Talk:3084: Unstoppable Force and Immovable Object

lol, i remember this explanation from a minutephysics video. however, the version of the problem i heard, which is actually paradoxical, is "what happens when an immovable object meets an irresistible force?" Not without text (talk) 00:03, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

That was also literally my first thought. 169, anyone? --Coconut Galaxy (talk) 05:37, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

The MinutePhysics video: on Nebula or on YouTube --NeatNit (talk) 09:55, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

Come on, it's just an arrow made of W- bosons, right? TheTrainsKid (talk) 03:22, 3 May 2025 (UTC) Is there no joke here? Is it just the solution? Broseph (talk) 06:52, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

I remember an explanation by Isaac Asimov in one of his books which was like "by definition, an immovable object will not move at all under any force in the universe, and an unstoppable force will move all of the objects in this way" and then explained how the definitions conflicted each other and as such prevented both from being able to register for the hypothetical at the same time 172.64.236.161 06:55, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

In the first MMO games, collision was a big problem. A player could block a doorway, and nobody else could go through. It was even worse if the player had "follower" characters or pets. One solution was to have characters automatically "push" stationary characters out of the way, but that caused other problems. Modern MMO's such as World of Warcraft simply allow characters to pass through each other, as depicted in this xkcd comic. Our eyes fool us into "seeing" that two characters somehow slid past each other. 172.68.228.132 07:29, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

Our eyes, or the programmers? I don't have that much experience with MMO's but they probably do render it in specific way to make that effect. -- Hkmaly (talk) 02:59, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

When the two things pass through each other, at the instant where they both occupy exactly the same space, is there one object or two? 162.158.216.159 08:02, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

Given that force is not an object, one. Just like there was when they weren't colocated. 172.69.43.220 08:29, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

OK, but what about the 'unstoppable force carrying particles' in the title text? 172.69.194.204 19:00, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

I understand it as if a particle interacting with the object counts as 'stopping', in which case an unstoppable force-carrying particle wont have any effect. --162.158.120.157 20:40, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

The force could simply go around the object. The object hasn't moved, and the force wasn't stopped. Rtanenbaum (talk) 11:17, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

Redirecting would imply the force could be redirected, allowing us to trap it inside a closed loop, effectively stopping it. 172.70.57.132 15:38, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

This is like the Chinese saying the spear and the shield. Using this comic, I guess spear wins Aprilfoolsupdate! (talk) 14:02, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

Gonna be honest, I think this is my least favorite comic of the last 500 or so. It's a solution already given by minutephysics, except with all the perspective about reference frames, and what people actually mean with these terms replaced by a caption with a superiority complex. I suppose it gets pretty hard 3000 comics in, but c'mon. 172.68.35.83 19:18, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

Possibly, I'd say worst recently is the one about "Under-C" life, but this isn't far off.--Darth Vader (talk) 22:07, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

Ok, as we're giving personal opinions, I can't let it stand. Some might not exactly be total belly-laughs, but I think they each still have something to them and I prefer a mix of tones (and a wider spatter of focuses and treatments) to them all being exactly the same aspect of 'high-humour'. Not that I'd care to rank them, anyway, but I'm nowhere near ready to go off and make disparaging comments as if this site was bitchaboutxkcd.com, or whatever.

I won't try to tell you what to think, yourself, though maybe you should just roll with it. If you really don't like a comic, there'll be another along in two or three days. That might be even 'worse', as well as 'better', but then you can be even more unchill about that. 141.101.98.82 22:45, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

All forces are irresistable. No objects are immovable. If any force acts on any object, the object moves (or deforms). 172.68.84.145 22:22, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

Can we not say that Dark Matter, if that's what we imagine it might be, entirely resists the electromagnetic force? (It's one of my possible interpretations of the comic, though without enough hint that it was intended to have me annotate the Explanation accordingly.)

That said, it's unstoppable force (and there's are no Cavorite-like forceproof barriers), and it's rather that immovable objects are awkward to imagine under Relativity and there being no actual preferable frame of reference in the first place. 172.69.195.113 22:50, 3 May 2025 (UTC)