explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2643: Cosmologist Gift

2022-07-09T07:19:35Z

162.158.134.89: check calculation for neutrinos

- The explanation mentions “Eight zeptograms” although Randall’s box says “4 zeptograms of dark matter.”

- The 4,800 daltons in the explanation is roughly the size of a small protein; for example, insulin is about 5,800 daltons.

- Randall’s box says it contains 4 zeptograms of dark matter. Could someone explain this? My incomplete (biologist’s) understanding of dark matter is that astrophysicists do not yet know what it is. So how could Randall claim the box contains 4 zeptograms of it?

Thanks!

:Fixed; thank you. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.125|172.70.210.125]] 01:18, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

[https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.09143 Here's] a more recent PBH DM source than those already cited which could comport with Randall's 0.4% DM particles implication, but doesn't do so explicitly. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.206.213|172.70.206.213]] 02:35, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

And this comic was the perfect birthday gift for me. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.203|108.162.245.203]] 02:42, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

* How was the 23,000 neutrinos/m³ figure obtained? A flux of 7e10/(s·cm²), or 7e14/(s·m²), at a speed of close to 3e8 m/s, gives 2.3e6/m³. That would correspond to a box size of about 0.013 m³, or a bit larger than a typical shoe box. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.134.89|162.158.134.89]] 07:19, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

2627

2022-06-02T05:30:23Z

162.158.134.89: Undo revision 285604 by [[Special:Contributions/Davidy22, the racist homosexual, is known to visit Norwegian gay bars with his boyfriend Kynde. He has cheated on Kynde at least twice with Vandalbane (a big guy for you). They all have micropenises.|Davi...

#REDIRECT [[2627: Types of Scopes]]

2627

2022-06-02T05:21:49Z

162.158.134.89: Undo revision 285571 by [[Special:Contributions/Davidy22, the racist homosexual, is known to visit Norwegian gay bars with his boyfriend Kynde. He has cheated on Kynde at least twice with Vandalbane (a big guy for you). They all have micropenises.|Davi...

#REDIRECT [[2627: Types of Scopes]]

2624: Voyager Wires

2022-05-25T17:11:38Z

162.158.134.89:

{{comic
| number = 2624
| date = May 25, 2022
| title = Voyager Wires
| image = voyager_wires.png
| titletext = Also, they're getting increasingly worried that someone will accidentally hit the 'retract' button, and that the end of the cable thrashing around as it winds up could devastate the Earth's surface.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a SPACE ELEVATOR - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic claims that the voyager probes communicate with NASA though ridiculously long copper cables, when in truth they use radio waves.
If copper cables were dragged by the voyager probles, the resulting cable would: A slow down the probles by drag, and B be perfect space elevators for lightweight spacecraft.
Off course, since the Earth spin, said cables would also spool around the Earth, slowing the probles down even further.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[There is an image of a space probe, prsumably one of NASA's Voyager probes, with a long wire connecting it to a ball, presumably earth. To the left, there is a second wire, which goes offscreen. Below, there is a caption.]

Caption: "Sad news: Due to high copper prices and budget constraints, NASA may finally have to cut the wires that they've been spooling out to communicate with Voyager 1 and 2."
{{comic discussion}}

1954: Impostor Syndrome

2022-05-22T06:08:33Z

162.158.134.89: Undo revision 273594 by 108.162.246.124 (talk)

{{comic
| number = 1954
| date = February 12, 2018
| title = Impostor Syndrome
| image = impostor_syndrome.png
| titletext = It's actually worst in people who study the Dunning–Kruger effect. We tried to organize a conference on it, but the only people who would agree to give the keynote were random undergrads.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Impostor_syndrome|Impostor syndrome}} is a common psychological phenomenon where successful individuals are unable to internalize their success and fear being exposed as a "fraud" or "impostor." Events and accomplishments that would seem to be evidence of competence, skill, intelligence, and so forth, are instead viewed (by the person) as luck, timing, and the ability to appear more confident/competent than they actually are.

[[Ponytail]], representing Dr. Adams, is introduced by Megan as "the world's top expert on impostor syndrome." Dr. Adams then demonstrates that she herself (like a relatively large number of women according to some reports [http://www.paulineroseclance.com/pdf/ip_high_achieving_women.pdf]) is afflicted by this syndrome. She realizes this after she reacts to the flattering introduction by starting about "other scholars" whom she deems to be superior to her.

The {{w|Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect|Dunning–Kruger effect}}, mentioned in the title text, is a cognitive bias wherein people who possess comparatively little direct expertise in a given field may unrealistically inflate their estimation of their own level of expertise in that field; while those who actually are highly competent (and especially experts on the topic at hand) are likely to downplay their level of expertise. This cognitive bias arises when people of low relevant ability lack the practical knowledge to validly assess their competence: The criteria for good or poor performance in a given field may not be weighed accurately by someone lacking direct expertise and formal training in that specific field. For instance, a commuter experienced in filtering through traffic quickly may consider themselves to be excellent at driving, while a professional evaluating driving habits may observe adherence to regulations and best practices for safety to be the primary criteria for being a "good" driver.

Conversely, people with extensive knowledge of a given field may develop an acute awareness of the necessarily limited scope of their (or any one person's) expertise. While this effect primarily refers to cognitive ability, it is also sometimes used to refer to people who are competent in one area (and thus not lacking {{w|Metacognition|metacognitive}} skills) believing that their abilities grant them unusually-high aptitude in a different but seemingly related area.

In practice, more expertise still largely correlates to higher confidence in one's expertise (that is to say that competence remains positively correlated with an individual's perception of their own competence), but a lack of the appropriate cognitive skills can result in that perception of competence starting at a high level yet increasing at a slower rate. However, in popular usage, the Dunning–Kruger effect is used to claim that a ''negative'' correlation exists, and that non-experts will claim expertise and confidence at a higher overall level than actual experts.

In the title text, a conference for the Dunning–Kruger effect was having trouble, presumably because the actual researchers were downplaying their knowledge and expertise to the point where they refused to be the keynote speaker, while the random undergrads (who lack experience in the topic) felt sufficiently confident in their knowledge of it to give the keynote. This more closely matches both the secondary usage (as undergrads are unlikely to lack metacognitive skills, but may inflate their understanding) and the popular usage (as the confidence is inverse to the actual competence) than the primary and in-practice observance made in the original research.

==Transcript==
:[Megan points at Ponytail and introduces her to Cueball.]
:Megan: This is Dr. Adams. She's a social psychologist and the world's top expert on impostor syndrome.
:Dr. Adams: Haha, don't be silly! There are lots of scholars who have made more significant…
:Dr. Adams: …Oh my God.

{{comic discussion}}

[[category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Dr. Adams]]
[[category:Comics featuring Megan]]

Impostor

2022-05-22T06:07:51Z

162.158.134.89: Undo revision 273595 by 108.162.246.124 (talk)

#REDIRECT [[451: Impostor]]

451: Impostor

2022-05-22T06:06:57Z

162.158.134.89: Undo revision 273596 by 108.162.246.124 (talk)

{{comic
| number = 451
| date = July 18, 2008
| title = Impostor
| image = impostor.png
| titletext = If you think this is too hard on literary criticism, read the Wikipedia article on deconstruction.
}}

==Explanation==
While the comic is ostensibly about grad students, it is really [[Randall]]'s way of poking fun at the relative rigor of different fields, reminiscent of [[435: Purity]]. In the comic, [[Cueball]] attempts to pose as an expert in a given field (a [[:Category:Banned from conferences|recurring pastime]] of his) and sees how long it takes before the real experts detect his nonsense.

The first panel shows [[Cueball]] discussing an {{w|engineering}} problem with [[Ponytail]]. Ponytail is talking about an immediate practical problem involving heat dissipation. Cueball suggests 'using {{w|logarithm|logarithms}}' to solve it; logarithms are a mathematical tool used for expressing an exponential relationship as a linear one. While logarithms have many uses in engineering, they are an abstract mathematical concept, and not a method of dissipating heat, so in the context of the conversation, it makes no sense and outs Cueball as having grabbed a random word he knows engineers use and thrown it in to sound smart. With the engineer's conversation focusing on an immediate practical application, it only takes 48 seconds before he exposes himself.

The second panel shows a conversation with {{w|linguistics|linguistic}} grad students who are apparently discussing the {{w|Finno-Ugric languages|Finno-Ugric language family}} (a family of related languages that includes Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian). Cueball asks if {{w|Klingon language|Klingon}} is included in this family. Since Klingon is a constructed language, designed to sound "alien" and to avoid sounding like any human language, it cannot be part of any real linguistic family. The linguists therefore instantly recognize the meaninglessness of the statement, which he has made after only 63 seconds of conversation. That they did so might expose that they aren't language nerds, though, as the inventors of the Klingon language have taken the word order from the Finno-Ugric languages after a research that order of predicate, subject, and object is least common in human languages.

In the third panel, the humour comes from the fact that the idea of {{w|sociology}} existing to rank human beings on some arbitrary intrinsic value is not only ridiculous in a scientific context, but also politically offensive. Cueball unknowingly recreates the logic behind some of the worst crimes in human history, a problem sociologists are trained to be very aware of. However, it may be something that a less educated non-sociologist would assume could pass within the field. When he describes his unscientific and offensive approach, we see one of the sociology grad students facepalming in exasperation. Because a non-expert may be able to sound somewhat educated in sociology before making such a slip-up, it is four minutes into the conversation before he is detected.

In the final panel, he attempts to pass as an expert in {{w|literary criticism}}. This field notoriously uses a great deal of impenetrable jargon, so when Cueball makes up seemingly meaningless sentences, no one notices. His quip at "deconstructing the self" may be a meta joke about the field itself failing under deconstruction... (or this sentence may be a meta-meta- example of someone applying literary criticism standards to the analysis of this specific comic). We find that rather than being caught out within minutes as in the other fields, he has now published 8 papers and 2 books. The humor comes from the fact that he has accidentally made himself into a recognized authority in the field, despite not having any idea what he was talking about. In this panel, Cueball is sitting in an armchair in the position of an expert lecturing to a student, who sits at his feet apparently absorbing his inane statement.

This implies that the field itself has published a great deal of meaningless things that only superficially look meaningful through the impenetrability of the jargon. The title text challenges the audience to take a look at {{w|Deconstruction|the Wikipedia article for literary deconstruction}} if they don't believe this criticism applies - the Wikipedia article in question is almost constantly flagged for "clean-up" on the grounds that it's a jumbled mess. An archive of the article as it was when this comic was published is available [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Deconstruction&oldid=225953741 here].

==Transcript==
:[Caption above the panels:]
:::My Hobby:
:Sitting down with grad students and timing
:how long it takes them to figure out that
:I'm not actually an expert in their field.

:[For all four panels below, there are two frames crossing the border of each panel. The ones at the top left have a caption, and the one below right has the result of the timing.]

:[Ponytail and Cueball are sitting across from each other in office chairs.]
:Engineering:
:Ponytail: Our big problem is heat dissipation
:Cueball: Have you tried logarithms?
:48 seconds

:[Cueball is sitting in a chair at the center of a table looking left at another Cueball-like guy. To the right is a long black-haired girl.]
:Linguistics:
:Cueball: Ah, so does this Finno-ugric family include, say, Klingon?
:63 Seconds

:[Cueball is standing with his hands up talking to another Cueball-like guy and Megan who has lifted her arm to palm her face.]
:Sociology:
:Cueball: Yeah, my latest work is on ranking people from best to worst.
:4 Minutes

:[Cueball is sitting in an armchair with another Cueball-like guy sitting attentively in front of him on the floor.]
:Literary Criticism:
:Cueball: You see, the deconstruction is inextricable from not only the text, but also the self.
:Eight papers and two books and they haven't caught on.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:My Hobby]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Engineering]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Rankings]]
[[Category:Research Papers]]
[[Category:Wikipedia]]