Quanta is just a word (related to quantity) as in: “smallest divisible quantity of”
So in the case of light we would be talking about photons, which are a quanta of light (e.g. discrete “packets” of light).
Light behaves as a wave, e.g. we can talk about the frequency of light. But it’s also pretty different from macroscopic waves e.g. it’s not accurate to think of them as what your see on a typical sinusoid graph, as at that level things don’t really have a fixed shape or position, we’re talking more about areas where they “probably” are (see: superposition, HUP etc)
It’s useful to think of light in terms of discrete photons for a number of reasons, e.g. in pair production, 1 gamma photon would be sufficient to create 1 electron/positron pair.
Photons also exhibit other particle-like behaviour despite having no rest mass. But the idea of rest mass becomes less significant at that level anyway as the line between energy and mass (e=mc²) gets blurred. And any sufficiently high energy object will likely exhibit some massive properties (hence why we tend to use MeV - a measure of energy - instead of a measure of mass, even when performing calculations with massive particles such as electrons.
I’m not a political guy. Back on Reddit I only subscribed to casualuk because ukpol and unitedkingdom were way too negative for me.
The main things I like to talk about are nerdy stuff like programming, science etc. In terms of political subjects and things like that, the main thing I dislike is stuff that is superficial, inaccurate, lacks nuance or is deliberately intellectually disingenuous.
Basically, I am here to read high-quality, thoughtful, and ideally, respectful content. Regardless of its political leaning. If someone wants to write about the merits of anarchism or fascism or communism or anything, I’ll give it a read, as long as it’s respectful and put forward in good faith (i.e. because the person really believes what they are saying and not trying to manipulate people or twist facts to suit their political opinions).
Here’s an example of the type of content I don’t like: there was a post the other day about JK Rowling which I would usually have just skipped past because there are never going to be any meaningful comments in there, it’s just going to be full of people either attacking her or attacking the people attacking her - which doesn’t make for a very constructive, positive or pleasant place to spend your virtual downtime.
Nevertheless, I clicked into the comments and there was a comment in there basically talking about all the “problems” with the Harry Potter books. As with a lot of books, there were some cringy things that I was nodding along to, but the one that stood out for me was the unironic claim that JK Rowling supported slavery (and supported slaves working naked) because in the books that’s what house elves have to do. And this comment had quite a lot of upvotes.
Up until that point in the comment, the rest of the points were reasonable enough, but this was just so stupid, like, it’s so obvious an author can write about things without necessarily advocating them. Like, if you read the comment it’s just so obvious that the person in question wanted as much fuel for the fire as possible so they just threw that in too. And suddenly, I’m not reading a comment with intellectual integrity anymore, I’m reading someone who is clearly trying to make a point, even at the expense of honest, reasonable debate.
The fact that it had so many upvotes instantly told me I was in an echo chamber. Someone should have jumped in and challenged that last point saying “That’s not a great take” but I’ve been on sites like Reddit long enough to know that I would probably have been downvoted just for appearing to be a force that wasn’t 100% aligned with the “correct” narrative (which is ridiculous as challenging a bad point does not equal supporting JK Rowling).
So, winding back to the original question: My concern is that if we start introducing any “banned subjects” or opinions, we’re focusing on the wrong thing, as even within ostensibly “acceptable” subjects, the environment can still feel a bit unwelcoming, hard to participate meaningfully in, 1-dimensional etc.
My suggestion would be to define quality comments/contributions as ones that:
Here’s an example on one of the most divisive topics I can think of (and apologies if I get someone wrong here, as I said I’m not a very politically aware person): discussion of trans stuff - what should be tolerated?
Well, applying the above, anything that attacked or insulted trans people directly would be objectionable content. However, let’s say some big new law came out that was very pro-trans, or even better, because I’m much more familiar with this subject: let’s take the gay marriage laws from back in the day. I don’t think it’s right to ban critical or skeptical discussion about these laws and their impacts as long as they don’t start getting hateful and calling being gay or trans ‘evil’ and shit like that.
I remember back in the day when we were trying to get the gay marriage stuff through, there was an incredible amount of skepticism and worry, even from my own parents and other people I respect. That has died down a lot more now, and one of the ways that happened was by sitting down and talking to these people, it was about having proper, nuanced discussions in good faith. Because that’s the only way anyway grows and learns.
So that’s my little essay. Let’s be kind, but let’s be resilient too, and not shy away from nuance or challenging opinions.