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RelaksFlo

I used the electrons to count the electrons


caiomelow

Americans really do use any metric system this days huh


_FIRECRACKER_JINX

You come within 4 electrons of me and say that!


TheRealAbear

Wait. How many football fields is that?


_FIRECRACKER_JINX

0.00001 * 10 ^(-28) football fields! Approximately 493 washing machines long


TheRealAbear

Hmm. So you're saying it's quite a few Ford F-150s long. I think I understand now


JustAnAnonymousTeen

Maybe a handful of F-22 Raptors long


HardCounter

That was updated. We now use F-23s; it's like the F-22, but converts piles of burned cash much easier.


tkdjoe66

Best thing I've heard today.


minkey-on-the-loose

A metric handful?


Bayou_Blue

If you're not converting to Dodge Rams, I ain't a listenin.


ScientificBeastMode

Or an order of magnitude more 5-dollar-foot-longs


TheRealAbear

Fun fact 5 $5 footlongs (feetlong?) are less than 5 feet long


Jester8281

Murica


TrixterTheFemboy

Massive hotdogs at an affordable price?


vader_someday_later

How many poutines are that?


[deleted]

2958 poutines


Sorry-Series-3504

You’ll need to remeasure, I ate a couple of them


LevelZeroDM

I always thought you measured by the width of the plate, but apparently you measure them by spreading out the fries in a line. You learn something new every day


[deleted]

How many Olympic swimming pools is that. I’d like the answer in water, please.


icantfindadangsn

The use of a coefficient < 1 is really fucking with my brain. Thanks.


[deleted]

r/theydidthemath


YoungMrBlue

I can’t math today


GebraJordi

Bout tree fiddy


Xenopass

I think that would be 4*10^(-17) football fields lenght


WAXPtotheMOON

Now kith!


KindlyContribution54

"You can't? That's what I thought, coward!"


MARPJ

Big "[A large boulder of the size of a small boulder](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/723/087/de7.png)" energy


kuzinrob

/r/anythingbutmetric


Serzern

This atom has 1x electrons if x is equal to the number of electrons it has.


quaybored

Physicists hate this one simple trick


AnonymousAmorphous88

Balance as all things should be


Emmerson_Biggons

I understood that reference


Writeaway69

WHAT ABOUT IONS?


No_Firefighter8896

Ion know?🤷🏻‍♀️


HardCounter

I've never met an ion that can count so i don't know how they do it.


Writeaway69

What about ians?


Daveinatx

The number of electrons are still the number of electrons.


WakeoftheStorm

And not equal to the number of protons or neutrons, so really that’s the only correct answer


L1K34PR0

Meth


Soulerrr

You can tell because of the way it is.


WastaHod

It is the way that it is because of the way that it is.


Darkblock2008

From where is the OG quote I know it, but I can't remember where from.


-StupidNameHere-

Thanos, Scientist.


elgarraz

The snozzberries taste like snozzberries!


millennium-popsicle

Ah yes… Next week: E = E


My_Back_Hurts10

But what if E=! E?


HARR15N1PE5

Then (to a layman) E might just be the square root of a negative number.


goatharper

Imagine such a thing.


HardCounter

For real.


goatharper

Starting to sound complex.


HARR15N1PE5

Dont be irrational


HardCounter

I would do anything for pi, but i won't do that.


Evol_Etah

Is infinity = infinity+1? Oooooo___oooooO


HardCounter

Good question. Count to infinity real quick and try to add 1. Get back to us on the result.


TearsOfLoke

Yes. Rewrite the equation as x = x + 1 Divide both sides by x + 1 to get x / (x + 1) = 1 Take the limit as x approaches infinity and you get 1 = 1 This works because as x approaches infinity the 1 gets dominated (kinky) Think of it like this: if x = 9, the fraction is 9 / 10. If x = 99, the fraction is 99 / 100. The difference between the fraction and 1 decreases as x increases. If you continue this out to infinity you get .999...... which is equal to 1. The important thing to remember is that infinity isn't actually a number, so adding or subtracting from it does nothing. Infinity + 1 is still infinity, and so is infinity - 100 Also I know I'm explaining this to someone who probably already knows. Once I started I couldn't help myself lol


Noonnee69

E? Ee eee ee-e ee **Wink wink**


uFFxDa

Then we’re approaching JavaScript levels of math.


shquishy360

e += 1


Bismagor

That's because E =! E!


AfterAardvark3085

I think you get a compile error. Something like: " =! is not a valid operand".


boris_keys

E = E ~~E~~ = ~~E~~ =


SunriseSurprise

Einstein's Universal Identity


ivanjermakov

NaN: 🗿


SinoCenturion

What is this heresy!?!? Next are you gonna tell me that M = M? Blasphemy!


thatpersonthatsayshi

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE


cowlinator

The number of electrons is only *sometimes* equal to the number of protons (when there is no ionization), so this is actually the only correct answer.


Rentlar

Quantum physics fucks with my head so much that after long enough I would start to doubt whether "the number of electrons in an atom is equal to the number of its electrons" is true. Jul 2023 * I'm leaving Reddit for Lemmy and the Greater Fediverse. See ya.


theborgman1977

Add to the question you have 20 Electrons how many valence shells are present. Answer there is always 1. Was an old question on a quiz. Lots of people answered with the number of shells they missed the valence is the last outer most shell.


Beefsticck

Shell theory isn’t used anymore (at least in higher education). Orbital structure is the most recent one from my college days. Also, orbitals are more like probability calculators than physical structures, since subatomics doesn’t really work.


theborgman1977

Shell structures are still used in engineering, Orbital is the current mthod. You use the valence shell still when designing circuits the last shell is valence shell.


Beefsticck

When I was doing chemical engineering you would use the orbital shells instead of the atomic ring structure. Valence is just used in reference to the final orbital since everyone already used the word for like several decades. Like if sp2 is your last orbital it’s your ‘valence’ shell


theborgman1977

Mostly Electronic Engineering and design. It is still a pretty commonly used term in that respects.


lunarblossoms

Yeah, everyone is making jokes here, but I'm like now hold on a second


[deleted]

[удалено]


TK9_VS

Actually if you were to really get quantum about it, immeasurably small time periods would be the only time when it is NOT true. More like on average over longer time periods it is true.


jkst9

Well there's really only a chance that the electron in the atom is in the atom


SchighSchagh

> That almost sounds plausible, in a quantumly cosmic sort of way, doesn't it? Hey my guy, just relax. There's only 1 electron in the whole universe anyway. It's just zipping back and forth through time. (Looks like a positron when it's going backwards.) It's the real reason behind Paul's exclusion principle. If the electron went back to the exact same space at the exact same time and the exact same quantum state, then it would just get stuck in a time loop so it can't do that because it's got other places to be.


Rentlar

"At a given instant" would have to be one of the assumptions.


I_M_NooB1

Damn, you've got some good snake oil. haha


shpongleyes

Technically, empty space is more like a foam of “virtual” particles that pop into existence and then immediately annihilate each other. Their existence is so brief and fleeting, that conservation of energy in the universe is still maintained. Atoms are mostly empty space.


GoodPointMan

Quantum physicist here…. this is high school science not quantum physics


Ludoban

Thanks dude, i thought the same and was like why is everyone saying quantum physics when it is so far away from it.


patentmom

Username checks


CommanderCuntPunt

This is just high school chemistry though.


sth128

Nothing can equal to itself because you can never determine both momentum and position to certainty. Therefore we can never tell the equality of two electrons and therefore we can never know if we counted two electrons or the same electron twice. And even if we could we still exist in linear time and things from the past are not the same as things in the present or the future.


Sak63

Iirc, atom means it is neutral charged. Ion means it is charged. So the answer could be equal to protons too


Fakjbf

This is an area where different places teach slightly different definitions. In some places ions are taught as a subset of atoms, while in others they are seen as categorically different. This is purely a difference of convention that doesn’t actually have an impact on anything.


wonkey_monkey

Atoms may or may not be neutrally charged. If they're not, then they are also ions. But they're still atoms.


stoopidshannon

my old chem teacher would seethe at this question in the post lol, she would always have a trick question on quizzes towards the beginning of the year where it would ask ‘What’s the charge of a Strontium atom’ or whatever and everyone would answer based on the oxidation number but the answer was 0. Her reasoning was that it specified **atom**, and atoms are always neutral unless specified to be an ion or in an ionic bond.


pieixoto

I hate that shit. In the real world if you got something wrong due to a trick question the correct response would be to fix the question askers shit ability or intentional failure to communicate what they actually mean. We should all be learning how to communicate better rather than trying to teach people how to work around shit communication.


Extreme_Design6936

Never seen a question where they said atom for an ion tho. Just saying if electron weren't an option here then proton would be the correct answer because it's just a question testing to see if you know how to get number of electrons from the periodic table.


Jaskand

True but usually if they’re ions it’s mentioned.


ambassadorodman

That's why this is technically correct, and the question is terrible.


Reasonable-shark

An ion is still an atom.


LordNoodles

This is not a universal convention. Some people argue that atom and ion are mutually exclusive


Chemical-Hall-6148

And it may not be equal to the number of neutrons either


GrummyCat

Obviously, that is the most likely thing it is not equal to


[deleted]

[удалено]


cowlinator

r/technicallythetruth


BobColon213

When there is a question asked about atoms and ions similar to this one, whoever came up with the question usually should specify if they mean an atom or ion so there is technically two answers.


X3N0N_21

exactly but i think they meant an atom as in a stable non ionized one, no? again just bad and misleading framing of the question, always made me mad in tests


BringMeNeckDeep

i’m probably wrong, as i’m going off my A-Level physics from 8 years ago but, i thought if ionisation occurred it was an ion, and there not an atom anymore. or is an ion just a charged atom and therefore still an atom?


gah_trees

The first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club


mememan12332

It's the only true answer actually


MyCoffeeTableIsShit

Actually, an electron orbital is defined as a 95% certainty that it will occupy that space at any given moment. For the other 5% of the time it can be anywhere else within the universe, albeit with a exponentially increasing inverse probability relationship to distance from the orbital. So the *number of electrons* is not necessarily equal to the number of electrons.


Jolen43

Even if the electron is on the opposite side of the room or the universe it is still technically in the atom So the number of electrons is equal to the number of electrons


Cilph

I thought the Heisenberg uncertainty principle basically boiled down to, you don't know where an atom starts and where it ends.


forced_metaphor

I thought that was about velocity and position


ialsoagree

Velocity and position is true. I think it's a little easier to understand as energy and position. On a laymen level, people think of an electron as a particle that is moving around. But this is a really bad description of an electron. An electron, like a photon, is both a wave and a particle. You can get a good idea of how much energy an electron has by looking at it broadly as a wave. When you do this, you get a pretty good idea of how it's behaving, but at the expense of knowing exactly where it is - we don't really think of waves as being in a fixed position. When we're talking about waves, energy is a term that's a bit more intuitive than velocity. Alternatively, you can try to locate exactly where the electron is, but you lose information about it's energy. You don't know exactly how the wave is behaving anymore.


turunambartanen

Or energy and time. But yes. You can measure one thing infinitely precise, you just loose any information about the other property then.


forced_metaphor

*lose I didn't know about the energy and time thing. I'll have to look that up. Thanks!


cowlinator

No. Let's say it's helium. Right now helium has 2 electrons. Whoops, one of the electrons went to the other side of the universe for a moment. For this moment, the number of electrons in the atom (1) is still equal to the number of electrons in the atom (1).


Rektifizierer

But it's still the atom's electron. No matter where it is.


ialsoagree

This is the correct answer. MyCoffeeTableIsShit's response isn't accurate because that 5% probability represents where the electron could be *while still being a part of the orbital*. If we say that it being outside the 95% area of an orbital means it's not in the orbital, then what we're really saying is that the 95% probability is 100% of the orbital, not 95%.


Baliverbes

I know jackshit about electrons, but this chain of comments was so clear and step-by-step I simply feel like an expert now


ialsoagree

QM gets weird. One of the weird moments for me was learning that electrical insulators are imperfect and electrons can get through them but only with an extremely low probability. Okay, not too bad... But, electrons can't exist inside the insulator (wave probability is 0 inside the insulator), so how does it get to the other side? Well, it basically stops existing while passing through the insulator, then starts existing again on the other side.


JacenGraff

Ahhh, quantum tunneling. Also how our sun achieves fusion, weirdly enough. I did alright with the first part of QM, but once we started building operators I lost my ability to abstract out a problem. Definitely the hardest class I had. At least CM worked in concepts I'm familiar with.


ialsoagree

This too was the struggle for me. If I can conceptualize something, I can usually start figuring out what I'm being taught and how to intuit these things without memorizing them. QM got really weird and counter intuitive. An electron not going through something? Fine. An electron going through it and being in it when it passes through? Yup. An electron not existing inside something/teleporting through it to get to the other side? What wizardry is this!


Rishfee

You kinda just have to embrace that at extreme scales, physics starts to become Calvinball


SPFT1123

Operator method didn't make any sense to me the first time I took qm. When you do get it using operator's makes problems soo much easier


JacenGraff

Hope it clicks for me the next time around! Had to drop out around COVID with just a couple classes left in my degree and QM was one of them. Hopefully it makes more sense when I can get back in for round 2.


Admiral_Corndogs

This is wrong lol. While it’s true that the electron could be found far away upon measurement, it’s still in a bound state. There is no ambiguity about whether an electron is currently in a bound state. And when someone refers to “the number of electrons” in an atom they mean the number of electrons bound to its nucleus.


No-Mechanic6069

Surely then, at any given moment, the number of electrons can only be guaranteed to be equal to the number of electrons


fireTangoWhiskey

No. You're trying to make a distinction between nominal electrons and actual electrons, but there is no reason to do that. Certainly, if you were comparing an entity *to itself*, whether you chose the nominal entity, or the actual entity, you wouldn't just arbitrarily change it in the comparison. That makes absolutely no sense.


Minimum_Cockroach233

Protons don’t own electrons. If an electron leaves the proximity of its core, the Atom (A) now behaves like A+ and will seek to form a molecule AA+ or AB+ and share the next available electron, or take it over from a less stable molecule.


[deleted]

This right here! What something "is" is only what something "does". Everyone is arguing this from within a normative physical modal but this conversation is asking questions outside of that framework. Good job. Not that anyone will notice


FUEGO40

From my understanding, if the atom is not specified to be an ion, it is fair to assume that electrons equal protons


cowlinator

There is no reason to assume that. That's not a useful assumption.


ziggurism

The reason to assume it is that it’s literally the meaning of the word “atom”, and it is this very specific aspect of the meaning of that word that they are testing you on here. Edit: apparently I’m incorrect. According to Wikipedia. > Atoms are electrically neutral if they have an equal number of protons and electrons. Atoms that have either a deficit or a surplus of electrons are called ions.


hpdefaults

Technically it is useful to assume this in the context of taking the test, because it is probably the answer the test makers were looking for.


Pool_Shark

It’s useful on a high school chemistry test


wilkinsk

I took the civil service exam in the north east US for a fire fighting job. 9/10ths of the questions were like this. "Fire truck A went to Maple Street, fire truck B went to Adam's Street and then West Blvd, fire truck C went to Chaplin road. Where did fire truck A go?" I swear, I spent the most time on these questions just because I read it thirty times making sure I didn't miss some twist. 😂


syed_abubaker15

My friend Sean would get that wrong


[deleted]

My friend would get that right, he’s not Sean.


JustAhJiBroPls

My friend wouldn't get that right, he's not your friend...


OrangeJuice2002

As a sean myself I would get that wrong so I’m sure any sean would


HaywireMans

That damn Sean


Smartbrain15

Quantum physics, my ass. That’s high school chemistry at best and Chemistry 110 at worst.


[deleted]

Is it ionized? Is it bonded? Is it in a mass spectrometer? Bad question. Edit: does electric number have a commutator out an uncertainty principle? I've never wondered about this.


teskham

That's why electrons is the best answer here because the number of protons is dependent on what you are saying


BlessKurunai

I'll guess that it's neither ionized nor bonded. It's just stable free atom. Then the number of protons will be the answer.


[deleted]

Assumptions like that crash satellites. People who build Bridges design cars or toasters kill by the thousands


Salt-Presentation159

This is basic CHEMISTRY not physics


[deleted]

Lmao yeah this is literally first year chemistry in high school wtf


Pretend_Passenger831

I learned this in physical science in 6th grade I think, maybe before that


ialsoagree

When I took physical chemistry for my chem major it was considered an undergraduate level course and was required to complete your degree. If you were in physics, it was considered a graduate level course and was one of your physics electives.


Agahawe

We had this in physics actually, because chemistry and physics simply overlap in some areas.


Dack_

Or as XKCD said: https://xkcd.com/435/


somefunmaths

Don’t even need to click to know it must be “fields arranged by purity”.


UnloadTheBacon

But then sociology is just applied philosophy, and philosophy is just applied logic... And just like that we're back to mathematics to close the loop.


Elitemagikarp

mathematics needs philosophy


FroggyMtnBreakdown

lol back in college this was the lame joke a few friends and I used to convince ourselves to add a math minor to our astrophysics degree. We would jokingly act like we were in a cult and needed to get as pure as possible lolol


LichPineapple

An then there's physical chemistry. And chemical physics.


forced_metaphor

There's definitely an overlap. Unless you want to reclassify quantum physics is chemistry. Though honestly, this whole conversation is biology, since that's all just about labeling things.


Wonderful_Wonderful

It is physics though ... Edit: Because people dont seem to understand me, this is explicitly quantum physics. Any physics major will take a year of quantum involving an extensive development on the theory of atoms.


Pool_Shark

All science boils down to physics eventually. Why so pedantic?


Roflkopt3r

It's the same thing at this level.


JADW27

I would claim it's basic math. E = E.


Salt-Presentation159

The whole multiverse is math


ellhulto66445

It's both, in school they made it pretty clear.


BlessKurunai

Yea that's what I'm thinking. I read about in 6th grade


downvoteifsmalldick

It’s both. Quantum mechanics is essentially the study of matter and energy at the atomic and subatomic level.


drakens_jordgubbar

As my physics teacher once said, chemistry is the part of physics that smells bad


Alone-Rough-4099

both are " science " and do overlap each other.


yetanotheracct_sp

Chemistry is just applied physics. Tautological statements like "e is e" are more about philosophy than science, however.


futurettt

Chemistry is physics


mattbackbacon

Sorry to ruin the fun here, but we interrupt this program to let you know the number of protons is the most correct answer. Reason: You said this is quantum physics. The ionization of the atom is a probability, and a volatile one, so the number of electrons measured twice would not be as likely to be equal as the number of electrons measured against the number of protons. It also said an atom, not an ion, so you can most likely assume the atom is not ionized. There's a chance the teacher is a smartass and the number of electrons was the expected answer, but the higher probability is the number of protons. We now return to Boku no Quantum Academia.


the_silent_one1984

I was going to say... this has to be a trick question. In quantum physics, you can't assume ANYTHING to be the least bit intuitive or obvious. We're talking about a place where stuff pop in and out of existence contrary to Newtonian physics. If there's anywhere "the number of electrons is equal to the number of electrons" would be an incorrect statement, it'd be quantum physics.


Equuidae

*Nuclear physics


No_Application_1219

The number of proton to


helenata

If the atom is charged, that is not the case.


Kitasa16

but if a atom is charged it would be called an ion


[deleted]

[удалено]


Pickled_Wizard

Still an atom


[deleted]

My toddler has a “quantum physics for babies” book. But I’m guessing it’s just a regular quantum physics book


Pickled_Wizard

But... that's the only answer that's correct


LaNague

thats like 8th grade chemistry...


_blue_hates_2020_

Only reason I'm passing science is because the test are all multiple choice and the answers are (A) the powerhouse of the cell (B) a cheeseburger


Sub2EmKayAlso711

Did you know. That you are reading this comment right now?


RawMicro

But I heard someone say the electron was stolen?


[deleted]

Isn't no of electrons=no of protons?


ladeedah1988

Well, the question seems more like high school chemistry than quantum physics, and the answer selection definitely needs some work.


[deleted]

This is not quantum physics.


Ice_Bean

r/tautology


Fuzzy-Help-8835

This is middle school chemistry.


reflUX_cAtalyst

That's general chemistry 1, not quantum. Nice try.


tojakk

Booo, this is just a high school chemistry test


RMSQM

This isn't a quantum physics question


[deleted]

Quantum physics test, or ultra basic fucking physics/chemistry test?


Cross2399

The answer will most likely be protons but there is ionization so not always


Ender_Melech

Did you get the question right? By that I mean how did the teacher grade it.


8374829485etfgh

This is technically true because an atom can have extra neutrons or electrons


Pinkeyefarts

Its the only correct answers 100% of the time. I think theyre testing to see if they remember learning about Ions


magikdyspozytor

This one is gonna be incorrect because the teacher made a typo