xkcd

by **_infina_** » Tue Dec 14, 2010 7:33 pm UTC

This is a thread to talk about all of those times you have responded to How does ___ work with an answer that was simplified to the point of being "Magic." or post some of such things.

"How do planes fly?" "Magic."

by **Izawwlgood** » Tue Dec 14, 2010 7:35 pm UTC

How does the spliceosome complex properly identify introns?

by **grythyttan** » Tue Dec 14, 2010 9:20 pm UTC

Oh that's very simple. The introns have a kind of "genetic post-it" attached to them. Thespliceosome complex "reads" this and presto!

by **Boreeas** » Wed Dec 15, 2010 1:27 am UTC

Magnets. How do they work?

by **Sizik** » Wed Dec 15, 2010 3:20 am UTC

Boreeas wrote:Magnets. How do they work?

That's miracles, not magic.

by **Meteorswarm** » Wed Dec 15, 2010 7:21 am UTC

grythyttan wrote:Oh that's very simple. The introns have a kind of "genetic post-it" attached to them. Thespliceosome complex "reads" this and presto!

Sadly, my biochem book (Nelson and Cox, 5th ed.) doesn't give the answer either. It talks about how the spliceosome knows where the splice sites are, but nothing at all on how it picks splice sites for alternative splicing, et al.

by **Zarq** » Wed Dec 15, 2010 11:02 am UTC

Sizik wrote:
Boreeas wrote:Magnets. How do they work?

That's miracles, not magic.

Miracles. How do they work? Magic.

by **Izawwlgood** » Wed Dec 15, 2010 3:04 pm UTC

Meteorswarm wrote:
grythyttan wrote:Oh that's very simple. The introns have a kind of "genetic post-it" attached to them. Thespliceosome complex "reads" this and presto!

Sadly, my biochem book (Nelson and Cox, 5th ed.) doesn't give the answer either. It talks about how the spliceosome knows where the splice sites are, but nothing at all on how it picks splice sites for alternative splicing, et al.

Nono, there are splice sequences that the spliceosome complex can recognize, and even self-splicing regions. Those sequences are well understood, and even the mechanism by which the spliceosome works is well understood.

Guys: stop it with your science. Genetics is magic.

by **Meteorswarm** » Thu Dec 16, 2010 5:29 pm UTC

Izawwlgood wrote:
Meteorswarm wrote:
grythyttan wrote:Oh that's very simple. The introns have a kind of "genetic post-it" attached to them. Thespliceosome complex "reads" this and presto!

Sadly, my biochem book (Nelson and Cox, 5th ed.) doesn't give the answer either. It talks about how the spliceosome knows where the splice sites are, but nothing at all on how it picks splice sites for alternative splicing, et al.

Nono, there are splice sequences that the spliceosome complex can recognize, and even self-splicing regions. Those sequences are well understood, and even the mechanism by which the spliceosome works is well understood.

Guys: stop it with your science. Genetics is magic.

Er, that's what I said, sorry if I was unclear. I know that how the spliceosome acts locally is well understood, as are self-splicing regions, but what it didn't talk about is how alternative splicing actually happens - how different tissues splice in different ways, what change in the spliceosome or rna or dna effects that difference.

by **Izawwlgood** » Thu Dec 16, 2010 5:45 pm UTC

Presence or absence of steric hindrances or feedback loops, see Sex Lethal, Double Sex, and Transformer... I mean, Magic, Stupendous Cosmic Forces, and Posiharmonic trimethylisohexafluoricyclo-2-ol-oic-cis-hexylose. Duh.

by **Meteorswarm** » Fri Dec 17, 2010 4:38 am UTC

Izawwlgood wrote:Presence or absence of steric hindrances or feedback loops, see Sex Lethal, Double Sex, and Transformer... I mean, Magic, Stupendous Cosmic Forces, and Posiharmonic trimethylisohexafluoricyclo-2-ol-oic-cis-hexylose. Duh.

Clearly, you are more knowledgeable than my biochem book on this matter.

by **aldonius** » Thu Jan 13, 2011 10:13 am UTC

Obvious meme based comment:
F*cking Magnets

by **Izawwlgood** » Thu Jan 13, 2011 2:36 pm UTC

Electron microscopy! 3 weeks of voodoo to give you a cube 1cm on a side, that when you put into this giant rumbling machine, spits out high resolution images of itty bitty structures.

by **Lucia** » Fri Jan 14, 2011 7:44 am UTC

Brains. And/or minds. Patterns of electrical signals become everything I experience, including myself? :shock:

How? Magic.

by **mbrigdan** » Tue Jan 25, 2011 10:36 pm UTC

Izawwlgood wrote:Electron microscopy! 3 weeks of voodoo to give you a cube 1cm on a side, that when you put into this giant rumbling machine, spits out high resolution images of itty bitty structures.

Electron tomography. In fact, tomography in general is pretty magical.

by **Dthen** » Tue Jan 25, 2011 10:42 pm UTC

Wizards. How do they work? Magic.

by **Cobramaster** » Thu Jan 27, 2011 8:53 pm UTC

How do SPMEs work? Magic!

Which makes so much more sense than trying to say random vapor molecules bump into a chemically sticky thread, that you can barely see to begin with, and to collect a sample you cant see, period.

by **Antimony-120** » Fri Jan 28, 2011 3:50 am UTC

How DO they get the caramel inside a caramilk?

Frikin' magic.

by **DavidSpencer** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 1:11 am UTC

This may be more math than science, but calculus is magic.

by **Meteorswarm** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 4:33 am UTC

DavidSpencer wrote:This may be more math than science, but calculus is magic.

What's really magic is mathematical induction. "What do you mean you proved it? You only proved it for that one little case, there!"

Also, magnetic induction.

by **Charlie!** » Thu Feb 10, 2011 1:11 pm UTC

Meteorswarm wrote:
DavidSpencer wrote:This may be more math than science, but calculus is magic.

What's really magic is mathematical induction. "What do you mean you proved it? You only proved it for that one little case, there!"

Also, magnetic induction.

Also, ritual induction.

by **Hobbes_** » Sun Feb 13, 2011 4:26 pm UTC

I'm convinced the general populous views electricity as magic. Honestly, it's the out-card of very vaguely sci-fi movie ever, from "electricly" duplicating matter in The Prestige to every anti-gravity system ever put on celluloid. Also, think of Harry Potter, electricity doesn't work around too much magic. Why? Because electricity is muggle magic.

by **RebeccaRGB** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 6:49 am UTC

Dynamic programming is magic. Come up with some formulas and algorithms for generating tables that have little or nothing to do with the problem you're trying to solve, feed in the input data, and ta-da! The optimum solution in polynomial time! Magic!

by **legopelle** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 10:57 am UTC

The god damn postal service. Getting post to all over the world in a week? Reading even the most unintelligible addresses? Magic, I say.

by **Spen** » Fri Feb 25, 2011 8:17 pm UTC

Particle Physics
That's mainly because at AS level for AQA physics it's all pulled out of thin air with no real explanation of why it happens!

by **Deep_Thought** » Wed Mar 02, 2011 1:51 pm UTC

Magic.

No seriously - I had the pleasure of watching a close-up magician perform on Saturday evening. David Blaine/Derren Brown style card trickses and the like. The guy was really good and it was great fun to watch. At one point my brother asked me if I had figured out how it was done yet. To which I responded "Yes of course. It's magic!"

...

I'll get me coat.

by **charonme** » Mon Mar 07, 2011 7:26 pm UTC

Software developers. What do we even do?

by **MHD** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 1:40 pm UTC

I'd say Category Theory in Haskell (any more advanced than Monad Transformers and Arrows anyway).

What does it even do? Cool things apparently...

by **Kang** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 4:57 pm UTC

Hobbes_ wrote:I'm convinced the general populous views electricity as magic. Honestly, it's the out-card of very vaguely sci-fi movie ever, from "electricly" duplicating matter in The Prestige to every anti-gravity system ever put on celluloid. Also, think of Harry Potter, electricity doesn't work around too much magic. Why? Because electricity is muggle magic.

Those silly wizards are just both envious and afraid of science.

by **idobox** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 6:17 pm UTC

Compilers are clearly magic: they take gibberish only the guy who wrote can understand, and transforms it in even more gibberish that (sometimes) works.

Circulators: a RF component that does magic : no active circuits, but a non reciprocal behaviour. The best proof it's magic, it's made with magnets, and needs to be made by hand by a wizzard, because it is impossible to make the same one twice.

by **Tomlidich** » Tue Sep 20, 2011 12:11 am UTC

how does drag and drop work?
MAGIC. F***ING MAGIC.

i love (hate) my job sometimes.....

by **userxp** » Tue Sep 20, 2011 1:10 pm UTC

The answer.

by **Kang** » Tue Sep 20, 2011 3:36 pm UTC

How do transistors work? Magic!
Really, I have a grasp of the underlying physical concepts and it always makes sense, but if somebody asks me something along the lines of: 'what current will there be at this point if you set it up like this?' I'll always give a dumb stare.

by **MHD** » Wed Sep 21, 2011 1:19 pm UTC

When people ask me how computers work this usualy happens:
"How do computers work?"
"It takes years to understand so I might as well just say: They work by magic."
"But you understand them?"
"I'm a wizard."

by **Quizatzhaderac** » Mon Jul 09, 2012 4:03 pm UTC

Meteorswarm wrote:What's really magic is mathematical induction. "What do you mean you proved it? You only proved it for that one little case, there!"

Let's not forget that it qualifies as deductive proof, despite being literally made of induction.

For radioactive dating, why is the amount of isotope constant before it forms a rock? "Magic" would actually have been a more helpful answer. My professor assumed I meant "therefore creationism" and responded to that point.

Non-dairy creamer. People eat it just knowing what it isn't, in a situation where what it isn't is actually what they want. Apparently Wikipedia knows; and contains this nugget "beautiful, and pleasant-smelling, fireballs."

by **Radical_Initiator** » Sat Jul 14, 2012 9:19 pm UTC

Go for the sort-of obvious: quantum mechanics. Everything you know in the everyday world depends on it, yet it acts like nothing you know in the everyday world.

by **cjquines** » Mon Aug 27, 2012 2:04 pm UTC

I don't consider this much as a bump because it's on the first page...

An awful lot of questions.
"How do lightbulbs work? How do batteries work? How do planes work? How does Your Mom work? How do computers work?"
That's just a tiny snippet. Magic is my placeholder answer while my brain is buffering.

xkcd

"How Do ___ Work?" "Magic."

"How Do ___ Work?" "Magic."

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