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| :of course to continue the joke, while all those fields may have applicability beyond earth, the vast majority of what they actually study is ON earth (although to make the stretch, you have to consider any field that studies things off earth as a subset of astronomy, which would make for many very angry scientific debates... hmmm... science thunderdome, I kinda like this idea =D [[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.127|172.69.71.127]] 15:05, 2 July 2022 (UTC) | | :of course to continue the joke, while all those fields may have applicability beyond earth, the vast majority of what they actually study is ON earth (although to make the stretch, you have to consider any field that studies things off earth as a subset of astronomy, which would make for many very angry scientific debates... hmmm... science thunderdome, I kinda like this idea =D [[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.127|172.69.71.127]] 15:05, 2 July 2022 (UTC) |
| :Don't feel bad. The entire second half of the explanation at present is devoted to casting the joke as absurdist exaggeration and hyperbole. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.36|172.70.211.36]] 15:30, 2 July 2022 (UTC) | | :Don't feel bad. The entire second half of the explanation at present is devoted to casting the joke as absurdist exaggeration and hyperbole. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.36|172.70.211.36]] 15:30, 2 July 2022 (UTC) |
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− | Maybe the idea of the comic is that the diagram was created by astronomers to justify their existence, which explains the bias. Many lay people wonder why we spend so much money studying "out there" when there are so many problems here that could use the money (never mind that the fraction of government budgets devoted to astronomy is miniscule, and some of the discoveries do have terrestrial uses, particularly regarding climate change). And as alluded in the title text, other researchers could probably make a similar diagram that emphasizes their discipline. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 17:01, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
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− | :Climate change? Only thing astronomy can tell us about climate change is where to move to when we inevitably destroy Earths climate. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 01:03, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
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− | :: The greenhouse effect was originally described in terms of {{w|albedo}} when the absorption spectra of CO2 was first characterized, but I can't think of any other examples. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.6|172.69.34.6]] 01:16, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
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− | :: Solar astronomy tells us what contributions are made by the sun and it's various cycles, general astronomy gives us orbital and therefor seasonal modifiers on that, both of which can then be accounted for to determine both local contribution, and expected trend changes. Further it gives both examples of what various conditions can result in (venus and mars especially) and even possible useful modifications we can make (eg solar shades for reducing, and reflectors for increasing solar effects, albedo modification for either). Not to mention minor things like knowing if a country sized rock might ruin our day --Not an Astronomer [[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.155|172.69.70.155]] 15:54, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
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− | There should be a large proportion for "Dark Knowledge" to imitate those astronomical summaries that try to emphasise how much of the universe is dark matter and/or energy [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.64|172.70.86.64]] 01:38, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
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− | As to the alt text, you also have Max Tegmark, a physicist at MIT, who believes the entire universe is literally made of mathematics: {{w|Mathematical universe hypothesis}}. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.52|172.70.211.52]] 06:54, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
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− | :Could be... although just like Holographic Theory, and to some degree Simulation Theory we'd be hard pressed to tell a difference. As long as the rules are consistent, and resist self modification, there's nothing to say the experience from the inside is any different between, physical, simulation, holographic, or mathematical realities. Hard to know which box you're in if you can't look outside it to confirm what the walls are made of [[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.155|172.69.70.155]] 15:54, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
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− | ::Quite true. Almost all of those "theories" aren't {{w|falsifiable}}, and therefore are technically metaphysics instead of genuine science. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.132.96|172.68.132.96]] 22:24, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
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− | :::Oh, absolutely. But it's definitely been made fun of by webcomics before, e.g. by: [https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/theoretical-physics SMBC], so it's not outside the realm of possibility Randall may have meant that. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.207.8|172.70.207.8]] 02:20, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
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− | ::::SMBC is a great comic. I wonder why it doesn't have an explanation wiki. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.125|172.70.210.125]] 03:14, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
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− | :::::It's inexplicable...
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− | ::::: :) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.177|172.70.85.177]] 11:45, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
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− | I deleted this sentence from the explanation: "If we measure the universe by mass-energy instead, for example, the study of physics becomes non-trivial." I was planning to put an {Actual citation needed} tag on it, but it seemed to break up the explanation in an odd way, inside a paragraph front of a group of bullet points making similar arguments, so I'm moving it here for discussion instead. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.149|172.69.33.149]] 17:33, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
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