Talk:273: Electromagnetic Spectrum

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"Light particles were formerly carried by the aether, which was decommissioned in 1897 due to budget cuts." Ohh, this is so INCOMPLETE, just read the comic, I still laughing and I can't stop. --Dgbrt (talk) 18:20, 6 July 2013 (UTC)


Now why did Randall Munroe go with the old 1960s notion of putting gamma/cosmic rays at the high end of the spectrum. Back then certain events in detectors were thought to be caused by photons of higher frequency than gamma rays, but now those are known to instead be made by very energetic charged nuclei not electromagnetism. Thus "cosmic rays" not part of EM spectrum at all. --RalphSiegler (talk) 15:07, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Any help here is welcome!

...but please discuss major changes here before. The page is still marked as incomplete, I am happy about any new ideas.--Dgbrt (talk) 21:42, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Going forward, I'll assume Wikipedia's "Be bold" guideline applies to this wiki (although not part of the wikimedia project), too. Thus, I'll continue to make changes I consider uncontroversial without first discussing them, if I'm sufficiently confident in them, including major ones. In judging how controversial a potential change might be, I'll take the respective article's edit history and talk page into account. I try to write good edit summaries, so these should usually give you my reason or motivation for making the edit it question. If you revert them, please do tell why you disagree with the specific edit (except that is hasn't previously been discussed) in the edit summary or on the talk page, so that a discussion can actually start.
--Das-g (talk) 12:49, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
Some suggestions
  • The year 1897 might refer to Joseph Larmor's publication about the later so-called Lorentz transformation.
  • "The Wave" might also refer to the experiment/novel.
  • The actual electromagnetic spectrum of toasters is (mostly) in the IR range.
  • I'm pretty sure there is some kind of joke w.r.t censorship and the Patriot Act (afaik the Patriot Act is actually more the opposite of censoring, though i.e. making more information available—to intelligence agencies)
  • I agree with User:Das-g that X-Ray glasses unlikely refer to full-body scanners

--Chtz (talk) 00:23, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Mail-order X-Ray glasses

I doubt "mail-order X-Ray glasses" is a reference to full body scanners, for the following two reasons:

  1. Full body scanners are heavy and bulky equipment. While —if you'd manage to order one— you can probably have it shipped to a destination of your choice, delivery will most likely not happen by mail, which would be the definition of a mail order.
  2. While it might be possible to connect certain VR goggles or similar glasses-like periphery to some full body scanners, they are usually operated with screens that do not resemble spectacles.

In my opinion, it's much more likely that a once popular a novelty item that could actually be ordered from catalogues/adverts and could sent by mail (because it was flat and light, consisting of cardboard and plastic foil) is being referenced.
-- Das-g (talk) 21:34, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

It's been a week and there have not been any replies, so if there still aren't any for another week (i.e. until 2013-08-13) I'll consider my first change to this article undisputed and re-do it. However, I will not re-do my second change without explicitly putting it up for discussion here on the talk page, first, as I expect it to be a bit more controversial. (I'll put the second change up for discussion if/when I re-do the first change, as the second only makes sense if the first is acceptable, anyway.)
--Das-g (talk) 12:08, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
Because there still weren't any replies, I've redone my first change.
--Das-g (talk) 22:30, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
X-ray glasses and your sister

Is the second sentence of the title text ("Also sometimes I try to picture your sister naked.") a reference to how X-Ray Specs were sometimes advertized?
--Das-g (talk) 22:30, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

"Gal" could refer to 1cm/s2, or a galileo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gal_%28unit%29173.245.56.208 05:34, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Regarding the reference to microwave ovens in the explanation, I would like to point out that comic 843:Misconceptions references the list of common misconceptions, which in the Food and Cooking section clearly states that microwaves don't work at the frequency of water but instead uses dialectric heating to cook food. Obviously that comic is later than this one, but it should be considered for the explanation above. Thanks! GeniusBooks (talk)

Sulawesi

I think that Sulawesi is a reference to 256: Online Communities (and 802: Online Communities 2). In all cases it is an item that does not really fit in (although in the Online Communities case the relationship to the rest of the drawing is quite obvious, with Sulawesi being the only real island among a set of fictional islands)--198.41.243.241 22:04, 21 November 2015 (UTC)