explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

599: Apocalypse

2020-08-13T02:05:05Z

108.162.215.164: /* Explanation */ ce

{{comic
| number = 599
| date = June 19, 2009
| title = Apocalypse
| image = apocalypse.png
| titletext = I wonder if I still have time to go shoot a short film with Kevin Bacon.
}}

== Explanation ==
This comic begins with the beginning of the {{w|Apocalypse}}, hence the title. It is depicted, properly, with a very dystopian color picture with several yellow burning {{w|meteors}} striking down from the blood red sky, towards a black, red, orange and yellow ground. The way the panels are drawn below makes a transition from this dark image to a normal comic, with the first normal panel being superimposed on the dark image.

In this image [[Beret Guy]] shouts out '''The apocalypse!''' And then he continues to explain what this will mean: ''The skies burn, the seas turn to blood, and the dead walk the earth!''

All three sentences are attributed to the apocalypse, but it seems that the first one about the sky burning, actually comes from a translation of one of {{w|Nostradamus}} predictions, which has among other been used to "{{w|Nostradamus_in_popular_culture#September_11.2C_2001|predict 9/11}}". In {{w|Revelation 16}} from the Bible about the {{w|Seven bowls}}, which are a set of seven plagues of God's wrath poured over the wicked towards the Apocalypse, the {{w|Seven_bowls#Second_Bowl|second bowl}} describes that ''{{w|Revelation_16#Structure|The Sea Turns to Blood}}''. The {{w|Universal resurrection|resurrection of the dead}} is from the biblical version of the Apocalypse, the {{w|Last Judgment}}.

After Beret Guy has announced this, he runs into [[Cueball]] who has heard part of this, but he is only interested in the last part and asks to check if he understood correctly that the dead will walk the earth. When this is confirmed Cueball becomes very busy.

He runs to his office and quickly writes a scientific math paper, then runs as fast as he can to the math department and get his colleagues to sign it. Then he runs to a cemetery where the dead are rising, finds the one he searched for, and asks the resurrected {{w|zombie}} if he is Erdős. When confirmed that he is indeed Erdős, Cueball asks him to sign the math paper.

{{w|Paul Erdős}} (26 March 1913 – 20 September 1996) was a Hungarian mathematician who (according to Wikipedia) published more papers than any other mathematician in history, working with hundreds of collaborators. His grave is in the Kozma Street Cemetery in Budapest.

There is an in-joke developed among mathematicians called the {{w|Erdős number}} (similar to a Bacon number for film actors, referenced in the title text, see below). By definition, Erdős has an Erdős number of 0. Everyone who has co-written a mathematical paper with Erdős has an Erdős number of 1. Everyone who collaborated with them (but not Erdős himself) is assigned an Erdős number of 2. In general, if ''k'' is the minimal Erdős number of all the people you've written papers with, your Erdős number is ''k'' + 1. The Erdős number is the length of the shortest "chain" from you to Erdős.

Thanks to collaboration between mathematicians and other researchers, many people in science and medical research now have Erdős numbers. Not everyone has an Erdős number, though; people without any chain linking them to Erdős have an undefined Erdős number. For example, most people who are not mathematicians or scientists do not have Erdős numbers. Nor do mathematicians and scientists whose publications were written by themselves only with no collaborators.

By this trick Cueball thinks that he and his colleagues will now all have a an Erdős number of 1. The joke is that he would be using his last few hours in this life to write a math paper just to improve his and his friends' Erdős numbers.

There are, however, many problems with his idea, even assuming the dead will walk the earth on that day. First of all, just having your name on a piece of paper with Erdős's signature does nothing for your Erdős number. It needs to be a {{w|Scientific_literature#Scientific_article|scientifically valid paper}}, published in a {{w|peer reviewed}} {{w|scientific journal}}. And given that the apocalypse is happening, there seems no time, chance or reason to publish any more math papers.

Even if there were time, it would not count for much to have someone sign a math paper they haven't even read, let alone had anything to do with the actual writing and research. The same would be true for the other five mathematicians who signed it. But of course many papers have coauthors who did not do much more than work in the same department as the person who actually wrote the paper (a sad but true fact). Presumably Cueball's friends assume that nobody will investigate whether they, or Erdős, truly participated in the writing and research of Cueball's paper.

Furthermore, even if it did count, they will not be able to take the paper with them into the afterlife, and thus since no one would have had time to read the paper, no one would know they had an Erdős number of 1. In the afterlife they could all say that they had such a number, but then again everyone else with such an interest could do the same, since no one could prove otherwise. Of course if you end up in the same part ({{w|Heaven}} or {{w|Hell}}) of the {{w|afterlife}} as Erdős he could confirm or deny the claim, but that would probably not help Cueball and his friends, since he could tell the truth about their paper. (Erdős was known for using an idiosyncratic set of slang terms, in which he described people who had stopped doing mathematics as having "died", whereas people who had died had "left".)

That the whole comic is about the Erdős number, and not just Erdős signature, is made clear in the title text which refers to a similar (and less esoteric) meme called "{{w|Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon}}", or simply Bacon numbers. This time, the chain's center is actor {{w|Kevin Bacon}}, and the links are formed by two people appearing in the same movie. Unlike Erdős, Kevin Bacon is not dead, so those of you wishing to get a Bacon number of 1 still have a chance.

In the title text Cueball thus wonders if there is still time for him to make a short film with Kevin Bacon, now he has used so much time on improving his Erdős number. Again, if the film hasn't been shown to the public it would not count for anything...

One of the mathematical scribbles appearing in panel 5 shows the square root of 163, which may be a reference to {{w|Ramanujan's constant}}.

[[403: Convincing Pickup Line]] has a parody of the Erdős collaboration graph.

Zombies are a [[:Category:Zombies|recurring theme]] in xkcd, particularly zombie scientists, which has also occurred both before with {{w|Richard Feynman}} in [[397: Unscientific]] and after with {{w|Marie Curie}} in [[896: Marie Curie]].

==Transcript==
:[The first panel is very large and shows a dark scene with one large meteor in front and four smaller in the background showering the darkened earth. They are all five black with yellow fire around them and a fire trail behind them, and all are flying from the top left corner and down towards right. The sky at the top is pitch black, but then the sky turns blood red under dark clouds. Two large mountain peaks, one almost pyramid shaped, are shown to the left and to the right there are two smaller peaks towards the distant horizon. The mountains and the ground around them are mainly black, but with red, orange and yellow streaks spread all over the black area beneath the mountain peaks, maybe indicating fire or lava, or reflections in water or blood. At the bottom right corner a normal white panel is superimposed on this apocalyptic image.]

:[The smaller panel at the bottom of the first is halfway over the first panel, haflway below, and only to the right of the middle of the first panel. Beret Guy is running towards left, with his arms raised in the air.]
:Beret Guy: The apocalypse! The skies burn, the seas turn to blood, and the dead walk the earth!

:[From here a normal sequence of panels in three rows begin beneath the second panel. This leaves a gap between the apocalyptic panel and the first row of regular panels, on the left side where the 2nd panel did not reach over. In this panel Beret Guy (coming from the right) finds Cueball.]
:Cueball: The dead what?
:Beret Guy: Walk the earth!

:[Cueball running right in a thin panel.]
:Cueball: I have to go.

:[Cueball sitting on a chair at a table scribbling vigorously and noisily with a pen on a paper. Mathematical symbols appear above Cueball's head, including a summation from i=0 to n, a logarithm of n and the square root of a number.]
:<big>∑</big>ni=0ik1/i log(n)
:√163
:''Scribble''
:''Scribble''

:[Cueball running right again, in a thin panel, pen and paper in hand.]

:[Cueball opening door with label:]
:Math Dept
:Cueball: The dead return!
:Cueball: Everyone, quick, get your names on here!

:[Cueball stand on the left side of a table looking left over his shoulder. Five people are lining up to sign the paper lying on the right side of the table. The first who signs with a pen is Blondie, then in line follows Megan, a Cueball-like guy, Ponytail and another Cueball-like guy who stand with one hand to his chin looking right, away from the other.]
:Blondie: At last!
:Guy looking right: I hope there's time!

:[Cueball running right in yet a thin panel, with pen and the paper flowing behind him.]

:[Cueball walks right with the paper and pen in his hand as he arrives at at a cemetery as revealed by an old worn sign. Scary sounds appear off-panel right.]
:Sign: Cemetery
:Rising dead (off-panel): ''Hurrghhh''

:[Cueball, still going right, arrives at a grave, pen in hand and the other hand almost outside the panel, but with a corner of the paper just visible. The grave has a large gravestone to the right and in front of it there is a Cueball-like guy rising up from the ground using his arms to push up on the base of the stone and the small pile of earth towards Cueball. The guy looks very worn, with dirt on his head and scratches on his cheek.]

:[Cueball bends a little down and offers pen and paper to the raised dead man who looks up at him when he is addressed.]
:Cueball: Paul Erdős?
:Erdős: Yes?
:Cueball: We need you to sign this.

==Trivia==
*This version of [[Blondie]] seems to be employed at a mathematical department on a university. It could thus also be [[Miss Lenhart]], but there is no proof that she is a teacher...

{{Comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Blondie]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Zombies]]
[[Category:Comics with blood]]
[[Category: Research Papers]]

Talk:202: YouTube

2016-06-27T17:45:34Z

108.162.215.164:

In the transcript, it says simpleplan2009's comment was posted 3 minutes ago. However, in the image, it clearly says 5 minutes. [[User:Caagr98|Caagr98]] ([[User talk:Caagr98|talk]]) 19:01, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
:I agree. In theory a 3 and a 5 could be hand-written to be hard to differentiate, but here it is clear. Changed. (And added the first line.) [[User:Markhurd|Mark Hurd]] ([[User talk:Markhurd|talk]]) 10:56, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
::Changed it back, as the actual transcript on the comic page (as seen in the webpage source, and upon which the comic searches are based) says "3". I've added the reasoning in the explanation. [[User:NixillUmbreon|NixillUmbreon]] ([[User talk:NixillUmbreon|talk]]) 15:31, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
:::The image is the first source for the transcript here. Randall's transcript simply doesn't match the image.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:11, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

On Gunpistolman's comment, is [http://www.phys.ufl.edu/~det/phy2060/heavyboots.html the heavy boots story] worth a mention? [[User:B jonas|B jonas]] ([[User talk:B jonas|talk]]) 16:31, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
:Not needing a mention in the explanation, but thank you for the link. Richard Feynman would be glowing in his grave at the state of science education in this country. {{unsigned ip|108.162.219.223}}

The British sketch comedy TV show ''That Mitchell and Webb Look'' has an excellent [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6MOnehCOUw Moon Landing Sketch] with similar humor to this joke. [[User:Beolach|Beolach]] ([[User talk:Beolach|talk]]) 22:18, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

I think that it's possible the video is the Astronaut music video by Simple Plan. Led to believe it by the username simpleplan2009 {{unsigned ip|108.162.216.124}}

American sheep are very offended by this. if sheep could read. --[[User:Dalonacueball|Dalonacueball]] ([[User talk:Dalonacueball|talk]]) 17:27, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

All of the comments in the comic are actual YouTube comments, taken from the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vml7pZJujF0 (although the usernames were changed, presumably to protect the stupid). Should that be mentioned in the description? [[User:HiddenWindshield|HiddenWindshield]] ([[User talk:HiddenWindshield|talk]]) 20:44, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

Might the last comment be in reference to the SMBC comic http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=120 (which came out a few years before this xkcd)? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.104|108.162.215.104]] 20:44, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

The comic did not copy the YouTube video comments, rather the other way round. I updated the explanation to add this.[[User:Jojonete|Jojonete]] ([[User talk:Jojonete|talk]]) 23:29, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Do we really need a citation for "humans haven't landed on Mars"? Seriously? --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.164|108.162.215.164]] 17:45, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

1538: Lyrics

2015-06-23T09:09:01Z

108.162.215.164: /* Possible lyrics and songs */

{{comic
| number = 1538
| date = June 15, 2015
| title = Lyrics
| image = lyrics.png
| titletext = To me, trying to understand song lyrics feels like when I see text in a dream but it𝔰 hอᵣd t₀ ᵣeₐd aกd 𝒾 canٖt fཱྀcu༧༦࿐༄
}}

==Explanation==
For some modern songs, the vocalist chooses to perform the track in a way that emphasizes emotion, accent or style over clear pronunciation of the lyrics. Some forms of music, for example the Jazz style Scat, use purely nonsensical lyrics while some styles of dance music use a single line of lyrics repeated throughout the track.

There are also certain types of people that may describe themselves as "lyric deaf", which is sort of the lyrical equivalent to being {{w|Tone deafness|tone deaf}}, although it doesn't have an underlying medical understanding. Some people that describe themselves as tone deaf are even quite musically capable.

The comic is illustrating (in text form) how listening to such a song feels before you have learned what the actual lyrics are. The lyrics are represented in an indecipherable way, with a few mildly recognizable words. This represents the auditory experience of being able to hear and understand some words (perhaps incorrectly), but not all of them.

Another example of this experience can be seen in [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxELSzay2lc this British TV commercial] from the 1980s, showing someone who has misheard {{w|Desmond Dekker}} song {{w|Israelites (song) |Israelites}} so for instance the line ''Poor me Israelites'' becomes ''Oh-oh my ears are alight''. See more details in the [[#Trivia|trivia]] section.

This experience is similar to that shown by the character {{w|Havelock Vetinari}} the Patrician of {{w|Ankh-Morpork}}, in {{w|Terry Pratchett}}'s {{w|Discworld}} book {{w|Soul Music (novel)|Soul Music}} (see [http://www.ealasaid.com/fan/vetinari/vl-soulmusic.html part of book here]). Rather than listening to music, he preferred to read the printed sheet music:
:''In fact the kind of music he really liked was the kind that never got played. It ruined music, in his opinion, to torment it by involving it on dried skins, bits of dead cat and lumps of metal hammered into wires and tubes. It ought to stay written down, on the page, in rows of little dots and crotchets, all neatly caught between lines. Only there was it pure. It was when people started doing things with it that the rot set in. Much better to sit quietly in a room and read the sheets, with nothing between yourself and the mind of the composer but a scribble of ink. Having it played by sweaty fat men and people with hair in their ears and spit dribbling out of the end of their oboe... well, the idea made him shudder.''

For a related experience see {{w|Mondegreen}}.

The title text elaborates on the fact that [[Randall]] has the same experience when trying to understand song lyrics as when he sees text in his dreams. The last part of the title text is written in strange scripts to illustrate how he feels when seeing text in his dreams. Translated it says: ''it's hard to read and I can't focus.''

Note that it looks like the song lyrics were written by drawing in a tool, like MS Paint, and then cutting out pieces and shifting them slightly.

==Possible lyrics and songs==
The closest guess on the lyrics is this:
:''I can't even tell her''
:''Anything she wanna''
:''Had outstanding skill''
::''Beautiful''
:''Forgetting love.''
(Note that the first line also might be ''I can't even '''help''' her''.)

It is very likely that [[Randall]] completely made up these lyrics himself and if any song coincidentally share some part of them it only happens because Randall has chosen some very cliché lyrics, that would thus be likely to occur in some pop songs.

Nevertheless here below are some possible song references, in which the exact line from above occurs:
*If the first line is ''I can't even '''tell''' her'', it could come from
:{{w|Joe Budden}}'s song ''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJPZtoH_wok More of Me]''
:From the [http://genius.com/Joe-budden-more-of-me-lyrics lyrics]:
:''World keeps spinning, learned sinners keep sinning''
:''And '''I can't even tell her''' some fights ain't fight worthy''
:''Cause my pops got 20 years clean, but her pops got 20 years dirty''
*If the first line is ''I can't even '''help''' her'', it could come from:
:{{w|Bill Anderson (singer)|Bill Anderson's}} song ''[https://myspace.com/whisperinbill/music/song/baby-s-blue-again-104023287-116024575 Baby's Blue Again]''
:From the [http://www.metrolyrics.com/babys-blue-again-lyrics-bill-anderson.html lyrics]:
:''Oh Lord, and '''I can't even help her'''''
:''All I can do is just wait''
:''Until the clouds are all blown away''
*The second line ''Anything she wanna'' could be from:
:[https://twitter.com/1johnnycinco Johnny Cinco's] song ''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri4LjCESbOA She Wanna]''
:From the [http://www.lyricfever.com/lyrics/1069636/Johnny-Cinco/She-Wanna lyrics]:
:''Buy here '''anything she wanna'''''
:''Fly in '''anything she wanna'''''
:''Try on '''anything she wanna'''''
*The third line ''Had to be outstanding or kill'' (which is basically just a simple guess at what could be said in the line) does not make much sense and there is no songs that include such a line.
*The fourth line ''Forgetting love'' could come from:
:[https://www.facebook.com/chino.brown.7 Chino Brown's] song ''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SOW2o-g8yg Love Again]''
:From the [http://genius.com/Chino-brown-love-again-lyrics lyrics]:
:''I was at a point in my life''
:''Of just '''forgetting love'''''
:''Until the day you touched me''

==Transcript==
:[Cueball sits in a chair holding something. A speaker on a counter behind him is transmitting music. Four lines of wavy undecipherable lyrics emanate from the speaker. The lyrics are surrounded by musical notes. Below is the best attempt to write this down in text, also using capitals when they are clearly there in the comic.]
:I CANT₣∇EN +ELҼ ⊤HER
:A|N⊃Г⊕N6 ƒHE W(AN NAp.
:HADβE Aūτ|ƒA!NNNG∩fҠILL...
:FOR♡ITiNn⊣GLOOOO!VEEE ?.-

:[Caption below the frame:]
:'''Sometimes I wonder what it would'''
:'''be like to be able to understand'''
:'''song lyrics without looking them up.'''

==Trivia==
*The [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxELSzay2lc commercial] mentioned in the explanation above spoofs Desmond Decker's song ''Israelites''.
*The two verses used in the commercial is the 2nd and 3rd of the song as can be seen in the [http://www.metrolyrics.com/israelites-lyrics-desmond-dekker.html lyrics].
*Below can be read the two verses, with the first line (and then every second line) being what is sung (from the lyrics) and the following lines what the guy in the street shows on his cards (as he heard it):
*Verse 2:
:*Get up in the morning
::Get up in the morning
:*slaving for bread, sir
::sleeping for for bread, sir
:*So that every mouth
::Sold out to every monk
:*can be fed
::and beef-head
:*Poor
::oh-oh
:*me Israelites
::me ears are alight
*Verse 3:
:*My wife an' my kids
::Why find my kids?
:*them a pack up an' a leave me
::They buck up and a-leave me
:*Darlin' she said,
::Darling Cheese head
:*I was yours to be seen
::I was yards to greasy
:*Poor
::oh-oh
:*me Israelites
::me ears are alight
*After these two verses, there are more text from the guy while no new lines are sung:
::I think that's what he says
::But I need to hear it on a {{w|Hitachi Maxell|Maxell}}
::(There is a picture of a {{w|Compact Cassette|cassette tape}} below that last line of text.)

===Non-ASCII characters===
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Matching text
! Character
! Description
! Preview
|-
| THAI CHARACTER O ANG
| U+0E2D
| THAI CHARACTER O ANG
| อ
|-
| ARABIC SUBSCRIPT ALEF
| U+0656
| ARABIC SUBSCRIPT ALEF
| ٖ
|-
| TIBETAN VOWEL SIGN AA
| U+0F71
| TIBETAN VOWEL SIGN AA ཱ
|-
| TIBETAN VOWEL SIGN REVERSED II
| U+0F81
| TIBETAN VOWEL SIGN REVERSED II
| ཱྀ
|-
| TIBETAN MARK BSKA- SHOG GI MGO RGYAN
| U+0FD0
| TIBETAN MARK BSKA- SHOG GI MGO RGYAN
| ࿐
|-
| TIBETAN MARK INITIAL YIG MGO MDUN MA
| U+0F04
| TIBETAN MARK INITIAL YIG MGO MDUN MA
| ༄
|}
{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Songs]]
[[Category:Dreams]]