Archimedes
by Jeff
Image text: Give a man a fish, or he will destroy the only existing vial of antidote.
The full Archimedes quote is "Give me a long enough lever and a place to rest it, and I shall move the world."
The full quote in the image text is "Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat forever."
The basic idea here is to set up a premise, in this case "In the words of Arichimedes..." and then break up that premise with a joke in the final frame. This is a remarkably simple xkcd compared to others.
Trochee Fixation
by Jeff
Image text: If you Huffman-coded all the 'random' things everyone on the internet has said over the years, you'd wind up with, like, 30 or 40 bytes *tops*.
This comic has a lot of small text, so make sure you click on the link to see the full-size comic.
Oddly enough, this comic explains itself. Trochees are two syllable words with an accent on the first like the comic says.
However, there is a reference to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Power Rangers TV shows in the bottom left frame. Additionally, there is a reference to sci/fi author Neal Stephenson who has written Snow Crash, Anathem and many other books.
When the experiment fails, the last comment is "someone get a brick". They are going to smash the brick into the patient's head to try to cure the Trochee Fixation.
EDIT: From pennomi in the comments who helps fill in my blanks:
Huffman coding: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huffman_coding
Basically, it’s a lossless data compression algorithm.
What Randall is trying to say by “30 or 40 bytes *tops*” is that there’s really not much truly random stuff out there on the internet. Internet memes are basically all repeats of the same seemingly random stuff.
Local g
by Jeff
Image text: In Rio de Janeiro in 2016, the same jump will get an athlete 0.25% higher (>1cm) than in London four years prior.
Here's the xkcd comic that is cited in the first frame. That comic is a discussion between centrifugal force and centripetal force.
And obviously in this comic, the angry pole vaulters are able to pole vault up to Cueball's balcony to "get" him.
3D
by Jeff
Image text: The LINACs in the glasses frames can barely manage one MeV. You should've gone to the screening at CERN.
String theory is a candidate for the theory of microscopic theory of gravity. It also attempts to provide a complete, unified, and consistent description of the fundamental structure of our universe. String theory is the theory that all points like protons are actually points on a string.
In this comic, our three protagonists go to a movie that purports to be "String Theory: An Expose" Presented in 3D. So, they put on their 3D glasses, but they glasses do not show them the movie in 3D. So, they go to Black Hat, the standard xkcd foil, and ask why they couldn't see the 3rd dimension of the movie. (A typical flat movie is in 2 dimensions (height and width).)
String theory however, had 11 dimensions, 7 of which need to be so tightly rolled up that we cannot detect them. Hence, the 3rd dimension in the string theory movie was one of those 7 dimensions. Which is why in the image text, which is a continuation of Black Hat's words, he says that they should have gone to the screening at CERN, where they would have been able to see the 3rd dimension in the movie. CERN is the European Laboratory for Particle Physics where they have the Large Hadron Collider.
In the image text, a LINAC is a linear particle accelerator. MeV is multiples of the electron volt, which refers to 1,000,000 eV.
Misconceptions
by Jeff
Image text: 'Grandpa, what was it like in the Before time?' 'It was hell. People went around saying glass was a slow-flowing liquid. You folks these days don't know how good you have it.'
This comic is pretty self-explanatory. The image text is possibly a student in one of the comic's middle school classes asking his or her grandfather what is was like before they started teaching students about all the common misconceptions. The example the image text gives is that glass is a slow-flowing liquid. Which is false.
Sickness
by Jeff
Image text: At least, with p<0.05 confidence.
This one is pretty self explanatory and is a reference to the real-life sickness the affecting the family of the xkcd's writer/artist Randall Munroe. Even though Cueball, who we are expected to believe is a Munroe himself, is affected by the family illness, he still is a strong believer in science.
This comic brings back a character not often seen, White Hat.
Genetic Analysis
by Jeff
Image text: There's still a chance you were conceived via IVF. But we've checked your mom's college yearbook photos, and whether or not she and your father had sex, it's clear that ... listen, I know this is hard for you.
This one is pretty straight forward, especially with the proliferation of genetic analysis websites around these days which all you have to do is send in a vial of your spit to get tested. Plus, no one likes to hear about the possibility of their parents having sex, yuck!
In the image text, IVF is In vitro fertilization, in which sex is not required because eggs are fertilized by sperm manually outside the body and then inserted.
Arsenic-Based Life
by Jeff
Image text: According to a new paper published in the journal Science, reporters are unable to thrive in an arsenic-rich environment.
This comic is a reference to the huge development this week in which NASA-funded scientists have discovered life forms that thrive and grow using the toxic chemical arsenic. They found these life-forms in the toxic Mono Lake in California.
Titan is a moon of Saturn and has atmosphere made up of nitrogen and hyrdocarbon.
So, to make the discovery of "alien" life more exciting, the scientists decide to serve a themed cocktail for the event. Since the event is the discovery of arsenic-based life, they serve arsenic-based drinks. And unlike the life in Mono Lake, reporters will die if they drink arsenic. Since, arsenic is a famous poison for humans.
The image text is the next study the scientists produce since they discovered that arsenic would kill reporters.
Glass
by Jeff
Image text: I read in this one article that the breaking of electroweak symmetry is the reason we have SOULS. This guy with a degree said so!
First, apologies on this one being late, I’m a bit under the weather, but the internet must go on!
In this comic, Cutie and Cueball are attempting to have Cutie sing at the right note to break the glass. But, instead of breaking, the water in the glass turned to blood. (as an aside, wouldn’t it be easier to break an empty glass? Perhaps I’m over thinking this.)
When Cutie says her thing about physics, the two characters get a reply from what appears to be God since the voice is coming from the top of the comic. God tells the characters in the comic to stop looking for the Higgs Boson. Scientists are looking for the Higgs Boson at CERN which once discovered would help explain the origin of mass in the universe. Indeed, the Higgs Boson is called the “God particle”. Obviously, God would not want man to discover the Higgs Boson because then no one would believe in God. But, if God is real as this comic indicates, then there would be no Higgs Boson since God would have created the universe. Ok, now my brain hurts again.
In the image text, the breaking of electroweak symmetry is (an apologies to physicists out there if I butcher this – please correct me in the comments) what turns massless particles into particles with mass. Essentially creating something out of nothing…
Am I right? Wrong? What do you think? Let's hear it in the comments.
Paradise City
by Jeff
Image text: Take me down to the paradise municipality / where the grass is mauve and the girls aren't fromthisreality.
This whole comic is a take on the song "Paradise City" by Guns in Roses. The actual lyrics are used in the first frame.
The only frame that may need explanation is the fourth in which Cueball references George Orwell when using the phrase "Orwellian". That is a reference to the books by George Orwell. It is a type of action that is defined by double-talk, propaganda, misinformation and lying by a government or ruling power.
As best I can find, a cortical lesions is an abnormal tissue found in the brain. It is most common in people with MS.