Comment on Just answer the question you fuckin' nerd
dustyData@lemmy.world 1 week agoI had a very cool class in research epistemology and the exercise was basically to answer the question, do liquids have a shape and if yes, which is it? How would you prove it?
It was the source of the most deranged but valuable discussion I’ve ever had.
anomnom@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
Isn’t part of the definition of liquid that it takes the form of its container?
I need an epistemological argument like I need a hole in my head.
dustyData@lemmy.world 1 week ago
One of them was that in a vacuum, absent of any container or gravity, a liquid’s shape is that of a sphere.
Another one was that depending on the definition of liquid, liquids might or might not have a shape. It also varies depending on the definition of the attribute shape.
The point of the exercise was to challenge the notion of objective truth in science.
anomnom@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
Without gravity it’s a sphere, or in free fall without air drag it’s a sphere (if it has sufficient surface tension anyway, which is what makes lava or molasses flow that way, in combination with its viscosity).
But in a vacuum it will boil off until the vapor pressure is high enough to eliminate the vacuum. But then it’s not in a vacuum anymore.
Really a fluid or liquid will always try to minimize its surface area while fighting gravity.
It’s a definitions problem that a lot of people who think there aren’t “objective truths” in science.
dustyData@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Exactly, remember the point was not to be right. But to have the discussions. It wasn’t the physics we were interested in, but in the ways to construct knowledge. Definitions and models are human constructs. The universe doesn’t care that we do or do not have neat words and models of its workings. However, language and knowledge, as human endeavors, require human interaction.