How many people do you think are unaware of basic physics/chemistry? [Archive]

kurosh

11-23-2005, 02:48 PM

Inspired by all the physics posts, what percent of people do you think are unaware of fundamental chemistry and physics concepts that rule our world? The theory of relativity is a huge one. If you find a random person on the street and tell them that the speed of light is constant no matter how fast you are going and time changes depending on how fast you go, I think it would blow their mind. What about atoms? How many people do you think are unaware of atoms?

It makes me very sad that we've advanced this far but the majority of people don't know [censored] about it.

BoogerFace

11-23-2005, 02:55 PM

I'm surprised by how many people have no concept of bankroll management.

dcasper70

11-23-2005, 02:56 PM

Hell, I have trouble getting correct change from cashiers...

11-23-2005, 02:56 PM

i'm aware of all those concepts...but i never use them in everyday life. not really all that important i dont think. definately doesn't make me sad if other people don't use them or even know about them.

TheMainEvent

11-23-2005, 02:57 PM

I'd say pretty much everyone who didn't take these classes beyond a high school level. And I think most non-science majors don't have to take any of these classes in college. So in short, pretty much everyone /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

kurosh

11-23-2005, 02:57 PM

[ QUOTE ]

I'm surprised by how many people have no concept of bankroll management.

[/ QUOTE ]Even the best bankroll management won't make you a winner.

Chairman Wood

11-23-2005, 03:05 PM

I would say most high school graduates are unaware of this [ QUOTE ]
The theory of relativity is a huge one. If you find a random person on the street and tell them that the speed of light is constant no matter how fast you are going and time changes depending on how fast you go, I think it would blow their mind.

[/ QUOTE ] I think they wouldn't be able to tell you much about even relative velocity but I'm sure they would understand it if you explained it to them . Most college kids and people that graduate from college are aware of that light having the same speed regardless of the reference frame however they have no clue what it means or what any of the implications of it are. I don't know how many people have been to college in the US or world but I would say close to 65% of them are somewhat aware about this. That number plus another 5-10% of the people that never went to college then I think that would be a reasonable answer. Concerning atoms, I would say 80% of population over 18

Slow Play Ray

11-23-2005, 03:05 PM

90% or more. Probably more.

daryn

11-23-2005, 03:08 PM

>95% have no clue

then don't forget, you have to factor in the people that have some clue, but are usually wrong

Chairman Wood

11-23-2005, 03:08 PM

[ QUOTE ]
I'd say pretty much everyone who didn't take these classes beyond a high school level. And I think most non-science majors don't have to take any of these classes in college. So in short, pretty much everyone

[/ QUOTE ]
But concerning the existence of atoms? Come on, this is middle school science. I think most americans could tell you what an atom is. Hell, i bet you could grab most bums (when sober) ask them what an atom is and they would tell you "its that really small [censored] that everything is made of."

citanul

11-23-2005, 03:09 PM

amongst major world leaders, i'd expect the answer to be somewhere north of 98% and that's just "general concepts of physics and or chemistry," not stretching to theory of relativity or anything.

Go Blue

11-23-2005, 03:12 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Inspired by all the physics posts, what percent of people do you think are unaware of fundamental chemistry and physics concepts that rule our world? The theory of relativity is a huge one. If you find a random person on the street and tell them that the speed of light is constant no matter how fast you are going and time changes depending on how fast you go, I think it would blow their mind. What about atoms? How many people do you think are unaware of atoms?

It makes me very sad that we've advanced this far but the majority of people don't know [censored] about it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Given how most people don't even know things like the capital of the USA, how many states there are in the USA, and such, I think the answer to your question is pretty simple.

11-23-2005, 03:16 PM

[ QUOTE ]
If you find a random person on the street and tell them that the speed of light is constant no matter how fast you are going and time changes depending on how fast you go, I think it would blow their mind.

[/ QUOTE ]

I doubt it, they probably would just not kow what you were talking about.

Beer and Pizza

11-23-2005, 03:17 PM

Who cares?

Einstein didn't know his phone number.

Knowing how to find out information you need is all that matters. If you don't use physics on a daily basis, knowing it is just a hobby, and you get to choose your hobbies.

tdarko

11-23-2005, 03:20 PM

i was a biochem major and hell i have forgotten most of what i have learned b/c i haven't applied any of it to daily life in years. yes, its unfortunate that we have progressed b/c of some of these concepts that hardly anyone understands, but i am really having a hard time understanding why it upsets you? /images/graemlins/confused.gif

JaBlue

11-23-2005, 04:23 PM

who the [censored] cares about atoms, anyway?

goofball

11-23-2005, 04:26 PM

Easily 95% of people don't understand relativity. Also, nobody understands quantum mechanics /images/graemlins/smile.gif

tonypaladino

11-23-2005, 04:28 PM

I'd say 98% or more. But I don't think you would blow anyones mind explaining relativity to them, if they didn't get it, they'd just nod politely and shrug it off.

goofball

11-23-2005, 04:33 PM

I think i'd be willing to say that 15% of the population understands newtons laws.

gamblore99

11-23-2005, 04:34 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Knowing how to find out information you need is all that matters. If you don't use physics on a daily basis, knowing it is just a hobby, and you get to choose your hobbies.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree. On a similiar topic to the OP, in one of my classes today we learned about a small town in Tenesse that was kind of closed off from the rest of the world. Before the introduction of technology and communication, the average IQ was 83. That is borderline retarded.

Now that is sad, but also very funy.

pryor15

11-23-2005, 04:35 PM

[ QUOTE ]
amongst major world leaders, i'd expect the answer to be somewhere north of 98% and that's just "general concepts of physics and or chemistry," not stretching to theory of relativity or anything.

[/ QUOTE ]

hmmm....who could be in that 2%? hmmm...

http://www.lowlights-now.com/ipw-web/portal/73/images/breaking-news/bush-confused.jpg

nevermind, i figured it out.

Sponger15SB

11-23-2005, 04:41 PM

WE LANDED ON THE MOON!

http://img449.imageshack.us/img449/4098/dumb1160in.jpg

...ya i know, but this was the best picture I could find.

wayabvpar

11-23-2005, 04:48 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Knowing how to find out information you need is all that matters. If you don't use physics on a daily basis, knowing it is just a hobby, and you get to choose your hobbies.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree. On a similiar topic to the OP, in one of my classes today we learned about a small town in Tenesse that was kind of closed off from the rest of the world. Before the introduction of technology and communication, the average IQ was 83. That is borderline retarded.

Now that is sad, but also very funy.

[/ QUOTE ]

There is a joke here somewhere.

asofel

11-23-2005, 04:51 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Knowing how to find out information you need is all that matters. If you don't use physics on a daily basis, knowing it is just a hobby, and you get to choose your hobbies.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree. On a similiar topic to the OP, in one of my classes today we learned about a small town in Tenesse that was kind of closed off from the rest of the world. Before the introduction of technology and communication, the average IQ was 83. That is borderline retarded.

Now that is sad, but also very funy.

[/ QUOTE ]

There is a joke here somewhere.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't see what's so funy about that.

MrWookie47

11-23-2005, 05:25 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Easily 95% of people don't understand relativity. Also, nobody understands quantum mechanics /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

vnh. Take comfort in the fact that there is indeed someone here nerdy enough to get your post. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Freakin

11-23-2005, 05:34 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Easily 95% of people don't understand relativity. Also, nobody understands quantum mechanics /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

vnh. Take comfort in the fact that there is indeed someone here nerdy enough to get your post. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

******** <------- Your post

0
-|- <---- Me
/\

11-23-2005, 05:39 PM

[ QUOTE ]

It makes me very sad that we've advanced this far but the majority of people don't know [censored] about it.

[/ QUOTE ]

This be your truth, and you can keep it, me hearty!

Fer some of us, there be only 3 truths, my laaad. Rum, sodomy, and the lash! Be mine any less valid than yers?

Arrrr!

masse75

11-23-2005, 06:24 PM

Back in college, I had a chemistry lab where we dissolved magnesium in hydrochloric acid:

Mg +HCl ---> MgCl2 + H2.

I was asked what happened to the magnesium. I said it went to live with Baby Jesus.

d10

11-23-2005, 08:19 PM

[ QUOTE ]
I think i'd be willing to say that 15% of the population understands newtons laws.

[/ QUOTE ]

I doubt 15% of the population could even name them all.

d10

11-23-2005, 08:21 PM

[ QUOTE ]
I'd say pretty much everyone who didn't take these classes beyond a high school level. And I think most non-science majors don't have to take any of these classes in college. So in short, pretty much everyone /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

I never took classes beyond high school, and I'm pretty familiar with physics.

TimM

11-23-2005, 08:58 PM

I once had a whole group of people insist that if you video tape a color show while watching it on a black and white TV, and later play it back using a color TV, it will still play back in black and white.

tonypaladino

11-23-2005, 09:02 PM

[ QUOTE ]
I once had a whole group of people insist that if you video tape a color show while watching it on a black and white TV, and later play it back using a color TV, it will still play back in black and white.

[/ QUOTE ]

Some TV's have video out jacks, so if it were wired Antena->TV->VCR they would be correct.

TimM

11-23-2005, 09:04 PM

This was 20 years ago, so no.

Also, assuming someone made a black and white TV with output jacks, just because the picture tube is not color capable, I don't see why they wouldn't output a color signal anyway.

Sponger15SB

11-23-2005, 09:56 PM

[ QUOTE ]
just because the picture tube is not color capable, I don't see why they wouldn't output a color signal anyway.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, of course you don't.

/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

Mr_J

11-23-2005, 10:06 PM

I agree. We have to be the most stupid of all the advanced species in the universe. Course we're probally primitives in comparison anyway, so I guess we can get away with it. Like I posted in another thread in the internet forum, part of it may be that we've evolved so quickly in general, and that we've experienced a huge technological explosion over the last few hundred years. We have to be capable of so much more these days, but out brainpower wouldn't be much larger to when we didn't have to cope with all of it.

Kind of like how our skin adapts to the sun. Take a white person and stick them somewhere along the equator and they'll fry. But a hundred generations (a guess) and their skin will have adapted.

Dominic

11-23-2005, 10:10 PM

I'm always amazed when people don't understand simple geography, much less simple physics.

I have friends who couldn't find Florida on a map!

And thoese idiots Jay Leno talks to on the street - the ones who don't know if the sun revolves around the earth or is it the other way around!

Drives me batty.

TimM

11-23-2005, 10:26 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
just because the picture tube is not color capable, I don't see why they wouldn't output a color signal anyway.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, of course you don't.

/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Hey, I got a B.S. in Electrical Engineering, I just never used it. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

Slow Play Ray

11-23-2005, 10:32 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Hey, I got a B.S. in Electrical Engineering, I just never used it. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

B.S. = Bullsh!t
M.S. = More sh!t
PhD = Piled high and Deep

Voltron87

11-23-2005, 10:44 PM

[ QUOTE ]
I'm always amazed when people don't understand simple geography, much less simple physics.

I have friends who couldn't find Florida on a map!

And thoese idiots Jay Leno talks to on the street - the ones who don't know if the sun revolves around the earth or is it the other way around!

Drives me batty.

[/ QUOTE ]

Last weekend I said that Wisconson was a city, not a state. I had been drinking but not too much. I That whole section of the US is a gray area to me.

I can barely identify any manhattan bridges other than the GWB. For a long time I didn't know the difference between the lincoln and holland tunnel (holland is downtown, right?)

I consider everything from yonkers to buffalo to be "upstate" and all part of one area.

man

11-23-2005, 11:26 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Easily 95% of people don't understand relativity. Also, nobody understands quantum mechanics /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[/ QUOTE ]
I don't think anyone can understand either theory intuitively, because we don't experience it in real life. but I get the reference you're making. jolly good reference, yes yes.

Blarg

11-23-2005, 11:30 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'd say pretty much everyone who didn't take these classes beyond a high school level. And I think most non-science majors don't have to take any of these classes in college. So in short, pretty much everyone

[/ QUOTE ]
But concerning the existence of atoms? Come on, this is middle school science. I think most americans could tell you what an atom is. Hell, i bet you could grab most bums (when sober) ask them what an atom is and they would tell you "its that really small [censored] that everything is made of."

[/ QUOTE ]

True. The kind of people who wouldn't know what an atom is, at least in America, would probably be limited to the kind of people who think Europe is a country, or don't know if Mexico is more or less north of the equator than the U.S. is.

Brain

11-23-2005, 11:32 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'm always amazed when people don't understand simple geography, much less simple physics.

I have friends who couldn't find Florida on a map!

And thoese idiots Jay Leno talks to on the street - the ones who don't know if the sun revolves around the earth or is it the other way around!

Drives me batty.

[/ QUOTE ]

Last weekend I said that Wisconson was a city, not a state. I had been drinking but not too much. I That whole section of the US is a gray area to me.

I can barely identify any manhattan bridges other than the GWB. For a long time I didn't know the difference between the lincoln and holland tunnel (holland is downtown, right?)

I consider everything from yonkers to buffalo to be "upstate" and all part of one area.

[/ QUOTE ]

http://www.nycroads.com/crossings/

MrMon

11-23-2005, 11:45 PM

"No one has ever gone broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."

Lazymeatball

11-24-2005, 01:40 AM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
amongst major world leaders, i'd expect the answer to be somewhere north of 98% and that's just "general concepts of physics and or chemistry," not stretching to theory of relativity or anything.

[/ QUOTE ]

hmmm....who could be in that 2%? hmmm...

http://www.lowlights-now.com/ipw-web/portal/73/images/breaking-news/bush-confused.jpg

nevermind, i figured it out.

[/ QUOTE ]

the post you replied too stated that 98% of world leaders didn't understand most conepts of physics and chemistry.

Your reply implied that you believed President George Bush to be among the 2% who do understand those concepts/ If that was not your intention then you are a moron for two reasons.
A. for trying to make this a political discussion in OOT
and
B. for actually complimenting the man you were trying to insult.

ChipWrecked

11-24-2005, 01:43 AM

w_alloy

11-24-2005, 01:52 AM

Whenever I think of how much the ignorance of the average person bugs me, I look at the car they payed for, and go to the school they pay for, and it doesnt bother me so much anymmore.

Il_Mostro

11-24-2005, 04:25 AM

Screw physics. How many are unaware of the implications of exponential growth?

Just about everyone...

diebitter

11-24-2005, 04:37 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Screw physics. How many are unaware of the implications of exponential growth?

Just about everyone...

[/ QUOTE ]

Yah, physics is for geeks. Cybernetics is where all the cool kids are at.

pryor15

11-24-2005, 05:11 AM

[ QUOTE ]

the post you replied too stated that 98% of world leaders didn't understand most conepts of physics and chemistry.

Your reply implied that you believed President George Bush to be among the 2% who do understand those concepts/ If that was not your intention then you are a moron for two reasons.
A. for trying to make this a political discussion in OOT
and
B. for actually complimenting the man you were trying to insult.

[/ QUOTE ]

i misread it, calm down.