• UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    22 days ago

    I remember growing up as a kid, doing my time in Sunday School, and getting this story pitched as “Wise King Solomon ferret’s out the truth of maternity by determining which claimant truly cares about the life of the child”.

    It’s kinda crazy how the story has permuted into “Two women fight over a thing and both agree splitting it in half is the fair solution.”

    • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
      0·
      21 days ago

      I think the permutation is because it works better on a comedic level. Probably started out as basic “But what if king Solomon did cut the baby in half” arguments and eventually became a general joke. The base level of “cut the baby in half” is already dark by itself all it takes is going through with it and you have a good bit of dark humor.

      Also the whole scenario of king Solomon almost comes across as him not necessarily being particularly smart but moreso that the people he was dealing with were crazy or stupid.

    • lugal@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      0·
      22 days ago

      What I like about the story is that true motherhood isn’t about biology or DNA but about caring. And I get why even people who care about the well-being of a child wouldn’t care about the well-being of an atom

  • qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website
    0·
    22 days ago

    The energy from nuclear reactions can be astonishingly large (compared to, say, chemical reactions).

    But atoms are really, really, really small.

    • thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org
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      22 days ago

      people with good vision can probably see a single gold atom, I seem to remember that one useless fact about the smallest things we can see

  • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 🇮 @pawb.socialEnglish
    0·
    22 days ago

    Real talk: Would literally cutting a single atom in half unleash the force of an atomic bomb? Would it even be a noticeable reaction to the unassisted human eye?

    I’ve seen some science show stuff at particle accelerators where a dude points to some device giving off sparks and is like “these sparks are actually anti-matter explosions.” So I wonder if a single atom of regular matter would even be a spark.

    • DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world
      0·
      22 days ago

      There are carbon atoms splitting (decaying) inside of you right now. This is why carbon dating works. Do you notice them?

      Yeah, unless the atom in question is neutronium, you won’t notice and if it is neutronium, you have all kinds of issues even without splitting it.