this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] [email protected] 97 points 2 days ago (3 children)

This is why you specify that they are straight, parallel lines.

[–] [email protected] 49 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Perhaps this is just a projection of a square from a non-Euclidean space in which the lines are in fact straight and parallel.

I think the 2D surface of a cone (or double cone) would be an appropriate space, allowing you to construct this shape such that angles and distances around geodesics are conserved in both the space itself and the projected view.

This shape in that space would have four sides of equal length connected by four right angles AND the lines would be geodesics (straight lines) that are parallel.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I suppose you could get a shape like this if you tried to draw a square by true headings and bearings near the North pole of a sphere. "Turn heading 090, travel 10 miles. Turn heading 180, travel 10 miles." and so forth. Start at a spot close to the pole and this will be your ground track.

Actually no it isn't, because attempting to make a square you'd make four turns in the same direction, this would require turning left, right, right, left.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago

They could be if we're talking about non-euclidian geometry.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I don’t remember all my geometric rules I guess, but can an arc, intersecting a line, ever truly be a right angle? At no possible length of segment along that arc can you draw a line that’s perpendicular to the first.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

An infinitely small segment of the arc can be.
Geometrically there isn't a problem. If you draw a line from that point to the center of the arc, it will make it clearer.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I guess if we define it as a calculus problem, I can see the point..

I didn’t mean to pun but there it is and I’m leaving it. Any way, there is no infinitely small section that’s perpendicular. Only the tangent at a single (infinitely small) point along a smooth curve, as we approach from either direction. Maybe that’s still called perpendicular.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago

A right angle exists between the radius of the circle and the line tangent to the circle at the point that the radial line intersects it. So we can say the radius forms a right angle with the circle at that point because the slope of the curve is equal to that of the tangent line at that point.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Those are not 4 right angles, but 2 right angles and 2 angles of 270 degrees

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 days ago (1 children)

So 2 right angle and two wrong angle. Got it.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago

Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts will.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago

The square is a parallelogram, this is not a parallelogram.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 days ago (3 children)

but they aren’t parallel

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 days ago (1 children)

And the right angles are supposed to be inside, not 2 out 2 in

[–] [email protected] 1 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

I think that, in order to have this be a projection of a square, the space between the interior right angles of the space from which it was projected would have to be not just curved, but also twisted, like a Möbius strip, such that a person "walking" the square and starting from the rightmost angle leftward would start walking as if they were on your screen (their head coming out away from the screen), but then they would need to have their perspective twist so that they are now walking on the "underside" of the figure (their head now pointing into your phone). This would allow them to perceive the two "external" turns as "internal" turns, as well. Then it just needs to untwist on the way back. We just can't see the twisting, because the lines have no width.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 days ago (2 children)

They could be in some n-dimensional spaces

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago

"That's ....like.....just your perspective, man"

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago

You could just use polar coordinates

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

Going off webster... it looks like this really is only stretching the lines to fit one adjective

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/square

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago

Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. Wikipedia calls a square a "regular quadrilateral," which seems like a decent enough definition.

Today I learned that when you make up your own inadequate definition, then it's easy to match the definition with something inadequate.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago

Fuck off, Diogenes!

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It wasn't funny when Diogenes did it and it isn't funny now but it keeps getting reposted anyway and we have to pretend it is

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I understand Diogenes was usually the life of the party, so they just pretended it was funny.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago

Philosophers of that era spend a lot of time drunk.

I mean who the fuck dies from laughing to death at a donkey eating figs?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

Explain it to a ball