Einsteins famous equation is certainly one of the most brilliant and beautiful scientific discoveriesbut its also one of the most disturbing. Why are motorcycles less fuel-efficient than cars? This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. We should also revisit why we think counterintuitive is valuable. Columbus' contemporaries didn't think the world was flat but he was still kind of crazy because he thought the Earth was a lot smaller than it really is (and basically lucked into finding the New World). Student cognition in response to intuitive and counterintuitive stimuli in the school science curriculum is not well understood. But our love affair comes at a cost. Check out these facts that are just plain counterintuitive - you'll be surprised at some of the things people do every day! 1. Anyone can plainly see that the Sun and stars rise in the east, sweep across the sky and set in the west; the Earth feels stable and stationary. Contrary to most students expectations, the temperature will drop. He used a telescope to provide evidence for the heliocentric theory, and some of his contemporaries were so disturbed by what the new invention revealedcraters on a supposedly perfectly spherical moon, other moons circling Jupiterthat they refused to look through the device. We spread salt on icy roads and paths to melt the ice. This is technically false though. There are many other examples of counterintuitive occurrences in nature and science. Even though the temperature has dropped well below 0oC, the melted ice does not re-freeze. And when you are talking about something that (a)people reflect on and wonder about and (b) is not already well settled, then chances are pretty good that people have had multiple, potentially contradictory ideas about it. Students know that melting and boiling involve heating. It's a macroscopic effect of quantum mechanics. Weve had more than 400 years to get used to the idea, but its still a little unsettling. No matter how your results turned out, you can convince your audiencethat they once thought the opposite. Did the funder lean on the researchers to get a favorable result for dairy farmers? All the good ones! Students can reverse the experiment starting with frozen cyclohexane and warming it in a beaker of hot water, recording temperatures until it returns to about 15oC. What importance does counterintuitive play in our real life? Answer (1 of 2): Counterintuitive scientific theories? Examples of Counterintuitive in a sentence. Continue boiling for at least 30 seconds while a student confirms that the thermometer reads about 100oC as expected. Today, according to many biologists, were in the midst of a sixth great extinction. Sometimes it clearly is. The intuitive part points to the fact that when we label something counterintuitive, we are usually not talking about contradicting a formal, well-specified theory. So the "intuitive" in counterintuitive could refer to the intuitions of experts. Very few scholars saw it as a real description of the universe.. However, the subjective nature of intuition limits the . (Counterintuitive framing is also a great way to sell a lot of books .) Similarly, we understand boil the kettle to mean heat the water to boiling point, not turn it into steam. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. Truly brilliant examples from mathematics about why repeated confirmations don't constitute proofs: The Most Misleading Patterns in Mathematics youtu.be/kp1C0E8Za7k I would say water expanding when it freezes. The second and third are a given. Some flowers, maybe, or mementos of your loved ones? It made Einstein furious. If the good cost trillions of dollars, producers would want to make a lot, but consumers wouldn't want to buy any. When treating someone badly makes him like you more instead of less, this is an example of something that is counterintuitive. But scientists have also believed rain can erode a landscape quickly enough to essentially suck the rocks out of the Earth, effectively pulling mountains up very quickly. One thing I have to explain is why, if my idea is so great, people didnt consider it earlier. Whenever you are doing physics and all the sudden some entirely new deep topic in mathematics is automatically spit out. The aim of /r/Physics is to build a subreddit frequented by physicists, scientists, and those with a passion for physics. They can then test their ideas. Terms of Use Environmental activists and vegans want to reduce the impact of beef production. Papers from physics journals (free or otherwise) are encouraged. Beyond the reach of formal theory, scientists develop educated guesses, hunches, and speculations based on their knowledge and experience. The Bible gives a good general principle: Test all things; hold fast what is good (I Thessalonians 5:21). Cognitive science. What to take? Some temperature changes are counter-intuitive, as can be shown by simple investigations. :). "3 out of 2 Americans do not understand statistics." So its counterintuitive to me to observe that we dont call the results of the double slit experiment counterintuitive.. If something is counterintuitive it means it's the opposite of "intuitive" in other words, it's not easily understood in an instinctive, unconscious way. Are you able to include anything visual? Cultures as diverse as the Babylonians, Han Dynasty China, and the Maya each developed sophisticated belief systems and mathematics to divine the purported influence of the planets and stars on people's personalities and events on Earth ( Boxer, 2020 ). This is why it irritates me that we lie to undergrads about these things so much. Counterintuitive definition: (of an idea, proposal , etc) seemingly contrary to common sense | Meaning, pronunciation, translations and examples Bobs never bought Christmas seals he told me he wouldnt know what to feed them, When the Coen Brothers needed someone to show The Dude how to really roll, they could turn to only one man: Hall of Fame professional bowler Barry Asher. Ground-breaking discovery finally proves rain really can move mountains (University of Bristol). darkmighty 7 yr. ago. That seems pretty simple and counterintuitive. As Simine points out, many people in psychology say that counterintuitive findings are more valuable so clearly there is an incentive to frame things that way. 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ARTICLES SCIENCE 16 FACTS THAT ARE JUST PLAIN COUNTERINTUITIVE 16 Facts That Are Just Plain Counterintuitive. The reduced pressure below the piston allows the atmospheric pressure above it to push it back down. To many people it appears counterintuitive that eating more meals can help trigger weight loss. The concept of extinction took a while to sink in. First, let mesay what I thinkcounterintuitiveisnt. Beyond the reach of formal theory, scientists develop educated guesses, hunches, and speculations based on their knowledge and experience. The definition of counterintuitive is something that goes against what you believe would be logical, or something that goes against common sense. You can accomplish more if you work less and sleep more. Self-Sabotage - yourself when you find yourself mired in complacency. What is another word for counterintuitive? Counterintuitive means contrary to what seems intuitively right or correct. Somehow, gum made out of tree bark is still softer than Bazooka. A good example is pedagogical use of discrepant events (Gonzlez-Espada et al 2010)counter-intuitive science demonstrations. Fit a 250 ml round-bottom flask with a 2-hole bung carrying a 110oC thermometer, a short glass tube, and a short length of rubber tubing with a sealing clip. Can you take vitamins while fasting for autophagy? Counterintuitive. Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/counterintuitive. Coke was originally supposed to make you smarter or something. It's actually what inspired Galileo to make such an assertion about gravity. This is easy to work out with Bernoulli's principle, but you also need to make use of the continuity equation to work it out, which states: A_1v_1= A_2v_2 A1v1 = A2v2. Sometime what we think is beneficial to us, actually harm us and what we think is harmful actually become useful. When it comes to QM, however, I agree completely. In this, they agree with a Prager U video (YouTube). It's not so unintuitive with topological arguments. Ask a student to pour a little cold water over the flask and read the resulting temperature. And just generally weird stuff that you know of. This is correct for most substances, but due to the nature of the water molecule it is different and actually expands. You don't say who you're target audience is, so it's hard to tell. Most people who haven't studied physics still don't appreciate this. By accepting all cookies, you agree to our use of cookies to deliver and maintain our services and site, improve the quality of Reddit, personalize Reddit content and advertising, and measure the effectiveness of advertising. Things that taste good are bad for you. we of course used these results to show how counterintuitive our actual results were. This is how early steam engines worked. But astronomers do know that, thanks to these dark parts, the universe is expanding. Seeing your assumptions of physical reactions are wrong by watching a golf ball hit a wall at 1000 frames per second and watching it compress and ripple is powerful. What is the most surprising and counterintuitive finding in science that you can think of? Common sense does not always follow this route, and may include social biases, assumptions, and even a lack of facts. The meaning of COUNTERINTUITIVE is contrary to what one would intuitively expect. The screen does not change. A look at a few examples of counter-intuitive conclusions will illustrate these problems. The effort to solve it has mobilized a generation of astronomers in a rethinking of physics and cosmology to rival and perhaps surpass the revolution Galileo inaugurated on an autumn evening in Padua. So it seems like things should become more closely packed and thus contract. It's understandable why we get it wrong though because our intuition is based on living in a world with air resistance. When treating someone badly makes him like you more instead of less, this is an example of something that is counterintuitive. Be wary of scientific "facts" that are untrue (unlike the very real 34 on just this list). Its kind of deflating, isnt it? This person's common sense isn't off-base. The counterintuitive has its place. When a liquid solidifies, bonds form between the particles (in this case, cyclohexane molecules). Our feeble minds can barely scratch the surface of existence, the cosmos, and . This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features. Learn more. Scripture said that the Sun revolved around the Earth, and the Holy Office of the Inquisition found Galileo guilty of heresy for saying otherwise. PBS space time on the quantum eraser https://youtu.be/8ORLN_KwAgs. Even though the photos are already detected by the screen. In this Letter, we report a counterintuitive example of relations between ZT and thermoelectric efficiency. IE throughout learning undergraduate quantum mechanics you hear "spin is a completely quantum mechanical phenomenon that doesn't exist outside of quantum mechanics." They are also found in reusable hand-warmers these use supercooling to store heat for later use. Are counterintuitive findings more valuable? That two objects of different mass fall at the same rate. Place a thermometer in a test tube of cyclohexane so that its scale remains visible from 0oC upwards. Since it is necessary to keep heating in order to turn the solid into liquid or liquid into vapour, they assume the temperature must keep rising during the change of state. Im not at all surprised you thought of this before I did. After the fact. Honestly, take a moment to consider what the natural environment and current technologies are capable of. Why does salt cause the ice to melt? I agree that exceptions to good goes with good are often interesting, but not necessarily because they are counterintuitive. The more often you see a person or an object, the more youll like it. This website uses cookies and similar technologies to deliver its services, to analyse and improve performance and to provide personalised content and advertising. You have to act in the short amount of time after crossing the slit and before impacting the screen. (of an idea, proposal, etc) seemingly contrary to common sense. 1. If youre in a happy, optimistic, ambitious mood, check the weather. 27. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. In front of your students, half fill the flask with tap water. One moose, two moose. Now I wonder what my intuitions are about the meaning of the word counterintuitive, and what sort of information about the way the word is used might contradict those intuitions. I tend to think of intuitions as thoughts that pop into our heads as the result of conditioned reflexes, even if that conditioning is part of scientific training. Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. It's the standout example from the study of risk factors(specifically risk compensation) and works mostly because the audience isn't looking at the whole meaning of the word 'skydiving'. Counterintuitive behavior means that actions intended to produce a desired outcome may generate opposite results. Thats what scientists (both professional and citizen scientists) ought to be doing. We dont always know what we think we know. This is the so-called Simpson's . Does the replication debate have a diversityproblem? (first sentence from the conclusion: the results from these studies show that contrary to the strong intuitions of most, people are not always their own best expert.). For the general public that have not had the opportunity to be exposed to the process of science, one of the most counterintuitive things is this: Logic and Common Sense are not the same thing. But after doing some more research, we realized that sometimes the truth really is stranger than fiction. But other human foiblesthe desire to be accepted, time pressure, conflicts of interest (e.g., expectations of funding sources), interfere and can compromise that ideal. Technically it's small things act according to an equation that is very wavelike in this instance and very particle like in this other instance, but the first sentence is close enough. 4. To save this word, you'll need to log in. Find 23 ways to say COUNTERINTUITIVE, along with antonyms, related words, and example sentences at Thesaurus.com, the world's most trusted free thesaurus.