Science Memes

10271 readers

2935 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.

Rules

Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
Keep it rooted (on topic).
No spam.
Infographics welcome, get schooled.

Research Committee

[email protected]

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

270

Irrational (mander.xyz)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

56 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (3 children)

But you could make that same argument for a lot of fractions. 1/3 doesn't exist because you cannot divide a quantum in three. 0.333 repeating means that eventually you have to divide an indivisible foundational particle in thirds.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

If you have three particles, 1/3 of that is one particle. No need to divide an indivisible particle.

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

But if I don't have three particles, 1/3 requires division.

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

Right, but you can have exactly a third of some group of particles. You can't have exactly pi of some group of particles I think is what they were saying

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

The other guy said good about one out of three known particles. That's what make it rational!

The problem is that something that doesn't exist in our universe or reality doesn't disprove anything in mathematics. Mathematics is abstract. It is rules built up on rules. It does not care about reality or anything

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

You can divide a thing made up of any multiple of 3 number of things into three. Say, divide twelve eggs by three that's four eggs, rational division is justified by "I could have multiplied some numbers beforehand so now I can divide", it's the inverse of multiplication, after all.

But that only applies to rationals: The issue is that there's no integer you could multiply pi with that would result in an integer... otherwise pi would be a rational number which it isn't.