People have the same problems with Force and Energy, it’s just easier to gloss over that misunderstanding.
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Before strange was known as a quark, there was a “strangeness” property of particles. It got that name because it was always conserved when heavier particles were formed, but oddly not when they decay, where it just dropped away.
When they first proposed the idea of quarks they had three types named up, down, and sideways. The last explains strangeness. They are always formed in quark-antiquark pairs, why the total strangeness was conserved, but eventually decay into lighter quarks or antiquarks, why it vanishes. And so strange became the name for them instead.
They originally discovered “charm” as an odd conserved-until-it’s-not quantity in much the same way. Whereas by the time they got to bottom and top they were expecting the quarks first, so gave them names to match down and up.
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You say that as though up, down, top and bottom don’t. Or is the directionality present in those types of quarks? Physics is not my strong suit.
If a hen and a half lays an egg and a half in a day and a half, how many pounds of skim milk does it take to
make an elephant a pair of pants?
(Thanks, Grampa)
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But if Beauty = Truth, then Truth = Beauty, so that’s only one quark. Of course, that’s all we need to know, so maybe that’s fine.
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That cafeteria’s hot dogs were sometimes greenish… so…
Oh, those were great for accidentally pressing the reset button.
Up, down, top and bottom aren’t directions, they’re flavors.
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That’s an excellent summary of how we got here. Thanks for writing that up!
And in defence of physicists, they don’t have the whole picture when they are naming things. We do when looking back and judging the nomenclature. When they first figured out strange quarks, it was no doubt, “Oh that’s behaving strangely- this property is unexpected”. Then more study and it turns out the “strangeness” is a property that gets conserved so it appears to map some physical aspect of the universe. Then the name sticks and the rest is history. By the time we understand a phenomena well enough to name it, it’s too late to change it. Too many papers and books have been written.
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… just like the hypothesis “what if there was no time before the big bang” 
Haha, touché! I think there’s some actual evidence for that one, but I am not a physicist or cosmologist so I won’t attempt any further justification there.
I’m not sure if casein polymers can be bludgeoned into textile applications; but you could at least use the skim milk to accessorize the elephant’s pants.
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Thank you. I can rest now. SANS ICS HyperEncabulator - YouTube
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Hey, that’s not true!
I know a lot of people who are NOT scientists who believe that facts will convince people of the truth. And I know a some of scientists who do not believe in the existence of truth. I also know some scientists who know the truth, which is that nothing can convince people of facts.
Ok, ok. You are right. It is a blind spot. At least a lot scientists do believe in people’s ability to change their minds based on facts.
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It’s a definitely a problem that most people have who have never dealt with the conspiracy mindset. People always think it’s just ignorance. They don’t understand the depths of ideology and identity that are causing people to cling to silly falsehoods, and how important those falsehoods are to that person.
In my experience, scientists are especially prone to not understanding this, because they themselves mostly live in a world where the opposite is true. Not that there aren’t any conspiracy-minded scientists of course- they are people too. But the proportion of the population and the depths of it are so much less. Otherwise they wouldn’t be scientists.
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Okay, I’m gonna need you to draw a Venn Diagram of this for me.
When I get a block of Dry Ice, I can’t get it to change into a liquid so I can pour it over something. This is very frustrating.
Do I have to add a tablespoon of ‘magic’?
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It just takes love. You need to hug it really, really hard*
* Approximately 1000 PSI
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hmmm… i think there’s a song about that…
