Rich Puchalsky :anarchism: on Nostr: npub1zdp33…2vqv8 🐛 Physicists do this now though -- the number of elements in ...
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Physicists do this now though -- the number of elements in the periodic table *is* absurd. The defining factor of an element is just how many protons its atoms have, so in a sense there's only one element. You can add neutrons and electrons for various other variations and that's still only 3 things.
As an ex-physicist I'm very familiar with this mode of thought. It's notably bad at emergent properties of things (biology and up) but I wouldn't say it's something that in itself made our science different from his. The experimental part is really the main factor, I think.
Physicists do this now though -- the number of elements in the periodic table *is* absurd. The defining factor of an element is just how many protons its atoms have, so in a sense there's only one element. You can add neutrons and electrons for various other variations and that's still only 3 things.
As an ex-physicist I'm very familiar with this mode of thought. It's notably bad at emergent properties of things (biology and up) but I wouldn't say it's something that in itself made our science different from his. The experimental part is really the main factor, I think.