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vgr's profile
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
@vgr

Tweets

Venkatesh Rao

@vgr

This is my conversational account. For my work follow @ribbonfarm, @breaking_smart, @artofgig. Tweets are 90% vacuous views, apathetically held. Mediocritopian.

Los Angeles, CA
venkateshrao.com
Joined August 2007

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    Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 14
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    Something deeply silly about this “we don’t know how aerodynamic lift works” article doing the rounds. Mystery is not in the phenomenon but in people’s weird expectations of what “explanations” ought to be able to accomplish. Cc @gravity_levityhttps://www.scientificamerican.com/article/no-one-can-explain-why-planes-stay-in-the-air/ …

    9:26 AM - 14 Feb 2020
    • 11 Retweets
    • 45 Likes
    • Zhan Li 🇪🇺🇬🇧 Jason Prini machinemob zoroasterisk Molly Gordon Joseph Kelly a.k.a. Lawrence Rowland Sagar Dubey
    13 replies 11 retweets 45 likes
      1. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 14
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        @gravity_levity this might make a good case for a sequel to your Bohr atom thing. More accessible too.

        0 replies 0 retweets 1 like
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      2. Brian Skinner‏ @gravity_levity Feb 14
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        Replying to @vgr

        New career: for a fee I will write a pop-sci article "Here's why we don't understand X", where X is any generic well-understood phenomenon that you want to clickbait people about. Will reduce everything to the cosmological constant problem if necessary.

        5 replies 3 retweets 29 likes
      3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 14
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        Replying to @gravity_levity

        You're on... come back to ribbonfarm and write a regular column along those lines :D

        1 reply 0 retweets 4 likes
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      2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Feb 14
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        Replying to @Xizlqk @gravity_levity

        That’s not what I mean. It’s actually a well written pop science/philosophy of science article of its genre. The silliness is broader, in general culture around scientific explanations.

        0 replies 0 retweets 9 likes
      3. End of conversation
      1. Kia‏☆‏ @alt_kia Feb 14
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        Replying to @vgr @gravity_levity

        well you know what they say, "It's easy to explain how a rocket works, but explaining how a wing works takes a rocket scientist"

        0 replies 0 retweets 4 likes
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      1. Matt "MSG superfan" Olson‏ @arachnocapital2 Feb 14
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        Replying to @vgr @gravity_levity

        shades of that "the colour pink doesn't exist" shitshow from a few years back

        0 replies 0 retweets 3 likes
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      2. James Stuber‏ @uberstuber Feb 14
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        Replying to @vgr @gravity_levity

        I had a professor who was very adamantly on the vortex side of this 'debate' and never let us forget it

        1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
      3. James Stuber‏ @uberstuber Feb 14
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        Replying to @uberstuber @vgr @gravity_levity

        everyone else didn't care

        0 replies 1 retweet 1 like
      4. End of conversation
      1. Dima‏ @UniqueDima Feb 14
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        Replying to @vgr @gravity_levity

        Technically, we don't know how a transistor works (ref. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunnel_field-effect_transistor …, which are quantum to say the least). And that's what separates engineers from scientists. Engineers don't care about a complete explanation; we just aggressively trial and error to build what works.

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