explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

3011: Europa Clipper

2024-11-14T18:45:19Z

162.158.90.199: /* Trivia */ copyedits

{{comic
| number = 3011
| date = November 13, 2024
| title = Europa Clipper
| image = europa_clipper_2x.png
| imagesize = 333x356px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = They had BETTER make this a sample return mission.
}}

==Explanation==

{{incomplete|Created by a JOVIAN DESSERT. Please consider deleting this tag too soon, but refrain from doing so.}}

[[File:Animation of Europa Clipper trajectory around Jupiter.gif|thumb|right|The ''Europa Clipper's'' projected course around {{w|Jupiter}}, represented as the stationary <span style="color:green;">green</span> dot. In <span style="color:gold;">gold</span> is Jupiter's moon {{w|Callisto (moon)|Callisto}}, in <span style="color:cyan;">cyan</span> is the moon {{w|Europa (moon)|Europa}} — the primary target of the spacecraft's study — and in <span style="color:#FF4500;">orange-red</span> is the innermost of Jupiter's four {{w|Galilean moons|"Galilean"}} moons, {{w|Io (moon)|Io}}. The spacecraft's track is shown in <span style="color:magenta;">magenta</span>. Jupiter's largest moon {{w|Ganymede (moon)|Ganymede}} is not shown, but its gravitational pull affects the ''Clipper's'' trajectory. A mission goal is to achieve a 6:1 {{w|orbital resonance}} with Europa by September 2034.[https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Martin-Ozimek/publication/383115312_AAS_24-433_Europa_Clipper_Mission_Analysis_Pump_Down_Trajectory_Design/links/66bcd845311cbb094938dbd6/AAS-24-433-Europa-Clipper-Mission-Analysis-Pump-Down-Trajectory-Design.pdf] ]]

The ''{{w|Europa Clipper}}'' space probe was launched from the {{w|Kennedy Space Center}} in Florida on October 14, 2024. It is expected to arrive at Jupiter and begin exploration of Jupiter's moons, particularly {{w|Europa (moon)|Europa}}, in April of 2030.

Europa is an icy moon. Water ice covers its surface. Beneath the ice, there is expected to be liquid water, which might contain some basic forms of life.[https://europa.nasa.gov/why-europa/ingredients-for-life/] To sample this liquid, its crust (water ice) would need to be breached.

Europa's surface of ice over liquid water can be compared to the caramelized crust on the popular dessert {{w|crème brûlée}}, perhaps because the {{w|Cassini-Huygens}} probe, after landing on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan in January of 2005, found that its surface had what was described as [https://www.sciencenews.org/article/world-unveiled-cr%C3%A8me-br%C3%BBl%C3%A9e-titan a "crème brûlée" consistency]. The hard surface of the caramel cream dessert is traditionally cracked open with a spoon, and so Randall implies that this equipment [https://europa.nasa.gov/mission/about/ will be used] by the ''Europa Clipper''.

In truth, no such spoon is present on the probe, and the ice-layer would be far too thick to be so easily penetrated by the illustrated size of cutlery. More than that, its course is explicitly designed to avoid contact with Europa (though it will fly through sparse material ejected into space from it) so as to prevent {{w|Planetary protection|contamination by microorganisms from Earth}}. The successful deployment of ''any'' instrument is considered a cause for celebration, however, as deployable instruments on spacecraft have often failed to correctly extend, unfurl or undock, and the craft is equipped with a magnetometer that will be used at the end of a 8.5 meter boom as part of its closer studies.

<div style="display: flex; justify-content: center; align-items: center; margin: 1em 0;">
<div style="text-align: center; margin: 0 1em;">
[[File:Europa_-_Perijove_45_(cropped).png|200px|alt=Europa]]
<div>Europa</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center; margin: 0 1em;">
[[File:2014_0531_Crème_brûlée_Doi_Mae_Salong_(cropped).jpg|200px|alt=Crème brûlée]]
<div>Crème brûlée</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center; margin: 0 1em;">
[[File:Europa_Clipper_spacecraft_model.png|200px|alt=The Europa Clipper spacecraft]]
<div>The ''Europa Clipper'' spacecraft</div>
</div>
</div>

The title text expands on the joke by stating that the spacecraft "had BETTER" return samples of Europa to Earth. However, the ''Europa Clipper'' is not a {{w|sample-return mission}}.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:[A space probe with two rectangular solar panels, a circular dish of the front, and a very large spoon extending beneath, longer than the span of both solar panels]

:[Below the panel:]
:Good news: NASA's '''''Europa Clipper''''' is en route to Europa and has successfully deployed its crème brûlée spoon.

==Trivia==
The Clipper spacecraft was at one point to be developed alongside a lander, which was later dropped from being part of the same (or very closely partnered) mission. The latest version of the {{w|Europa Lander}} proposal is far behind the Clipper in implementation, not yet even being guaranteed funding.

Any actual sample return mission is currently far into the future of {{w|Ocean Worlds Exploration Program|the related plans for exploration}}, along with the possibility of digging deep enough into the ice to finally confirm or dismiss some of the more interesting theories about the world concerned.

In Arthur C Clarke's novel '''2010''', the monolith aliens tell humanity ''"All these worlds are yours - except Europa. Attempt no landing there."'' Contrary to the suggestion of the comic, no landing or any other physical interaction beyond observation of the surface of Europa is planned.

In {{w|Greek mythology}}, {{w|Europa (consort of Zeus)|Europa}} was said to be a {{w|Phoenician}} princess who {{w|Zeus}}, the king of the gods, abducted after transforming himself into a bull. The name of the continent Europe derives from a north-western province of ancient Greece that may have been associated with this legend. Jupiter's moon was {{w|Europa (consort of Zeus)#Moon of Jupiter|named after her}} in relatively recent times. With the caramel cream dessert believed to have been [https://archive.org/details/lagastronomieaug00sabb/page/272/mode/2up invented in Europe], this could explain why [[Randall]] suggests that the spacecraft may encounter crème brûlée and require a spoon.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Space]]
[[Category:Space probes]]
[[Category:Food]]

2989: Physics Lab Thermostat

2024-09-26T07:17:28Z

162.158.90.199: /* Explanation */ these might as well be the same paragraph

{{comic
| number = 2989
| date = September 23, 2024
| title = Physics Lab Thermostat
| image = physics_lab_thermostat_2x.png
| imagesize = 264x296px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Hopefully the HVAC people set it to only affect the AIR in the room.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a ChatGPT - as found on the talk page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic is about a "physics lab thermostat," which instead of controlling temperature, it adjusts the {{w|Boltzmann constant}} (a constant that links temperature and energy in physics, equal to 1.38×10<sup>−23</sup> J/K, where J is {{w|joule}}s, a unit of energy, and K is {{w|kelvin}}s, a unit of temperature.) The dial shows different values for the constant, implying that it can be changed, which is absurd because the Boltzmann constant is a fundamental number that stays the same throughout the universe. In reality, you can't change the Boltzmann constant, so the comic is making fun of the idea of a scientist casually adjusting a fixed law of physics as if it were something simple like room temperature.

If the Boltzmann constant could be changed, it would directly affect how we experience temperature. The constant determines how much energy particles have at a certain temperature. If the constant were increased, more energy would be associated with the same temperature, so everything would feel hotter even if the temperature stayed the same. On the other hand, if the constant were decreased, less energy would be associated with the same temperature, and everything would feel colder than usual. The thermostat dial would thus make things feel colder if it were turned clockwise, unlike regular thermostats. The equivalent energy per kelvin at a constant temperature range from 4.2 zeptojoules on the left, corresponding to 29°C (84°F) relative to the actual Boltzmann constant, to 4.0 zJ on the right, corresponding to 15°C (59°F).

Beyond just how we feel, altering the Boltzmann constant would disrupt all sorts of processes that depend on temperature, like how fast chemical reactions happen or how heat moves around. A higher constant would make particles move faster and carry more energy at a given temperature, while a lower constant would slow things down. There have previously been control panels for properties of the universe in [[1620: Christmas Settings]] and [[1763: Catcalling]]. A thermometer including units compatible with this thermostat (after dividing by 2/3) is shown in [[2292: Thermometer]].

The title text builds on the absurdity of being able to adjust the Boltzmann constant. It suggests that if the constant could be changed, hopefully, it would only affect the air in the room and not the entire universe. Imagining that the {{w|heating, ventilation, and air conditioning}} (HVAC) system could contain such a change to just the room's air shows the ridiculousness of trying to isolate the effects of altering a universal constant.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:[A black circular dial is shown with a white indicator line at the upper right. The label above the dial, enclosed in a rectangular box, says:]
:Local Boltzmann Constant
:[The two extremes of the dial are labeled as follows, the first value on the left and the second value on the right:]
:1.418×10<sup>-23</sup> J/K
:1.351×10<sup>-23</sup> J/K
:[The indicator line is pointing to a position on the dial somewhere around 1.375×10<sup>-23</sup> J/K (between the 12th and 13th large ticks clockwise out of 19 total).]
:[Caption below the panel:]
:Physics Lab Thermostat

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Physics]]

2967: Matter

2024-08-06T02:05:59Z

162.158.90.199: /* Explanation */ copyedit

{{comic
| number = 2967
| date = August 2, 2024
| title = Matter
| image = matter_2x.png
| imagesize = 234x341px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = He was the first person to land a 900, which is especially impressive because pulling off a half-integer spin requires obeying Fermi-Dirac statistics.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a GOOFY FRONTSIDE WIKI GRIND TO SECRET PHYSICS DEMO TAPE - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

In {{w|skateboarding}}, the term "goofy" means to push with the left foot, using the {{w|Footedness#Goofy_stance|opposite stance}} to the supposedly standard stance of pushing with one's right foot. The comic uses those stances as an analogy for {{w|antimatter}} in particle physics, which has the opposite electrical charge of corresponding matter particles that will annihilate each other upon collision, releasing energy proportional to their combined mass. In this comic, famed professional skateboarder {{w|Tony Hawk}} has obtained a professorship in physics and is teaching this very non-standard concept. As Tony Hawk does not have a degree in physics,{{Citation needed}} teaching inaccurate lessons could be a likely pitfall of his gaining a professorship in real life.

Hawk's presence here could in part be inspired by professor {{w|Stephen Hawking}}, a famous astrophysicist at the University of Cambridge who died in 2018. Hawk is also the subject of [[296: Tony Hawk]].

Unlike other distributions of handedness in the natural world (chemical {{w|chirality}}, or the {{w|skewness}} of {{w|Multimodal distribution|bimodal statistics}} describing asymmetries in nature called {{w|homochirality}}), 'goofy-footed' skateboarders are about as common as those using standard footing. The analogy indirectly raises the issue of {{w|baryon asymmetry}}, the observation that ordinary matter is very much more common than antimatter because there is so little evidence of annihilation throughout the universe. Baryon asymmetry is often thought to have resulted from fluctuations during {{w|Inflation (cosmology)|cosmological inflation}} between 10<sup>−33</sup> and 10<sup>−32</sup> seconds [https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.251301 after the Big Bang], although there are several other candidate explanations of varying falsifiability.

The title text describes Hawk as the first person to "land a 900," meaning the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YYTNkAdDD8&t=1m30s successful completion] of {{w|900 (skateboarding)|a skateboarding trick}} that involves two and a half rotations, i.e. nine hundred degrees (2.5 × 360° = 900°). In physics, {{w|Spin (physics)|spin}} is a {{w|quantum number}} describing subatomic particles (see [[1862: Particle Properties]]), named in reference to the vaguely analogous ''but crucially distinct'' concept of {{w|angular momentum}} in classical physics. Obeying {{w|Fermi–Dirac statistics}} requires that the particles involved are {{w|fermion}}s, which include all of the electrons, protons and neutrons that comprise the entirety of everyone's body and electrochemical state. Fermions all have {{w|half-integer}} (i.e., ...–1½, –½, ½, 1½...) {{w|spin quantum number}}s which do indeed include 2½, but only [https://physics.aps.org/articles/v7/s137 extremely rare particles] have a spin of 5/2. However, it's very important to remember that [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYeRS5a3HbE&ab_channel=ScienceClicEnglish quantum mechanical spin is ''not'' rotation, but instead how quickly the corresponding particle changes state when rotated.]

While everyone (and almost everything we ordinarily interact with except light and cosmic rays) is comprised entirely of fermions, {{w|Boson#Composite bosons|any composite particle made of an even number of fermions, including entire atoms and their nuclei, are not fermions}} but {{w|boson}}s, which do ''not'' obey Fermi–Dirac statistics. Luckily, landing a 900 does not actually require obedience to Fermi–Dirac statistics because a skateboarder comprised entirely of bosonic atoms would still have fermionic electrons in the orbitals of those atoms and thus would still obey the far more macroscopically fundamental and consequential {{w|Pauli exclusion principle}}. That principle gives almost entirely empty atoms substance, allowing you to hold things, walk, make sound waves with your voice and employ any mechanical property of matter, and allowing a sufficiently skilled skateboarder to land a 900.

==Transcript==
:[Tony Hawk (drawn with short hair) is gesturing at a narrow whiteboard on which illegible things are marked, what may be a Feynman diagram with one of the particle/antiparticle pair going into a circle (possibly representing a black hole, and thus depicting the popularized (incorrect) analogy for {{w|Hawking radiation}}), and at the bottom, a 2x3 table of illegible values.]
:Tony Hawk: In the standard model, regular matter will annihilate if it comes in contact with oppositely-charged ''goofy'' matter.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Tony Hawk becomes a physics professor

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Skateboard]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Statistics]]

2967: Matter

2024-08-05T17:13:05Z

162.158.90.199: /* Explanation */ copyedit

{{comic
| number = 2967
| date = August 2, 2024
| title = Matter
| image = matter_2x.png
| imagesize = 234x341px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = He was the first person to land a 900, which is especially impressive because pulling off a half-integer spin requires obeying Fermi-Dirac statistics.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a GOOFY FRONTSIDE WIKI GRIND TO SECRET PHYSICS DEMO TAPE - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

In {{w|skateboarding}}, the term "goofy" means to push with the left foot, using the {{w|Footedness#Goofy_stance|opposite stance}} to the supposedly standard stance of pushing with one's right foot. The comic uses the goofy stance as a analogy for {{w|antimatter}} in particle physics, which exhibits the opposite charge to ordinary matter and will annihilate both upon collision with its counterpart, releasing energy proportional to their combined mass. In this comic, famed professional skateboarder {{w|Tony Hawk}} has obtained a professorship in physics and is teaching the theory with this non-standard terminology borrowed from his other field of expertise. 'Professor' Hawk already has an early xkcd comic named after him: [[296: Tony Hawk]].

Hawk's presence here could in part be inspired by professor {{w|Stephen Hawking}}, a famous astrophysicist at the University of Cambridge who died in 2018. As Tony Hawk does not have a degree in physics,{{Citation needed}} teaching inaccurate lessons could be a likely pitfall of his gaining a professorship in real life.

Unlike other distributions of handedness in the natural world (chemical {{w|chirality}}, or the {{w|skewness}} of {{w|Multimodal distribution|bimodal statistics}} describing asymmetries in nature called {{w|homochirality}}), 'goofy-footed' skateboarders are about as common as those using standard footing. The analogy indirectly raises the issue of {{w|baryon asymmetry}}, the observation that ordinary matter is very much more common than antimatter because there is so little evidence of annihilation throughout the universe. Baryon asymmetry is often thought to have resulted from fluctuations during {{w|Inflation (cosmology)|cosmological inflation}} between 10<sup>−33</sup> and 10<sup>−32</sup> seconds [https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.251301 after the Big Bang], although there are several other candidate explanations of varying falsifiability.

The title text describes Hawk as the first person to "land a 900," meaning the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YYTNkAdDD8&t=1m30s successful completion] of {{w|900 (skateboarding)|a skateboarding trick}} that involves two and a half rotations, i.e. nine hundred degrees (2.5 × 360° = 900°). In physics, {{w|Spin (physics)|spin}} is a {{w|quantum number}} describing subatomic particles (see [[1862: Particle Properties]]), named in reference to the vaguely analogous ''but crucially distinct'' concept of {{w|angular momentum}} in classical physics. Obeying {{w|Fermi–Dirac statistics}} requires that the particles involved are {{w|fermion}}s, which include all of the electrons, protons and neutrons that comprise the entirety of everyone's body and electrochemical state. Fermions all have {{w|half-integer}} (i.e., ...–1½, –½, ½, 1½...) {{w|spin quantum number}}s which do indeed include 2½, but only [https://physics.aps.org/articles/v7/s137 extremely rare particles] have a spin of 5/2. However, it's very important to remember that [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYeRS5a3HbE&ab_channel=ScienceClicEnglish quantum mechanical spin is ''not'' rotation], but actually how quickly the corresponding particle changes state when rotated.

While everyone (and al most everything we ordinarily interact with except light and cosmic rays) is comprised entirely of fermions, {{w|Boson#Composite bosons|any composite particle made of an even number of fermions, including entire atoms and their nuclei, are not fermions}} but {{w|boson}}s, which do ''not'' obey Fermi–Dirac statistics. Luckily, landing a 900 does not actually require obedience to Fermi–Dirac statistics because a skateboarder comprised entirely of bosonic atoms would still have fermionic electrons in the orbitals of those atoms and thus would still obey the far more macroscopically fundamental and consequential {{w|Pauli exclusion principle}} (as described in [https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/pauli-lecture.pdf this 1946 lecture]). That principle gives mostly empty atoms the property of substance, allowing you to hold things, walk, make sound waves with your voice and employ any mechanical property of matter. This gives a sufficiently skilled skateboarder the ability to land a 900, as well as everything else they normally do (both on and off the skateboard).

==Transcript==
:[Tony Hawk (drawn with short hair) is gesturing at a narrow whiteboard on which illegible things are marked, what may be a Feynman diagram with one of the particle/antiparticle pair going into a circle (possibly representing a black hole, and thus depicting the popularized (incorrect) analogy for {{w|Hawking radiation}}), and at the bottom, a 2x3 table of illegible values.]
:Tony Hawk: In the standard model, regular matter will annihilate if it comes in contact with oppositely-charged ''goofy'' matter.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Tony Hawk becomes a physics professor

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Skateboard]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Statistics]]

2967: Matter

2024-08-03T03:33:41Z

162.158.90.199: /* Explanation */ l.c.

Talk:2941: Cell Organelles

2024-06-03T22:24:29Z

162.158.90.199: reply

I'm a little disappointed there isn't a continuous endoplasmic reticulum with a zigzag in it.
Rogue mathematician away [[Special:Contributions/172.71.154.77|172.71.154.77]] 19:20, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Sorry about the edit conflicts, attempting to fix.... [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.237|108.162.245.237]] 20:12, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Re [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2941:_Cell_Organelles&diff=343629&oldid=343628] is LLM use forbidden? I recall we have several ChatGPT-authored explanations, and had an ongoing discussion back when it was new. In any case, I've proofread and vouch for it, so I'm replacing the text. I encourage anyone who's bothered by it to paraphrase instead of delete. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.237|108.162.245.237]] 21:22, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Re: the chloroplasts explanation: how do we know that this is an animal cell? (Would be good to say why...) -- [[User:Dtgriscom|Dtgriscom]] ([[User talk:Dtgriscom|talk]]) 22:18, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
:The cell has a membrane instead of a wall. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.90.199|162.158.90.199]] 22:24, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

2892: Banana Prices

2024-02-13T17:37:53Z

162.158.90.199: /* Transcript */ food

{{comic
| number = 2892
| date = February 9, 2024
| title = Banana Prices
| image = banana_prices_2x.png
| imagesize = 564x378px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = It's a linear extrapolation, Michael. How big could the error be? 10%?
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a MANDALORIAN BANANA ARMORER - Please change this comment when editing this page.}}

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl_Qyk9DSUw ‘It’s one banana, Michael. What could it cost, $10?'] is a line from an {{w|Arrested Development}} episode (Season 1, Episode 6, "Charity Drive", 2003) that became a well-known meme used to mock out-of-touch elites. The character who spoke this line (Lucille Bluth, a wealthy socialite) made a satirically high estimate for the price of a banana because she had never bought her own groceries. The implication is that she sees $10 as a trivially small amount of money, and has trouble conceiving of anything that costs less. According to the graph, the banana price at the time of that episode was actually just under 25 cents, and the price at the time of this comic’s publication (2024) is around 30 cents.

The comic is a wry observation that the irony of this sitcom line will "probably" be anachronistically meaningless in a century or so, presenting three predictions of banana prices over the next 250 years that each extrapolate from the current 2024 price using different long-term inflation rates.

The three extrapolations use (1) the general inflation rate (a value dominated by the cost of housing), (2) the inflation rate for fresh fruit, and (3) 45 years of historic banana prices. Those models present the joke becoming reality around 2140, 2170 and 2250, respectively.

The caption’s claim that banana prices could exceed $10 in a century are based on the fastest rising extrapolation, the one for “general inflation.” This extrapolation predicts a banana’s price to rise from 30 cents to $10 in approximately 115 years. This 115-year increase corresponds to an average long-term inflation rate of about 3.2%, close to the historic US average.

The reference to "BLS/St. Louis FRED" refers to The {{w|Bureau of Labor Statistics}} and {{w|St. Louis Fed Financial Stress Index|St Louis FRED}}, widely respected sources of economic data. The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis maintains the FRED database; FRED stands for Federal Reserve Economic Data.

The title text continues the ignorant tone of Lucille Bluth to make two jokes.
# A satirical guess of 10% error. The humor is that the three predictions themselves (from 115 years to 220 years) predict wildly different years of a $10 banana. Economic extrapolation into the distant future is at most an educated guess, with an expected error far in excess of 10%. Guessing such small errors in such speculative projections is just as clueless as guessing that individual bananas cost so much.
# An ignorant reference to these as “linear extrapolations.” While they look linear, they are actually ''exponential'' extrapolations. The graph is log-linear, with price as a logarithmic scale on the vertical (left) axis, which makes it possible to visualize the exponential growth extrapolation as a straight line. In other words, an extrapolation line on a graph with a logarithmic scale is actually exponential.

It’s not typical to plot commodity prices on a log-scale, but maybe Randall did this to allow himself to make this subtle “linear extrapolation” joke.

This comic uses several common xkcd themes:
* '''Log scales''' and their peculiarities are a recurring xkcd theme, and this is the second comic in a row to play with logarithms (the prior one being [[2891: Log Cabin]]).
* It's also the second comic in the last four to involve '''predictions across centuries''' (i.e. [[2889: Greenhouse Effect]]).
* Another '''extrapolation''' comic includes [[605: Extrapolating]]. And this comic looks a lot like [[1007: Sustainable]].

===Discussion of price references in fiction===
It's common for fictional works to avoid mentioning actual prices or amounts of money. One reason is that presenting an actual amount risks the work becoming dated by inflation. A price that's presented as surprisingly high can lose its impact as the value of money changes, making it difficult for a punchline or a dramatic moment to land. In this case, however, the number is so exaggerated (being around 40 times higher than the actual price of a banana), that it's unlikely for inflation to impact the joke in the immediate future. Twenty years after the episode first aired, the joke works just as well as it did.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:[A graph with the x-axis showing time, from the years 1950 to around 2275. The y-axis is a log scale showing the price of a banana from $0.10 to over $10.00. A label called "Price of a banana (BLS/St. Louis ''Fred''[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/])" show a rising trend in the price of a banana. There are two dots on that trend. One is labeled "Episode airs" and the other one "Now". 3 extrapolations shown as dashed lines labeled "General inflation rate", "Fresh fruit price trend" and "Banana price trend" extend until reaching the $10 mark, indicated by 3 dots.]

:[Caption above the graph:] "It's one banana, Michael. What could it cost? $10?"

:[Caption below the panel:] That line probably has another century or so left.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Line graphs]]
[[Category:Timelines]]
[[Category:Fiction]]
[[Category:Extrapolation]]
[[Category:Food]]