yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

We Explain the Seen in Terms of the Unseen


2m read
·Nov 3, 2024

Now people might object at this point and go, "How dare you invoke in science things that cannot be seen, things that cannot be observed? This is completely antagonistic towards the scientific method!"

Surely, and I'll say to anyone who's thinking that right now, almost everything of interest that you know about science is about the unobserved. Let's consider dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are unobserved. You say, "Oh hold on, I've been to the museum, I've seen a dinosaur!"

Now you have seen a fossil, and a fossil isn't even a bone. It's an ossified bone; it has been metamorphosed into rock. So no one has ever seen a dinosaur. We have seen things that look like dinosaurs and interpreted them to be huge, reptilian, bird-like creatures. When we assemble their skeletons, we make up a story about what this thing was that walked the Earth tens or hundreds of millions of years ago.

In the same way, no one has ever seen the core of the sun, and no one will ever observe the core of the sun. But we know about stellar fusion. We know that hydrogen nuclei are being crushed together there to form helium, and in the process, producing heat.

We don't see the big bang. We don't see the movement of continents. Almost everything of interest in science we do not observe. Even many of the things that we say we have seen, we've actually just seen instruments detect those things. So we're watching the effects through instruments and then theorizing that there are other universes out there, where the photons are interacting with the photons that we can see.

More Articles

View All
The #USConstitution and founding of the presidency
How exactly did the founders of the United States first decide on how to choose the first president? Hi, I’m Leah from KH Academy. We’re celebrating this President’s Day by taking a look at how the US presidency is shaped in the US Constitution. There a…
The "Sex Factor" for Women in Science | StarTalk
Welcome back to Star Talk! We are featuring my interview with actress Mayim Bialik. She is the neuroscientist on the hit TV series The Big Bang Theory, and I asked her about the portrayal of women scientists. Is it good? Is it bad? Is it working? Let’s ch…
2015 AP Calculus AB/BC 3b | AP Calculus AB solved exams | AP Calculus AB | Khan Academy
Part B using correct units, explain the meaning of the definite integral. So, it’s the definite integral from zero to tal 40 of the absolute value V of T DT. In the context of the problem, approximate the value of that integral using a right Riemann sum …
Exploring Pristine Seas | Podcast | Overheard at National Geographic
Foreign filming this colony of rockhopper penguins and then all of a sudden we see the water boiling offshore. Wow! What’s that? Explorer Enrique Salah found himself in the southern tip of Argentina on a remote island called Isla de Los Estados. It’s been…
8 steps to get your sh** together
Here are eight steps to get your together. Step one: Tell no one. The urge to tell everybody you know, especially the people closest to you, about this big change you’re going to make is often overwhelming. Because it feels really good to announce to eve…
God's Thieves | Saints & Strangers
This desecration is unwise. We should not ransack their supple. Curse these people; aren’t Christians; therefore, there’s no desecration in Giethoorn for God. Saint, wait! It is most likely seed corn for planting come spring. What? The village is abandon…