Geodesic Memes

Posts tagged with Geodesic

Getting Least Action
Physics Math Science Universe
12 hours ago 2.7K views 0 shares
Getting Least Action
The physics nerd suddenly found motivation to solve Einstein's field equations! That equation is the geodesic equation - it tells you the shortest path between two points in curved spacetime. Nothing motivates finding the optimal trajectory quite like "my parents aren't home." 😂 The meme brilliantly combines relativity theory with teenage romance. In flat space, the shortest distance is a straight line, but in curved spacetime (thanks Einstein!), you need some serious math to figure out how to get from point A to point B efficiently. Suddenly those Christoffel symbols (that Γ in the equation) seem worth calculating!

Off Down The Geodesic You Go
Physics Science Academia
18 days ago 4.3K views 0 shares
Off Down The Geodesic You Go
The bell curve of intellectual enlightenment strikes again. At both ends of the IQ spectrum, people accept that things fall down because "that's just how it is." Meanwhile, the 100 IQ middle-grounders proudly explain it's "the gravitational force that attracts mass!" The true comedy is how physics education creates this brief window where people think they're clever for regurgitating Newton, before either giving up and accepting reality or studying enough to realize they understand nothing. Geodesics in spacetime? General relativity? Quantum gravity? Nope, things just fall down.

The Great Cartography Debate
Earth-science Science Geology
2 months ago 6.0K views 0 shares
The Great Cartography Debate
The perfect illustration of the Dunning-Kruger effect in cartography! That curved blue line represents the shortest path between two points on a globe (a geodesic), but mapping it onto a flat projection creates this apparent curve. The bell curve shows three perspectives: the confident-but-wrong crowd ("it's straight!"), the technically correct experts ("it's bent around Earth's curvature"), and my personal favorite—the person who just uses their eyeballs ("I can clearly see it's not straight"). What makes this extra hilarious is that the 20,000,000 km distance shown would actually be about 50 times Earth's circumference—so nobody's right! The ultimate cartographic mic drop for anyone who's ever argued about the "best" map projection.