Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

I love it when I'm halfway through something and take a second to pause and wonder why someone put so much effort into it, and them I appreciate that they did. This is amazing.

One thing that surprised me the first time I learned it is how 'dense' air is under normal circumstances. The 'mean free path' is the mean distance that a particle travels before changing velocity (typ due to collision). The mean free path of atmospheric air at standard pressure is ~65 nanometers, with ~2x10^19 (20 billion billion) molecules per cubic centimeter experiencing about 10^33 collisions per second. This is roughly the volume of an adult's ear canal.



Whilst I imagine he'd produce content regardless of income, he does have a slightly successful Patreon. To encourage this effort, consider supporting him in some form, if you don't.


Nice callout. Done.


I was able to reach 10^-7 mbar with a good vacuum system and I though I would have few thousand molecules, turns out there is a billion (10^9) molecules per cubic centimeter at that vacuum level.


And yet somehow, as far as we know, the energy of every molecular collision is faithfully preserved during a supernova, when effectively the entire volume of a star collapses into its core in less then a second.

Reality is very strange.


That's not accurate. Only the inner core collapses (hence the "core-collapse supernova"; there are also other types), the rest rebounds, is heated up by core-produced neutrinos, and gets ejected. The Wikipedia article is a good start, also there are plenty of good papers on arxiv (e.g. on still-not-too-successful numerical modeling of the aforementioned "heating", without which the thing simply doesn't go bang).


Good correction, thank you!




Consider applying for YC's Winter 2026 batch! Applications are open till Nov 10

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: