Submission timeline
2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
First comments on top threads
HN comment orderPhysics professor here. As others have said, this is a really cute idea in physics that touches on some neat properties of the universe (like fundamentally identical particles, conservation of lepton number, and the effects of time reversal on particle properties), but: 1. It's more akin to philosophy than to science: this suggestion either has no testable consequences (or if it does, its predictions look obviously false: see below). 2. In all of our observations of the universe there seem…
Reminds me of this short story: The Egg by: Andy Weir http://galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html Instead of electrons, everyone in the universe is the same person.
There's a related idea called the "transactional interpretation" of quantum mechanics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transactional_interpretation The idea is that every event (eg. a particle collision) sends waves forwards and backwards in time, eg. if * is an event and </> are waves moving backwards/forwards in time: <- past future -> <<<<<<<<<*>>>>>>>>> The waves from multiple events can overlap and interfere, eg. <<<<<<<<<<<<*>>>>> <<<*>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The interference depends on the phase of the waves, but let's…
On a tangential note, according to QFT, there is only one 'electron field' permeating the entire spacetime; individual electrons are 'excitations' of that field.
The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
- Breakout years
- 3
- Total points
- 542
- Total comments
- 274
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011-09-12 | One-electron universeFirst breakout | ColinWright | 169 | 100 |
| 2013-09-25 | One-electron universeBest thread | agentzebra | 192 | 99 |
| 2015-02-06 | One-electron universeLatest 20+ point return | _pius | 128 | 70 |
| 2015-07-20 | One-electron universe | jonnybgood | 9 | 0 |
| 2018-05-24 | One electron universeHall induction | harperlee | 17 | 3 |
| 2019-10-17 | One-Electron Universe | vermilingua | 1 | 0 |
| 2020-09-19 | One-Electron Universe | alokrai | 6 | 0 |
| 2021-07-18 | One-Electron Universe | ZeljkoS | 2 | 0 |
| 2023-05-12 | One-Electron Universe | pmoriarty | 2 | 0 |
| 2023-08-01 | One-Electron Universe | belter | 2 | 0 |
| 2023-08-08 | One Electron Universe | mkmk | 10 | 2 |
| 2024-03-21 | One-Electron Universe | thunderbong | 3 | 0 |
| 2025-02-14 | One-Electron Universe | andreygrehov | 1 | 0 |