Difference between revisions of "Talk:2217: 53 Cards"

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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(regarding what "cut" means)
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Unfortunately, plenty of physicists make the same mistake, losing sight of the fact that math is only a model that must conform to reality, a-la Zeno's Paradox. That's how you end up with silly claims of "if you can [go faster than light] [travel through a wormhole between two distant points in an expanding universe] you'll go backward in time". Or how about the pseudoscience of explaining failed models by assuming that there must be "dark" matter or energy, instead of acknowledging that the model, itself, must be fundamentally wrong the way an actual scientist would. — [[User:Kazvorpal|Kazvorpal]] ([[User talk:Kazvorpal|talk]]) 16:53, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
 
Unfortunately, plenty of physicists make the same mistake, losing sight of the fact that math is only a model that must conform to reality, a-la Zeno's Paradox. That's how you end up with silly claims of "if you can [go faster than light] [travel through a wormhole between two distant points in an expanding universe] you'll go backward in time". Or how about the pseudoscience of explaining failed models by assuming that there must be "dark" matter or energy, instead of acknowledging that the model, itself, must be fundamentally wrong the way an actual scientist would. — [[User:Kazvorpal|Kazvorpal]] ([[User talk:Kazvorpal|talk]]) 16:53, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
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Well, since it's a non-closed system that is receiving energy... and matter is just solidified energy... :) I'm going to say that Cueball is right so long as his flowchart also contains a StarTrek replicator somewhere.  [[Special:Contributions/172.68.90.64|172.68.90.64]] 20:08, 21 October 2019 (UTC)SiliconWolf

Revision as of 20:08, 21 October 2019


"This page was last edited [tomorrow]." Okay, good to know. Tomorrow starts three hours from now, my time. This comic reminded me of this article: https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/10/corkscrewing-bouncy-ion-drive-would-provide-thrust-in-different-universe/ 172.68.38.88 00:44, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

I can do this, but my flowchart would be different and involve secretly inserting a joker, using the shuffling as cover for the move. Collect a deck of 52 cards and have a spectator count the cards. - Secretly hide a joker from the deck in your off-hand (the one without the deck). - Shuffle the cards, letting the hidden card drop on top of the deck. - Keep shuffling, so the inserted joker is well mixed into the deck. - Have a spectator count the cards, looking only at the backs. - 53. Nutster (talk) 04:56, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Actually this is also what encryption scientists have to face talking to not so few encryption enthusiasts who just invented their own encryption method162.158.234.112 07:01, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Ohg V unir na haornnoyr pvcure! 162.158.158.253 13:52, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
The difference is that those "own excryption methods" usually work ... not well, but at least little. Now, the algorithms which claim to compress ANY input to smaller size, those tend to be suspicious ... -- Hkmaly (talk) 22:15, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Wait, isn't perpetual motion (w.r.t. a inertial reference frame) possible, at least according to Newtonian mechanics? Just launch something into space at high enough speed and "watch" it wander away forever. Extracting (an unbounded amount of) energy from that object is a totally different story... --162.158.234.94 10:11, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Not really, as even in vacuums particles randomly come into existence. Eventually enough would be in the path to slow it to a stop. 162.158.62.151 17:37, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
Not in Newtonian mechanics. Those random particles are result of quantum physics - and in quantum physics, EVERYTHING is possible, just unlikely (there is extremely small but nonzero probability that all particles in macroscopic object would exhibit tunneling effect moving them in same direction, for example). -- Hkmaly (talk) 22:15, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Getting a 53 card deck from a 52 card deck is easy. First, cut the deck twice. Then, shuffle all parts together; be sure to suffer thoroughly. Finally, take off the top 5 cards, sneak in the Joker on the bottom while nobody's looking, and put the five cards at the "middle". Because of skewed philosophy, you will have gotten a 53 card deck!162.158.122.186

“The amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.” -Alberto Brandolini Menoshe (talk) 22:03, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Note that while it shouldn't be possible to obtain energy from nowhere, there ARE methods which makes hard to find where the energy comes from, and some may be useful (say, perhaps as a new kind of battery?). Also, anything involving not-completely-understood phenomena, like black hole for example, might actually generate energy from source we don't know about yet (parallel universe or something like that). Meanwhile, lot of theoretical designs of perpetual motion machines without working prototype only contain steps which can't possibly get energy anywhere and are completely useless ... -- Hkmaly (talk) 22:15, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

In the picture it seems that he cuts the cards into a pile of 21 cards and 38 cards (thus making 59 cards) I'm sure that helps his argument (or he can't count.

Yeah, I noticed that mismatch too!
Actually, I interpreted the "cut" as referring to that one old trick where rectangular objects (usually banknotes) would be cut in half and then rearranged with small pieces missing, making one more object than there used to be. This of course would not be a case of "rearranging and shuffling".
(If you're wondering why this doesn't work for actual banknotes, that's because the existence of serial numbers makes this trick far harder, and the repeated serial numbers on most modern notes make it effectively impossible. But back in the 19th century this actually used to be a problem.) --172.69.54.33 19:26, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Perpetual motion is so easy that we've already done it. The universe isn't going to stop expanding anytime soon, afterall. Also, Voyager (and some other space probes). Everything is perpetual motion in space at solar escape velocity until/unless it hits something. 162.158.214.88 18:35, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

You can always rearrange the matter making up the 52 cards, into 53 smaller cards. 108.162.212.17 19:21, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

It's easy to prove, using the Banach-Tarski theorem Cellocgw (talk) 12:39, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

If you show me how to dissolve the cards into subatomar theoretical dots by shuffling, I agree. --Lupo (talk) 13:36, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Sigh... I really don't like having to keep challenging Kynde, who I believe is a well-intentioned contributor... but as soon as I saw the rewritten explanation with confusing phrasing and broken English, I knew that it was him who did it, and honestly... it just makes the article worse. It's harder to read and comprehend, contains irrelevancies, and swings between explanatory points incoherently. It was, honestly, okay as it was (specifically this version). I don't really know what to do about it. I'm of the "be bold in making edits" school of wiki-ing, but I don't want to just flush away other people's well-meant contributions. Hawthorn (talk) 15:01, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Unfortunately, plenty of physicists make the same mistake, losing sight of the fact that math is only a model that must conform to reality, a-la Zeno's Paradox. That's how you end up with silly claims of "if you can [go faster than light] [travel through a wormhole between two distant points in an expanding universe] you'll go backward in time". Or how about the pseudoscience of explaining failed models by assuming that there must be "dark" matter or energy, instead of acknowledging that the model, itself, must be fundamentally wrong the way an actual scientist would. — Kazvorpal (talk) 16:53, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Well, since it's a non-closed system that is receiving energy... and matter is just solidified energy... :) I'm going to say that Cueball is right so long as his flowchart also contains a StarTrek replicator somewhere. 172.68.90.64 20:08, 21 October 2019 (UTC)SiliconWolf