Title text:

Unstoppable force-carrying particles can’t interact with immovable matter by definition.

Transcript:

[An arrow pointing to the right and a trapezoid are labeled as ‘Unstoppable Force’ and ‘Immovable Object’ respectively.]
[The arrow is shown as entering the trapezoid from the left and the part of it in said trapezoid is coloured gray.]
[The arrow is shown as leaving the trapezoid to the right and is coloured black.]
[Caption below the panel:] I don’t see why people find this scenario to be tricky.

Source: https://xkcd.com/3084/

explainxkcd for #3084

  • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    2·
    18 minutes ago

    Maybe the universe will crash due to division by zero, floating-point error, integer overflow and segmentation fault, all of them occurring simultaneously. The objects will experience infinite velocity and infinite forces, there will be rounding errors, the system will run out of RAM and storage space. The universal CPU will max out all threads, and run out of cooling capacity. The hardware catches fire, the entire universe immediately collapses into a singularity, resulting in a new big bang as the system reboots. Oh, and the log files are corrupted, so good luck troubleshooting that one.

    • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      1·
      10 minutes ago

      These kinds of contradicitons exist in made structures, such as laws, rules and regulations. In situations like that, a judge has to pick which rule to follow and which one to ignore. The first time that happens, it becomes the standard solution (precedent) for those kinds of problems.

  • iAvicenna@lemmy.worldEnglish
    122·
    7 hours ago

    so if god creates rock so heavy that it can’t lift it, its hand just passes through the rock? makes sense.

    • Gladaed@feddit.orgEnglish
      81·
      4 hours ago

      A rock so heavy you cannot lift it is not an immovable object. Just cause you are weak does not mean you are right.

    • Cocodapuf@lemmy.worldEnglish
      9·
      6 hours ago

      I think if God creates a rock so heavy he can’t lift it, it’s probably a black hole. By definition we can’t know what happens inside a black hole, because no information escapes the event horizon. As it’s now consistent with known physics that we can’t know many aspects of this interaction between God and the black hole, I think this paradox is basically solved. We don’t know any more about the interaction, but it’s no longer a paradox, it’s consistent with physics.

    • Saleh@feddit.orgEnglish
      4·
      7 hours ago

      God is distinct from the creation and has no physical shape inside the creation so the idea of “object too heavy to lift” is already conceptually nonsensical.

      But also in the scope of our physics: What would an object be that is too heavy to “lift” for anyone and anything? It would be the heaviest object in the universe. So what will happen with the heaviest object in the universe? It would be the main center of gravity for everything else. In the same way you cannot “lift” the earth, but rather lift yourself from it as your force will just propel you away from the earth rather than the earth away from you, while you are inside the area dominated by earths gravitational field.

      • Cocodapuf@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        7 hours ago

        When you jump you are pushing the earth away from yourself a little bit, and then some of your gravity pulls the earth back toward you. You have moved the earth, and for a brief moment your jump has in fact altered Earth’s orbit.

        • Saleh@feddit.orgEnglish
          1·
          7 hours ago

          Relative to the sun, which is the next center of gravity. As you go up the chain you end up with the heaviest object which you cannot move relative to anything, as it is the logical point of relative movement for everything else.

          • Cocodapuf@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            6 hours ago

            You need to be thinking about n-body physics though, everything affects everything. If the earth moves, that moves the sun a little, if the sun moves, that moves the local cluster a little, etc. Why wouldn’t that affect this heaviest object?

            I mean, are you suggesting that this heaviest object is simply the center of the universe and that all coordinates are defined around it? Because while that seems practical, I don’t think it’s how matter and space interact.

            • Saleh@feddit.orgEnglish
              1·
              6 hours ago

              The universe is expanding everywhere all at once in all directions. So space itself is “moving”. It is impossible to define movement except relative to another object made from matter.

              • Cocodapuf@lemmy.worldEnglish
                2·
                5 hours ago

                Ok, I think we’re on the same page here. But I’m still not sure about one of your previous comments, you suggested that this “heaviest object” can’t move because it would be the logical reference to which any other body is measured.

                But I want to think about that a bit. Let’s say this heaviest object (HO) has something orbiting it and we’re looking at it from earth with a telescope. As the smaller body orbits, we would probably see this HO wobble, right? Meaning that even if it’s the most massive thing around, it’s still affected by other objects, it can be moved.

    • PlexSheep@infosec.pubEnglish
      11·
      7 hours ago

      No that doesn’t make sense. The thing you’re alluring at is a classical thought experiment showing contradiction in allmightiness.

      P1: God is Almighty, meaning he can do anything

      Therefore he must be able to create a stone he can’t lift. But then there is something he can’t do: Either he can not lift the super stone, or he can not create a super stone that he can’t lift.

    • chatokun@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      1·
      27 minutes ago

      Two people can have the same idea. There’s even a term for it in science. Do you think Randall has watched every YouTube video that exists? I personally have never seen the video you linked, and while it has a decent amount of views, 13M over 12 years is pretty insignificant for other viral videos(for instance, nigahiga has multiple videos in the 30-60m range, and plenty more in the same 10-20m range like this video).

    • Ech@lemm.eeEnglish
      1·
      1 hour ago

      Eh, it’s just redefining the assumed meaning. “Intangible” does mean “unstoppable” in a way, but that’s not really what’s intended.

    • Raltoid@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      6 hours ago

      That has been debated to death before and it obviously depends on the writer and version of the characters, but in most cases neither are fully immovable or unstoppable. If they were, Juggernaut would probably just be redirected and keep going.

      A little more practically speaking, Juggernaut wins easily:

      • The Blob is a mutant who can basically lock himself to the ground with a short distance around him and become immovable in relation to the ground while being able to absorb most impacts to effectively eliminate the force experience by him and thus the ground.

      • The Juggernaut is not a mutant, but an avatar of Cyttorak the Destroyer, the God/Demon ruler of the Crimson Cosmos dimension. He can tap into more and more of that power to the point where he can fight a somewhat angry Hulk on almost equal ground(he’s even defeated him with some help).

      Even if you let Blob be immovable and able to ignore all kinetic force, he still has a big weakness: He’s not very superhuman when it comes to other forms of damage, or just pain in general. As demonstrated when he tried to go after one of the intelligent versions of Hulk. Hulk realized he couldn’t move or hurt him, so he grabbed his stomach and started pulling. It quickly hurt so much that he instinctively stopped anchoring himself to the ground. At which point he basically became an invincible bouncing ball since he can’t attach to the air. SoHulk treated him as one, until he sent him flying by using a big metal girder as a bat. And it’s important to note that Blob is not very strong or good at fighting when it comes to superhumans, since he basically just relies on his powers.

      And to expand on the Crimson Cosmos: It is so powerful that Doctor Strange taps into it to contain Hulk. It’s even used to contain Thanos with most of the stones in the MCU(The red cloth strips that hold him is a spell called the “Crimson Bands of Cyttorak”)

  • dryfter@lemm.eeEnglish
    111·
    6 hours ago

    I’m driving. I lose my brakes and can’t slow down as if my gas pedal is stuck (unstoppable force). I’m on a road that stops at a T intersection and there’s a concrete wall to keep people from going straight when they are moving vertically towards the T intersection (immovable object).

    The car just goes right through the concrete wall with no damage?

    Replace the concrete wall with a wooden fence. Technically the fence is immovable, but the car is going to smash right through that thing.

    So is this about clarifying what exactly the objects are? I’m not smart enough for this one and am so confused…

    • andros_rex@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      4 hours ago

      The thrust of your car engine is a very stoppable force.

      Concrete walls are resilient, but can be moved.

      What will happen is that the kinetic energy from the collision will crumple the front part of your car, as the concrete wall applies an equal and opposite force. Ideally, the fact that some of the energy is “used” in deforming your car (and subsequently escapes as heat) decreases the amount of kinetic energy that is used to deform you.

      • Mostly_Gristle@lemmy.worldEnglish
        11·
        6 hours ago

        The fact that the car had brakes to begin with would suggest that it is, by design, a force which stops regularly.

  • ianhclark510@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    243·
    17 hours ago

    “What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?” that image doesn’t show a force meeting an object

  • Cochise@lemmy.eco.brEnglish
    233·
    14 hours ago

    This is soo politically charged that can’t be seen as political anymore.