Biology, eh?

[abygael]

Those of you who know me in real life are probably aware of my general disdain for biology. Now I'm not about to change my stance at all - obviously physics will forever remain far superior - but having been researching and pondering biology for a story I'm currently writing, I've come to realise exactly why I disdain it so.

Comments

[lambdapi]

So tell me about 90% of the mass in our galaxy, Ms Physicist. nobody's ever synthesised an organism? Show me a gravity generator, then. There's a lot we don't know, and people have only been serioulsy biologing for about 150 years. You physics people have been going since the ancient Greeks.

Saying "nobody's ever made a cell molecule by molecule" is saying "Nobody's ever conducted an experiment on pendulums with artificial gravity." Just as physics used what already exists, gravity, and measures what happens to the pendulum, we can use what already exists, a cell, and fill it with synthesised / modified DNA and watch what happens. This is known as cloning. It's just the fucking ethicists bitching that slows down biology.

You wouldn't get anywhere either if idiots with lawyers were claiming that electrons had feelings.

[jeebuz_avt]

Electrons DO have feelings! Physicists just don't care about them. Admit it, if you biologists had the balls you'd have particle accelerators for frogs and things to work out "how fast does a frog have to go before it explodes".

physics, chemistry, biology, in order of increasing greatness ;p
Umm....I think something's wrong here...

[abygael]

That horrifying typo has been fix0rd now.

[abygael]

90% of mass => Dark matter. Someone's even made some (one particular form, anyway, probably the least common kind) in a laboratory.

As for artificial gravity, if you mean the effects of gravity without some sort of large mass present, then we have in fact achieved that. The effects of centripetal acceleration are the same as the effects of gravity and you can experience them at your local theme park.

As for ethicists, yes I agree with you there.

What I was trying to say, though, is that there are fewer fundamental (in a molecule by molecule sense) theories currently in biology than in physics. We may not have isolated any Higgs bosons (or proved that they even exist) but we can make mini black holes in our particle accelerators.

[lambdapi]

I don't mean the effects of gravity without some large mass - it's impossible to determine the difference between gravity and acceleration in a lab, that's pretty fundamental. We can mimic life, too - we can make robots that can take in energy, excrete waste, respond to their environment.. hooray, that's useless. I mean that if you ask for actual artificial life, I want artificial gravity.

Leave us biologists alone. we'll be the ones who find the aliens.

[jeebuz_avt]

Uh...mimic is not the same as "physically exactly the same, stupid" stupid.

[abygael]

Now, now, play nice.

But he does have a point, I said artificially created, not artificial life. That means that it would/could be indistinguishable from natural life (though it could potentially be completely different too, but robots wasn't quite the point).

[lambdapi]

The same effect caused by a differnt phenomenon... what's your point?

[jeebuz_avt]

No, the same effect by the SAME phenomena

[throwngreenfork]

The only reason people are attached to the earth is the acceleration of said earth? So... how are people attached to the side of the earth looking "back" from the direction of acceleration?

[lambdapi]

I get excited about logging in and logging out. Thrown Fork and the anon up there are both me.

[abygael]

Newtonianly:

Force (in general) = mass x acceleration.

Force (Gravitational) = G x mass planet x mass person / (R squared). Where G is the gravitational constant and R is the distance from the centre of mass (in this case the centre of the earth).

If you combine the above two equations, the mass of the person cancels out and you get:

acceleration = G x mass planet / (R squared)

That's the "acceleration due to gravity" and the reason why (air resistance notwithstanding) all objects fall at the same rate (since the mass of the falling object cancelled out. Different mass objects experience a different force but still the same acceleration).

Einsteinianly:A massive object (ie the Earth) bends/curves space around it. If you imagine spacetime as a flat(ish) rubber sheet, massive objects are like dimples or dents in its surface. Something on the edge of one of these dimples (ie on the Earth's surface) wants to fall/slide/roll inwards. The gradient of the side of the dimple is steeper the closer you get to the centre which means that

[jeebuz_avt]

"It's not really anything like that at all, but it is relaxing to think about"

[jeebuz_avt]

You're kidding right?

[jeebuz_avt]

No seriously, do you not understand what acceleration when it comes to gravity is?

[lambdapi]

I understand the concept of gravity.

Am I wrong to say that acceleration and gravity are indistinguishable in a laboratory situation?