this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

If aluminum's so great, why isn't there any lithotrophs that use it?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

aluminum is a great metal for making flashlights. Especially after anodizing it.

It allows heat to be dissipated really fast too.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Makes a great lightweight dutch oven as well (especially when hard anodised). Non stick, doesn't rust, still distributes and holds heat really well, and about 1/3 of the weight.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

where I'm from, "dutch oven" doesn't have anything to do with an actual oven

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Yeah we have that meaning too :D

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Love a good ferromagnetic metal but how about that electric conductivity of copper

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

I'm a tungsten alloy man myself. Although it's not nearly as flexible as some other metals, god damn is it strong.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I still can't believe there's people pronouncing it aluminium instead of aluminium

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

The same people who presumably fill balloons with helum, want to cut down on sodum in their diet, prevent Iran from refining uranum, power their phones with lithum batteries, and enjoy singing David Guetta's house classic Titanum

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You do realise that aluminium (ium) is not spelled the same as aluminum (um) ? It's not a case of the same letters being pronounced two different ways

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I'm not the person you're replying to, but actually, I didn't know that; I just went and read up the history of the word and it's pretty interesting (for a nerd like me), so thank you for highlighting this. I admit, it used to confuse/irk me to hear Americans pronouncing aluminium like aluminum, so it pleases me to realise that I was wrong and that Americans are actually just pronouncing aluminum like aluminum.

I think I didn't realise this in part because apparently aluminium is generally used in American scientific writing. This is interesting to me because many journals style guidelines demand American spellings of words (My mind blanks of specific examples right now, but I often have to replace s with z when Americanising my writing). I don't know why, but I find it neat to imagine a kinship with a hypothetical American scholar who curses as they "correct" aluminum to aluminium before submitting their paper.

Edit: I can't believe I literally wrote an example of a word with the relevant s/z thing and didn't notice. Americanise/Americanize

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

But it is tungsten that reigns supreme:

All the people here who bought this wireless tungsten cube to admire its surreal heft have precisely the wrong mindset. I, in my exalted wisdom and unbridled ambition, bought this cube to become fully accustomed to the intensity of its density, to make its weight bearable and in fact normal to me, so that all the world around me may fade into a fluffy arena of gravitational inconsequence. And it has worked, to profound success. I have carried the tungsten with me, have grown attached to the downward pull of its small form, its desire to be one with the floor. This force has become so normal to me that lifting any other object now feels like lifting cotton candy, or a fluffy pillow. Big burly manly men who pump iron now seem to me as little children who raise mere aluminum.

I can hardly remember the days before I became a man of tungsten. How distant those days seem now, how burdened by the apparent heaviness of everyday objects. I laugh at the philistines who still operate in a world devoid of tungsten, their shoulders thin and unempowered by the experience of bearing tungsten. Ha, what fools, blissful in their ignorance, anesthetized by their lack of meaningful struggle, devoid of passion.

Nietzsche once said that a man who has a why can bear almost any how. But a man who has a tungsten cube can bear any object less dense, and all this talk of why and how becomes unnecessary.

Schopenhauer once said that every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world. Tungsten expands the limits of a man’s field of vision by showing him an example of increased density, in comparison to which the everyday objects to which he was formerly accustomed gain a light and airy quality. Who can lament the tragedy of life, when surrounded by such lightweight objects? Who can cry in a world of styrofoam and cushions?

Have you yet understood? This is no ordinary metal. In this metal is the alchemical potential to transform your world, by transforming your expectations. Those who have not yet held the cube in their hands and mouths will not understand, for they still live in a world of normal density, like Plato’s cave dwellers. Those who have opened their mind to the density of tungsten will shift their expectations of weight and density accordingly.

To give this cube a rating of anything less than five stars would be to condemn life itself. Who am I, as a mere mortal, to judge the most compact of all affordable materials? No. I say gratefully to whichever grand being may have created this universe: good job on the tungsten. It sure is dense.

I sit here with my tungsten cube, transcendent above death itself. For insofar as this tungsten cube will last forever, I am in the presence of immortality.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Is this a copy pasta? If not, it should be

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago
[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago
[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Back in my younger days I joined a flat earth gang. Real fun guys. It was mostly just a dudes hanging out together, talking shit, and doing petty crimes.

One day we come across this dude and he starts going all in on us and how stupid we are. Shows up some stupid video of some nerd debunking us and talking shit to us. Darnell, one of the guys in the group is getting a bit agitated but this dude keeps talking shit to us and calling us dumb. Next thing you know Darnell sucker punches the guy and a couple of the other guys starts wailing on the guy. I joined in too because I wanted to support my friends. The last thing the guy heard was Darnell saying, 'take his ass to the edge'.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (2 children)

what is this...from? Your mind?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

I was there too

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

No it's a real story from my youth

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Doesn't most cheapo aluminum have iron mixed in to make it more affordable? I worked at a machine shop a couple of months and I remember the shitty castings downright having iron bubbles inside them

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Non drinkable metals are just lame. You cannot even make a good cocktail without Mercury or Gallium.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Every metal is drinkable as a hot soup

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