• bionicjoey@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Calling Planck units “pixels” is extremely reductive. This is just naively applying video game concepts to physics with a poor understanding of both.

    • BrerChicken @lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I took an entire graduate course in QM and a quantized Universe does, in fact, seem pixelated. That’s exactly how I explain it to people. There’s simply a finite level to how closely you can zoom in. Space, time, and energy are all quantized, and maybe even gravity though we haven’t figured that one out yet.

    • BrerChicken @lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I took an entire graduate course in QM and a quantized Universe does, in fact, seem pixelated. That’s exactly how I explain it to people. There’s simply a finite level to how closely you can zoom in.

      • Matte@feddit.it
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        1 year ago

        isn’t the most recent explanation on planck’s length saying that we simply can’t observe further down, but it is hypothesised that smaller lengths actually exist?

        • Djeikup@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Just searched a bit, looking into how the length came to be and found this from wikipedia. https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_length “The Planck length does not have any precise physical significance, and it is a common misconception that it is the inherent pixel size of the universe.” What I found elsewhere was that it’s the only length one can get out of the universal constans of G, c and h. So as far as I know with my limited know how is that the planck length is useful or more convenient than other lengths in quantum physics.