this post was submitted on 23 May 2025
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:

Rules

  1. All posts must be showerthoughts
  2. The entire showerthought must be in the title
  3. No politics
    • If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
    • A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
  4. Posts must be original/unique
  5. Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS

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The butterfly effects would add up and and any zygote formed would not be the hitler-as-we-know anymore, since it would be a different combination of sperm and eggs.

Who needs guns when you got a time machine? Don't like your highschool bully, just bump into their parents back in time. Or you know, "bump" ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) into their parents.

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[–] vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

No it doesn't mean that. It means that tiny changes in input result in big changes in the output.

By your definition, a simple ellipse is chaotic. Which it clearly isn't. Tiny changes in the axes result in tiny changes to its shape, and by extension its perimeter. Yet there is no closed form formula for the perimiter of an ellipse.

This could also be verified using a simple dictionary, not even a math textbook.

[–] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

A tiny change could mean a big change but it doesn't mean that change must be unlimited. For example a double pendulum is a classic chaotic system. There is no solution but that doesn't mean the pendulum can move greater than the length of its segments. It's still a bound system.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory

More importantly, in the real world, if you push a double pendulum, it won't flail endlessly. It will eventually converge to the single state of rest.

[–] vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 3 hours ago

what does any of that have to do with anything I said? By the way, that wikepedia page doesn't contain the word "closed" anywhere in it. just saying