Talk:1133: Up Goer Five

Isn't this comic essentially just saying 'rocket science: not actually as complicated as the phrase "it's not rocket science" would have us beleive' -- 203.211.80.97 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

This comic is also a celebration of what many people, presumably including former NASA employee Randall, consider the greatest technological achievement ever. -- 158.169.131.14 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Nope, Randall thinks delivery pizza is the most important thing humanity ever achieved (http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/638:_The_Search). 141.101.104.49 15:20, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm surprised "ship" isn't among the most commonly used words in English. Where do these statistics come from? Davidy²²(talk) 12:35, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

It makes sense that "capsule" and "spaceship" (as one word) are not in the "ten hundred" most-common words (Really, "thousand" isn't on this list either?), but not "fuel" and/or "tank"? People (context: US Midwesterner) talk about filling up their cats all the time! I'd like to see the original 1,000-word list. (Also: "Up Goer"? Well, it goes up -- that's about ALL it does. Makes sense, I guess.) --BigMal27 // 192.136.15.149 13:13, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

"people talk about filling up their cats all the time!" Tigerball59 (talk) 01:14, 27 May 2018 (UTC)Tigerball890

Maybe is Randall referring to Simplified Technical English? — Ethaniel (talk) 14:09, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

There is an entry in the Simple English Wikipedia: http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_English . The Simple English Wikipedia is interesting to browse, and challenging to write articles for. J-beda (talk) 14:24, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Look up Basic English. It is the 850 most used words (or rather the 850 most used words when it was invented in 1930). According to Wikipedia it is still used in some countries as the basic vocabulary to first teach in English. The list of words is here: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Basic_English_word_list . It looks like this could be what he used.iCarewolf (talk) 17:30, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

The 850 Basic English word list includes "liquid" and "second" but does not include "world", "five" and "third" so we're still looking for the vocabulary list.

I'm inclined to think this is also a nod to 1984's Newspeak, and the dumbing-down effect of an overly controlled language. It's good to simplify (linguistic) complexity, but with that simplification of text comes a simplification of capacity, too. We push back horizons by exploring unknowns, so restricting things to a small set of knowns may be counterproductive. -- IronyChef (talk) 15:13, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

This is the very point I am trying to make time and again. Some topics cannot be correctly explained to everyone. BTW XKCD #547 had a similar point.

I think that's a very unfortunate "point" to be trying to make time and time again. My personal feelings aside, it goes against Randall's and xkcd's ethos, as well. Just as in law or any other specialized area, an expert, given a reasonable amount of time, thought, and vocabulary, should be able to explain even very complex ideas to lay persons. If there's a failure to do so, the burden should rest with the explainer. And frankly, that failure might even expose some lack of understanding on the explainer's end, as well. I have discussed this in greater depth below. Orazor (talk) 09:10, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

The comic is almost certainly using http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Basic_English_word_list or another work list like it.82.16.27.115 16:58, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

The phrase in the explanation "Helium is much less prone to catching fire" brought a smile to my lips as there is literally <SIC> nothing less prone to catching fire than Helium. 90.208.12.4 23:10, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately some pedant has changed it to the technically correct, but much less smile-inducing "inflammable". Pitty, it made me smile too. lcarsos (talk) 23:22, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Edit: I've reverted it, because the whole edit was fraught with incorrect minor changes. 23:27, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Inflammable is wrong. It means the same as flammable. If you mean 'incapable of burning', the opposite of flammable/inflammable is nonflammable. This is one of the subtleties of English which is avoided by using a greater number of simple words! 87.252.61.205 13:01, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I wouldn't say Helium is least prone to catching fire. Sure, it's least prone to chemical reaction, but it is prone to nuclear fusion, which looks sort of like fire. On the other hand Iron, while it can be oxygenated, doesn't really catch fire doing that and I doubt it can chemically react in a way which would look that way. -- Hkmaly (talk) 08:42, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Fire is strictly defined as the rapid oxidation of a substance in the presence of heat - nuclear fusion is transmutation, not combustion. Iron can undergo a thermite reaction which makes spectacular flying flames. Youtube should have a billion videos of thermite reactions for your perusal. Davidy²²(talk)

Fine steel wool (such as 0000 grade) burns exceedingly well. A survival technique is to use flashlight batteries to make a spark in the steel wool, which then becomes an excellent fire starter.

Since the comic can't use the actual words, it took me some time to find Wikipedia's articles that describe the actual "up goer." In case there's anybody like me who wanted to know more details, I found the Apollo (spacecraft) and Saturn V articles to be very interesting and relevant. BTW, "that stuff they burned in lights before houses had power" is highly refined kerosene. S (talk) 00:34, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for doing the research! I've incorporated this into the explanation. Feel free to add more if you think it needs more. lcarsos (talk) 01:33, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I like your additions. Much better than what I could come up with! S (talk) 23:44, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

It would be pretty nice for a day if everyone just spoke using the most used thousand words in his respective language. Just off hand, describing the band name "Led Zeppelin" would certainly be a treat--Dangerkeith3000 (talk) 18:10, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Anyone who will not be fired off trying to only speak the most used thousand words for workday is working manually or not at all. -- Hkmaly (talk) 08:42, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Or is a school teacher, or working primarily with people who have language difficulties...

I think NASA should rebrand themselves "US Spaaaaaace Team" it's so much cooler than the "National Aeronautics and Spaaaaaace Administration"! --NHSavage (talk) 07:39, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

I have not once heard the word "goer" before this. Thousand most common? 67.52.144.154 16:22, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Randall used the verb "to go" and as it's a verb, any conjugation could be considered the same word. I think that's where he got "goer" from. lcarsos_a (talk) 16:29, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, not a conjugation, a different part of speech. That's a slightly more extreme leap than a change of inflection, but probably still allowable for these purposes. - jerodast (talk) 15:18, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Someone has made an "Up-Goer Five Text Editor", with a link to a (the?) ten-hundred wordlist: http://splasho.com/upgoer5/. 83.233.5.126 18:46, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm having trouble believing that lift off is not on the common word list. DruidDriver (talk) 01:55, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

On language and explaining

Strongly disagree with the contention at the beginning of this explanation that "This comic is a commentary on the absurdity of boiling down technical explanations for lay people..." On many occasions Randall de-jargonizes/simplifies complex ideas so that they can be understood by most anyone. Heck, he dedicates an entire blog (whatif) to it. In this interview with fivethirtyeight.com, (http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/xkcd-randall-munroe-qanda-what-if/) among others, Randall explains that lay persons, given enough time, patience, and the correct guidance, should be able to understand most any scientific/technical idea.

To wit: "It’s tempting to think of technical audiences and general audiences as completely different, but I think that no matter who you’re talking to, the principles of explaining things clearly are the same. The only real difference is which things you can assume they already know[.] ... I’m always looking for ways of looking at problems — mental models — that make the answers intuitively clear. Once I’ve hit on one of those, I just try to explain it as simply and clearly as I can[.]"

Accordingly, I have altered the explanation to reflect this world view. The point of this comic is to illustrate that one should be able to explain complicated ideas to people who lack a technical background using simple language. Granted that Randall is imposing upon himself an unreasonable "ten hundred word" linguistic restriction, but I think that only goes to further his point. Unless the "explainee" is being unreasonably obtuse, the burden falls upon the shoulders of the explainer to help a non-lay audience understand. Orazor (talk) 08:53, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

If you don't go to spaaaaaace today, you need more strutsSteammaster (talk) 18:43, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

or more boosters! (Both are popular Kerbal Space Program catchphrases.) 108.162.230.179 10:50, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Maybe we should add a reference to Randall's upcoming book, Thing Explainer. 108.162.216.109 02:14, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

As I understand it, the brackets in "oh the [humans]" are used to indicate paraphrasing (replacing "humanity" with "humans") as is common in English texts. Referring to humanity with the phrase "concentration of humans" seems rather contrived and unlikely. Any opinions on this? --173.245.54.51 18:38, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

I think the brackets are just to say that this is not the true quote.Dontknow (talk) 21:37, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

"escape" seems like it's not acceptable, according to https://xkcd.com/simplewriter/

So, here's an interesting thing I noticed: In the image, the linkage between the Command Module and the Service Module is shown next to the hatch. As such, this depicts a Block 1 Apollo spacecraft, a version that was only used for testing (and Apollo 1) and never actually went to the Moon. The final Block 2 spacecraft would have that linkage on the opposite side. --172.70.131.37 10:25, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

This whole concept reminds me of the conlang Toki Pona. Trogdor147 (talk) 20:41, 28 May 2024 (UTC)