold” is being treated as an entity, and that is the problem. Cold doesn’t exist! The real entity is heat energy. Heat has a physical correlate (molecular vibrations) and can be measured (temperature is the measure of the heat content of something). At absolute zero (−459.67 °F), molecular motion ceases, there is no heat, and things can’t get any colder. What we perceive to be colder is something with less heat, and what we perceive to be warmer (or less cold) is something with more heat. Much in the same way that darkness is the absence of light and not a real entity in itself; cold is the absence of heat.

Picture
Let’s do one last one. We have seen videos of astronauts in the International Space Station (ISS) moving around their craft. Most people describe the astronauts as floating. Strictly speaking, this is not accurate, as for something to float it has to have a density lower than the medium surrounding it (think a balloon filled with helium released into the atmosphere). The astronauts pirouetting about the ISS are not less dense than the air that surrounds them, therefore they are not floating. At this point most people would clarify that the astronauts just appear to be floating. That is a fair reply, but when pressed as to why this is the case, many will answer that it is because there is no gravity in space.
 
This is again not true. To understand why, imagine the following: you jump from a high diving board. During the few seconds before you hit the water are you floating? No, you are falling. Now imagine that as soon as your feet leave the diving board a room materializes around you, and this room has a camera in a corner. If I were to check the footage of the camera for the few seconds before you and the room hit the water, I would see you seemingly “floating” inside the room. But you are not floating, you are falling. Similarly, the astronauts inside the ISS are falling towards the Earth because they and the station are being pulled by gravity towards our planet. So why doesn’t the ISS crash and burn? This is because the station is moving at just the right speed to match the curvature of the Earth. As the ISS falls, the Earth curves, so the station and the astronauts inside it are always falling, but they never hit the ground. Gravity is alive and well in space.

These are some cases of how our experience does not accurately describe the actual physical phenomena in the world that surrounds us. Can you think of any other examples? Please leave a comment, and let me know.


Images from Pixabay used under a CC0 Creative Commons license.

Share

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

Details

    Categories

    All
    911
    Absence Of Evidence
    Adrenaline
    Adrenochrome
    Advances In War Medicine
    Affidavits
    Alder's Razor
    Alfred Wegener
    Alzheimer's Disease
    Amyloid Theory
    Ancient Astronauts
    Animal Rights
    Animals
    Anthony Fauci
    Anthropomorphism
    Antibodies
    Anti Vaccination
    Astronauts
    Autumn
    Bambi
    Believers
    Bias
    Big Bang Theory Sitcom
    Bigfoot
    Bill Ney
    Black Death
    Blind Experimental Design
    Brain
    Brains
    Building 7
    Buoyancy
    Cancer
    Cannonballs
    Carnivores
    Catoctin Mountains
    Cell Culture
    Center Of Mass
    Challenger
    Chance
    Chemical Names
    Chemical Reactions
    Chemtrails
    Chesapeake Bay
    Chimborazo
    Citations
    Citogenesis
    Civil War
    Climate Change
    Climategate
    Climate Skeptics
    Clinical Trial
    Coelacanth
    Coincidence
    Cold-Stress
    Communicating Science
    Completeness Of Scientific Theories
    Consciousness
    Conspiracy
    Contrails
    Controls
    Coquina Rock
    Coronavirus
    Counterintuitive Facts
    COVID19
    COVID 19 Vaccine
    COVID-19 Vaccine
    Creationism
    Cross-Sectional Method
    Cryptozoology
    Dan Shechtman
    Demonic Possession
    Density
    Devotion To Science
    Dihydrogen Monoxide
    Dinosaurs
    Discrimination
    Disgust
    Dishonesty In Science
    Diversity In Methodologies
    Diversity In Scientists
    DNA
    Doctors
    Donald Trump
    Double Slit Experiment
    Do Your Own Research
    Dreams
    Dr. Gloom's Crypt Of Curiosities
    Drugs
    Dust Bunnies
    Eclipse
    Efrain Racker
    Einstein
    Elections 2020
    End Of The World
    Erosion
    Established Science
    Everest
    Evidence
    Evolution
    Exorcism
    Experimenter Bias
    Experiments You Can Do In Your Home
    Experts
    Extinction
    Face Masks
    Facts
    Faith
    Faith Healing
    Fall
    Falsifiability
    Fantastical Claims
    Fauna
    Fear
    Feynman
    Finger Snapping
    Fosbury Flop
    Francis Crick
    Frankenstein
    Fraud
    Frederick's Municipal Forest
    Free Will
    Fruit Fly
    Funerals
    Funny
    Galaxies
    Genes
    Genius
    Geology
    Global Warming
    Global Warming Denial
    Gravitational Waves
    Gravity
    Gun Violence
    Hanlon’s Razor
    HeLa Cells
    Henrietta Lacks
    Heroic Science
    Hitchens's Razor
    Hoax
    Homosexuality
    Human Experimentation
    Human Folly
    Hurricane
    Hydroxychloroquine
    Hypothesis
    Ignaz Semmelweis
    Ignorance As Evidence
    Immunotherapy
    Infamy Or Glory
    Influenza
    Insults
    Intelligence
    Intelligence Tests
    Intelligent Design
    Iraq War
    Irish Washerwoman
    Isaac Asimov
    James Watson
    Katherine Hayhoe
    Language
    Lazarus Effect
    Left Fork Rocks
    Level Of Detail
    Libet Experiment
    Lightning
    Limericks
    Limitations Of Science
    Loch Ness Monster
    Lord Howe Island Stick Insect
    Mad Scientist
    Magnus Effect
    Max Planck
    Medical Risks
    Medical Terms
    Mediums
    Mental Illness
    Mice
    Microbiome
    Mind
    Mind In The Gutter
    Misuse Of Science
    MMR Vaccine
    Mnemonic Devices
    Moments Of Discovery
    Monty Hall Puzzle
    Movies
    NASA
    Natural
    Nature
    Nature Of Science
    Negative Evidence
    Nerds
    Newton
    Nobel Prize
    N-Rays
    Obesity
    Occam's Razor
    Open Mind
    Ouija Board
    Oxbow Lakes
    Para-Dimethylaminobenzaldehyde
    Paranormal
    Pasteur Louis
    Peak Of Illusion
    Peers
    Perception
    Philosophy
    Phobias
    Physics
    Pink Lady's Slippers
    Plague
    Politicization Of Science
    Polywater
    Popper’s Falsifiability Principle
    Possible/Impossible
    Power To The People!
    Predatory Journals
    Pregnancy
    Premonitions
    Probability
    Prophesy
    Pseudoscience
    Psychic
    Publication
    Puerperal Fever
    QAnon
    Quack
    Quackery
    Quantum Mechanics
    Quartzite
    Racism
    Radical New Ideas
    Randomness
    Ratio Scientiae
    Reality
    Reason
    Religion
    Rock Climbing
    Rosalyn Franklin
    Sagan's Standard
    Salem Witch Trials
    Sample Size
    Science Fiction
    Science Jokes
    Science Pranks
    Scientific Consensus
    Scientific Establishment
    Scientific Guidelines
    Scientific Journals
    Scientific Method
    Scientific Names
    Scientific Question
    Scientific Terms
    Scientific Theories
    Seashells
    Self-Experimentation
    Shape Of The Earth
    Skepticism
    Skeptics
    Skin Color
    Slavery
    Snake Oil
    Soccer
    Sonic Hedgehog
    Spanish Flu
    Spontaneous Generation
    Stanley Prusiner
    Stars
    Star Trek
    Statistical Significance
    Statistics
    Sublime/Ridiculous
    Suicide
    Surface To Volume Ratio
    Swanson Conversion
    Swine Flu
    Tangier Island
    Taxonomy
    Technical Details
    Thomas Young
    Timeline Method
    Transposable Elements
    Trusted Messenger
    Trust In Scientists
    Truth
    Tyranny Of Fantasy
    Understanding
    Universe
    Vaccine Hesitancy
    Vaccines
    Vacuum
    VAERS
    Valley Of Despair
    Values
    Video Games
    West Side Story
    Wikipedia
    Wolf Rock
    Women
    World Trade Center
    Xenophobia
    Zinc
    Zombies

    Archives

    February 2023
    January 2023
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • Meet the Author
  • Ratio Scientiae Blog
  • Random Science
  • Writing & News
  • Nonfiction Books
    • Science Can Be Right Because It Can Be Wrong
  • Fiction Books
    • The Sun Zebra
    • Spirit Women
  • Science Cat (Mascot)
  • Contact