Arbitrary Memes

Posts tagged with Arbitrary

Arbitrarily Small, Infinitely Frustrating

Arbitrarily Small, Infinitely Frustrating
Every math student's nightmare lurking in proofs: "Let ε be arbitrarily small." Translation: "I'm about to make your life unnecessarily complicated without specifying exactly how small is small enough." The mathematical equivalent of your friend saying "I'll be there in 5 minutes" when they haven't even left their house yet. Calculus professors worldwide high-five each other whenever they unleash this phrase upon unsuspecting students.

International System Of Arbitrary Decisions

International System Of Arbitrary Decisions
The crushing disappointment when you discover that your beloved SI units aren't actually based on universal constants but are just as made-up as imperial measurements! That adventurer spent 15 years searching for the ultimate measurement truth only to find out we're all just playing a cosmic game of "let's agree these numbers make sense." The meter was originally defined as 1/10,000,000 of the distance from the North Pole to the equator—which is basically saying "we picked a random fraction of an arbitrarily-sized planet." Even with modern redefinitions using light and quantum mechanics, we're still just picking convenient reference points. Metric zealots in shambles right now.

Explaining Physical Constants Be Like

Explaining Physical Constants Be Like
This is EXACTLY how physicists defend arbitrary constants! "Why is Planck's constant 6.626×10 -34 J⋅s?" *adjusts lab goggles nervously* "Well, technically ANY number would be equally arbitrary, so why NOT that specific value? The universe just picked a number and ran with it!" Meanwhile the rest of us are staring at our equations wondering if the cosmos is just trolling us with these absurdly precise values. The fundamental forces of nature are basically that friend who insists on meeting at precisely 4:23 for absolutely no logical reason whatsoever.