Editing Talk:1991: Research Areas by Size and Countedness

<!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~ and don't delete this text. New comments should be added at the bottom.-->
Spelling error? Etymology or Entomology? Randall wrote Entymology. Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.17|141.101.104.17]] 15:37, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
:My translator at dict.leo.org asks: Did you mean entomology, enzymology, or etymology? --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 16:20, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
:I mean, we know about how many words exist; I think he means Entomology. 
[[User:SilverMagpie|SilverMagpie]] ([[User talk:SilverMagpie|talk]]) 18:06, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
:::I'm sorry, we don't know how many words there are in British English, let alone it's off shoots, Chinese has never been fully counted and actually we don't know how many languages there are, but can put a good estimate on it. Nevertheless I agree it's probably entomology.[[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 23:00, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
::Agree. In context, it's next to several other life science branches, ones which especially deal with species typical in jungle environments where new species are regularly discovered, hence the "we don't know how many" axis.  [[User:Cgrimes85|Cgrimes85]] ([[User talk:Cgrimes85|talk]]) 18:55, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
:Wikipedia redirects "Entymology" to "Entomology", fwiw. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 20:46, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
:Just a quick note, a [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1991:_Research_Areas_by_Size_and_Countedness&oldid=156851 previous version] said this made reference to [[1012: Wrong Superhero]], and [[1610: Fire Ants]] (the same revision also shows Mycology might have been a reference to [[1664: Mycology]]), which I appear to have accidentally deleted. Feel free to add them back where they go. --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.11|172.69.33.11]] 23:16, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
::Please try to add something you delete by mistake yourself next time. I have re-added the three references you deleted for you. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:23, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

Dentistry is fairly straightforward, I think. Adults should have 32 teeth, children who have a full set but don't have wisdom teeth yet should have 28. Anyone missing teeth should have that information on their personal record. However, children occasionally lose teeth, and sometimes wisdom teeth need to be removed due to issues with them growing in wrong. It's also possible they could be lost in an accident, or for there to be a new patient with an unknown number of teeth. So a dentist can easily expect to know how many teeth should be in their patient's mouth, but may find they are off in some instances. Hence the mostly towards the top but not quite all the way of its placement. --[[User:KingStarscream|KingStarscream]] ([[User talk:KingStarscream|talk]]) 19:06, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
:Children have 20 teeth, that will all fall out. But at some point they have all 20 and none other. So saying they have 28 makes no sense.  Some adults never get Wisdom teeth. Before the childbegins to loose they original teeth they may start to have some of the permanent though. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:16, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
As well as some people not developing some / all their wisdom teeth (I have never had any upper ones) some people have "super-numerory" canines (my Dad and sister) [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 23:00, 9 May 2018 (UTC)


I have determined the exact position of each science on both axes. I computed the center of the smallest rectangle that encloses each name. Here they are, expressed as percentages, assuming 0% and 100% correspond to the arrow tips on each axis. I can provide raw pixel values if anyone is interested. 

 Presidential History | 62% | 89%

 Geology | 90% | 90%

 Shakespeare Studies | 37% | 88%

 Dentistry | 21% | 84%

 Railway Engineering | 79% | 81%

 Elementary Particle Physics | 7% | 72%

 Marine Mammology | 66% | 68%

 Ornithology | 34% | 62%

 Cosmology | 94% | 62%

 Ancient Literature | 38% | 53%

 Botany | 60% | 40%

 Mycology | 29% | 38%

 Paleontology | 68% | 31%

 Black Hole Astronomy | 92% | 26%

 Entymology | 24% | 25%

 Microbiology | 15% | 13%

 Pharmacology | 12% | 6%

 Exobiology | 68% | 5%

 Theology | 91% | 5%

Zetfr 23:35, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
:Interesting to see which order they are listed in size and knowledge... Maybe an extra table in a trivia section... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:36, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
::I have now added that in a [[1991: Research Areas by Size and Countedness#Table with coordinates|trivia]] section. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:53, 10 May 2018 (UTC) 

'Microbiology studies microscopic (too small to see) organisms, of which some 1,400 are known and "estimates for the total number of microbial species vary wildly, from as low as 120,000 to tens of millions and higher", according to Nature magazine'  What is the 1,400?  The other numbers here look reasonable, but this one throws me for a loop.  Gene Wirchenko genew@@telus.net [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.220|108.162.216.220]] 05:25, 10 May 2018 (UTC)


There is (another) spelling error: mammology instead of mammalogy
[[Special:Contributions/172.68.110.76|172.68.110.76]] 09:48, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

Regarding the spelling of  "mammology" - do you think it was intentional and Randall meant ''mammo-'' female breast ''-logy'' the study of?
[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mammo-#English mammo- prefix on wiktionary]
--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.46|108.162.216.46]] 21:18, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
The size is slightly larger than that of Presidents, and I don't know any women whose breasts are larger than a President.  Although the term is preceeded by the word "marine", so we're not talking about humans.  Maybe female blue whales have breasts that are larger than the size of an entire human.  (That could be of interest to the porn industry.)[[Special:Contributions/162.158.59.4|162.158.59.4]] 00:56, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

The explanation about railway engineering is incorrect. Whereas every railway has ''a'' standard gauge, "standard-gauge rail" has a specific meaning of a track with rails 1435mm (4 ft 8.5 in) apart. Anything narrower than that is described as a narrow-gauge line by rail technicians and enthusiasts, even if it is the standard gauge for a particular rail network. Where I live in New Zealand, for example, the country's standard gauge of 3 ft 6 in means that the country's rail network uses a narrow-gauge track. I've amended the text accordingly. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]] ([[User talk:Grutness|talk]]) 02:58, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

I think the title text is actually a reference to [[wikipedia:Combinatorics|combinatorics]], which is a subfield of mathematics. --cajsq0228 20:52, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

I really wonder where History a la [[1979: History]] would be - I'm honestly surprised he didn't include it in this graph... (?) I think I'd personally try to place it somewhere between right above Black Hole and off the right side of the chart (95%-120% | 20%) -- [[User:Brettpeirce|Brettpeirce]] ([[User talk:Brettpeirce|talk]]) 19:50, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but someone has to say this - as I understand, science is based on empirical evidence. Empirically, we have a very good idea of the number of deities; that number is zero. Theology should be in the far top-right corner. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.63|172.71.242.63]] 14:44, 4 September 2023 (UTC)