this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2026
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xkcd #3238: Soniferous Aether

Title text:

Imagine you could ride alongside a sound wave. It would probably be pretty cool, right? We're putting in a departmental budget request to buy a really fast plane so we can check it out.

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Source: https://xkcd.com/3238/

explainxkcd for #3238

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[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

Atomism wasn't correct though. Atoms aren't indivisible and they're not the smallest unit reality has.

"States of matter are made from the same materials, only vibrating at different rates."

Well yes, but they only identified one material correctly, water. And us being mostly made of it and our planet being quite blue, and water being water, quite obvious.

The five main human senses

That's a common myth, but it's a misconception stemming from history and not anything any actual neuroscientist believes. We don't have 5 senses. We have like 10 to 20, they're still arguing about it. But here's the main six and theyre thresholds (ofc everyone knows these ones but the thresholds seem quite interesting, and believable, like in a "yeah I could do that" way)

And a bit of copypaste from Reddit where someone has nicely listed these...

The extended series of senses.

Pressure

Itch

Temperature

Pain

Thirst

Hunger

Direction

Time

Muscle tension

Proprioception (the ability to tell where your body parts are, relative to other body parts)

Equilibrioception (the ability to keep your balance and sense body movement in terms of acceleration and directional changes)

Stretch Receptors (These are found in such places as the lungs, bladder, stomach, blood vessels, and the gastrointestinal tract.)

Chemoreceptors (These trigger an area of the medulla in the brain that is involved in detecting blood born hormones and drugs. It also is involved in the vomiting reflex.)

So yeah I read some of your comment, I can see how those can be interesting metaphors when you're into that literature, buuut... that's about it.