this post was submitted on 07 May 2026
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.
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Entropy always increases.
There's one way for a cable to be untangled, and an incalculable amount of ways for it to be tangled. When letting it randomly change state it is very improbable for it to randomly end up in the untangled state.
Same for shoelaces, there is but a few ways for the shoes to be properly knot, and a comparatively essentially infinite ways for them not to be.
I know it's a joke, but I find this perspective fascinating.
The danger of an over simplified model.
This is why I hate math ;-;
this is why I love it!
Just as well that this is physics then!
relevant
Yeah... But I know of no purely mathematical theory that predicts entropy - this really is a physics thing.
If it was just infinite ways for shoelaces to improperly knot then headphones would also not properly knot and easily untangle by pulling one end. But that doesn't happen.
The difference is from the physics of lengths of string/wire and the shoelaces are under tension while headphone wires aren't.
shoelaces can be a tangled mess yet not properly knotted
Shoelaces have a "proper" knot while headphones do not. If we were tying our shoes into the abominations I pull out of my pocket, maybe that'd play out differently.
I wouldn't care as much if shoelaces tangled themselves into a knot that took extra work to untie.
I have some laces that I double tie and they still untie themselves.