explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2318: Dynamic Entropy

2020-06-12T20:54:30Z

172.69.71.56:

{{comic
| number = 2318
| date = June 11, 2020
| title = Dynamic Entropy
| image = dynamic_entropy.png
| titletext = Despite years of effort by my physics professors to normalize it, deep down I remain convinced that 'dynamical' is not really a word.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a DYNAMICAL BOT. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This is another one of [[Randall|Randall's]] [[:Category:Tips|Tips]], this time a Science Tip. This time it is a bit special since it came less than three weeks after another Science Tip: [[2311: Confidence Interval]]. This is the first time a type of tip (that was not a [[:Category:Protip|Protip]]) has been used more than once, and it was even for two "tips comics" in a row.

This Science Tip suggests that if you have a cool new concept, you should call it ''Dynamic entropy'', hence the title.

{{w|Dynamic programming}} is a mathematical optimization method and computer programming method developed by {{w|Richard Bellman}} in the 1950s. The {{w|Dynamic programming#History|History section}} of the Wikipedia article contains the full paragraph from Bellman's autobiography that contains the quote that is in the comic strip. Bellman describes how he was doing mathematical research funded by the military at a time when the Secretary of Defense had a literal pathological fear of the word "research", and by extension, "mathematical". Bellman borrowed the word "dynamic" from physics as being both accurate for his work and as a word that in plain English has positive connotations and is never used in a pejorative sense (expressing contempt or disapproval). The word "dynamic" itself comes from the Greek ''dynamikos'', "powerful", which is a positive meaning in itself, and has been applied to topics in physics that are related to motion and forces and used in ordinary English to refer to things that exert power, force, growth, and change (dynamo, dynamite, and as an adjective). Even though those things aren't always good, when they're bad, we use other words instead (e.g. cancer undergoes {{w|metastasis}}, not "dynamism").

{{w|Entropy}} is a term from physics, specifically statistical mechanics, describing a property of a thermodynamic system. When {{w|Claude Shannon}} developed a mathematical framework for studying signal processing and communications systems, which became known as {{w|Information theory}}, he struggled to come up with a proper name for one mathematical concept in his theory that quantified amount of noise or uncertainty in a signal. Computer scientist {{w|John von Neumann}} noticed the similarity of the equations with some in thermodynamics and suggested, "You should {{w|Entropy (information theory)|call it entropy}}, for two reasons. In the first place your uncertainty function has been used in statistical mechanics under that name, so it already has a name. In the second place, and more important, no one really knows what entropy really is, so in a debate you will always have the advantage." (see {{w|History of information theory#Entropy in statistical mechanics|History of information theory}}).

The naming of dynamic programming and of entropy in Information Theory are both examples of scientists choosing a name for what were at least partially very non-scientific seeming reasons. In one case because it has only positive and no negative connotations in plain English. In the other case because there is much confusion over the meaning of the word so Shannon would be free to adopt it in a new context. [[Randall]] is claiming that would make them great to put together to name some new concept; the combination will mean whatever the creator wants it to mean (even able to change mid-debate), and never sound bad the way that e.g. {{w|cold fusion}} has come to be.

Even though the caption implies that "dynamic entropy" would be available as a new name, it has actually been used in physics<ref>Allegrini, P., Douglas, J. F., & Glotzer, S. C. (1999). Dynamic entropy as a measure of caging and persistent particle motion in supercooled liquids. Physical Review E, 60(5), 5714, doi: 10.1103/physreve.60.5714.</ref>, probability<ref>Asadi, M., Ebrahimi, N., Hamedani, G., & Soofi, E. (2004). Maximum Dynamic Entropy Models. Journal of Applied Probability, 41(2), 379-390. Retrieved June 11, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/3216023</ref>, computer science<ref>S. Satpathy et al., "An All-Digital Unified Static/Dynamic Entropy Generator Featuring Self-Calibrating Hierarchical Von Neumann Extraction for Secure Privacy-Preserving Mutual Authentication in IoT Mote Platforms," 2018 IEEE Symposium on VLSI Circuits, Honolulu, HI, 2018, pp. 169-170, doi: 10.1109/VLSIC.2018.8502369.</ref>, and even the term "dynamical entropy" in physics<ref>Green, J. R., Costa, A. B., Grzybowski, B. A., & Szleifer, I. (2013). Relationship between dynamical entropy and energy dissipation far from thermodynamic equilibrium. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(41), 16339-16343.</ref><ref>Słomczyński, W., & Szczepanek, A. (2017). Quantum dynamical entropy, chaotic unitaries and complex Hadamard matrices. IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, 63(12), 7821-7831, doi: 10.1109/TIT.2017.2751507.</ref> and bioscience<ref>Chakrabarti, C. G., & Ghosh, K. (2013). Dynamical entropy via entropy of non-random matrices: Application to stability and complexity in modelling ecosystems. Mathematical biosciences, 245(2), 278-281, doi: 10.1016/j.mbs.2013.07.016.</ref>.

In the title text Randall mentions that, even though his physics professors have continued to use the word "dynamical", "trying to normalize it" by repetitive usage, he remains convinced that it is not really a word. Presumably he doesn't like that it has two suffixes used to make words into adjectives, -ic and -al, as if "dynamic" wasn't already positive enough. The [https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Commonly-Confused-Suffixes-ic-vs-ical.htm#:~:text=Words%20ending%20in%20%E2%80%9C%2Dic%E2%80%9D,are%20notoriously%20difficult%20to%20distinguish Free Dictionary] discusses how -ic and -ical suffixes are confused in many common words and explains their different uses.

The term "dynamical" in physics generally is used in "{{w|Dynamical system}}" or as an adjective to name a concept as applied to dynamical systems such as "dynamical entropy"<ref>Atmanspacher, H. (1997). Dynamical entropy in dynamical systems. In Time, temporality, now (pp. 327-346). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-60707-3_22</ref>.

==References==
<references />

==Transcript==
:[One panel only with text and a few lines and arrows. There are two columns each with a heading. Beneath each heading is a quote written on four lines. Below the quote, in grey font, and indented, starting with a hyphen, with the text aligned to the right of this are five lines of text. This explains who the quote belongs too and where it was stated (in brackets at the end). From the bottom of each of these two gray text paragraphs gray curved arrows goes down to two gray lines. Below each of these two lines are one large word per line. They are again in black text.]
:<big>Dynamic</big>
:"It's impossible to use the word 'dynamic' in the pejorative sense... Thus, I thought 'Dynamic Programming' was a good name."
::<font color="gray">- Richard Bellman, explaining how he picked a name for his math research to try to protect it from criticism (''Eye of the Hurricane'', 1984)</font>

:<big>Entropy</big>
:"You should call it 'Entropy'... No one knows what entropy really is, so in a debate you will always have the advantage."
::<font color="gray">- John von Neumann, to Claude Shannon, on why he should borrow the physics term in information theory (as told to Myron Tribus)</font>

:::<big><big>'''''Dynamic Entropy'''''</big></big>

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Science Tip: If you have a cool concept you need a name for, try "Dynamic Entropy."

== Trivia ==

Many of {{w|Buckminster Fuller}}'s designs and works were associated with the word "{{w|dymaxion}}", a combination of the words "dynamic", "maximum", and "tension", all words that Fuller himself used a lot in talking about his work, and which are words that simultaneously have use in science and positive connotations in lay English.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Tips]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Physics]]

Talk:2313: Wrong Times Table

2020-06-04T15:02:02Z

172.69.71.56: Fixed spelling

I wonder if there is such a mathematical expression which follows the definition of "multiplication" as in advanced calculus which actually provides the results on the table; i.e, some sort of bijective homomorphism that maps v: V*V --> V

Such an illogical table. Smaller numbers multiply to larger answers than larger numbers? Even numbers multiply to odd numbers?! How?!?! What sort of illiterate alien declared this to be the multiplication table?! [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.101|108.162.221.101]] 20:54, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
:Feels like an element of logarithmic thinking, like the idea that the space between 1 and 2 is greater than between 99 and 100, or that 3 is halfway to nine. [[User:ancepsinfans|ancepsinfans]] 21:24, 2 June 2020 (MSK)

This is easily one of the worst XKCD comics, period. Not funny, nor clever. Just seems like noise. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.68.183|172.69.68.183]] 20:57, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
:I suspect Randall may have just been feeling random, perhaps after several months of mostly Coronavirus-related comics. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 21:13, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
::That's fair, I'm being a bit harsh, but this just comes across as exceptionally meaningless and contrived, so much so that I felt the need to come here and comment immediately for the first time ever [[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.56|172.69.71.56]] 21:18, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
:I relate to certain mathematical facts not sounding right, like how 54 intuitively feels like it's divisible by 4. Nonsensical, but makes sense anyway. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.233|162.158.62.233]] 21:42, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

This seems like the multiplication equivalent of looking at a word and thinking it is spelled incorrectly. Sometimes I look at a simple word like "fish" and think: "That can't be right." Sometimes multiplication can feel that way, particularly 7's because those were tricky for some reason. The alt text confirms fishiness with 7's [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.173|108.162.246.173]] 21:09, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
:Is it weird that I ''don't'' get this? I have this sense of "that is obviously wrong" when it comes to multiplication of small numbers like these, even with sevens and eights. If I read that 7 * 8 = 54, my brain screams "NOOOOOOOOO IT IS 56 YOU IDIOT!". [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.101|108.162.221.101]] 21:14, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
::It's lucky for you! Careless errors [of all types] can be annoying, and sometimes difficult to locate... Some of us have ingrained this information better than others. (This comic seems less like a joke and more sharing a hindrance Randall suffers from when doing arithmetic. And speaking personally, I can certainly relate to that.)[[Special:Contributions/162.158.78.50|162.158.78.50]] 18:05, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
::I wouldn't say it's weird, but maybe you don't get it because you're better at the memorisation or multiplication that we were taught in school. Try spending a few hours working in base nine or base thirteen, you might see how you commonly make the same errors. I know that I have difficulty with multiplying even small numbers, so I take longer to do it so I infrequently make these common errors. But I do like to work in other bases occasionally so I can vaguely relate to the subject matter of this comic. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.41|162.158.74.41]] 18:20, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
::I never fully memorized the times tables, to this day (50+ years later) I use tricks... 7*6? Well, I know the 5's, and 7*5=35, so now add another seven.... 42? I've always preferred to understand how to get to an answer than to memorize the answer, for some reason. Stuff I use frequently or that are especially useful (i.e. 5's) I end up memorizing of course, but things like 7's not so much. I suspect Randall is the same way. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 16:49, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
:::In fact, your example, where 7*8 screams 56 to you? I used my method and, like Randall, kept coming up with 54. 8*5=40, plus two more sevens (14) = 54. Feels right, but for some reason it's not. Took some head scratching to realize... it should have been two more EIGHTS, not two more sevens. Here's where the memorization thing would have been better. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 16:55, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Well, 2,2 that's actually 2^3=8. 2,3 is addition instead of multiplication. 1,2 is division instead of multiplication. 1,1 is subtraction. 10,10 seems to be a visual gag, though most of the 10s row is either multiplication by 11 or 12... There's some logic to some of these, but it's different for each row, column, or cell. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.167|162.158.74.167]] 21:13, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
:Yeah, there is something going on. It looks like a lot of it is remembering the correct answer to a different problem. By my count 55 squares are the correct answer to a square next to it and 31 have a correct answer for somewhere else on the grid. Also, 2*2, 4*4 and 5*5 are double the correct answer.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.76|108.162.245.76]] 21:41, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

It's almost disappointing that he didn't hide one or two asymmetries in there just to throw us off! [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.114|108.162.216.114]] 22:04, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
:I think that was his nerd-snipe, there are no asymmetries (currently). [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.41|162.158.74.41]] 18:20, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

I get the idea that this is the sort of table you'd get if you tried to train an Adversarial AI from scratch to determine x*y purely by stochastic guessing and comparing to a co-evolving 'scorer' that also starts off naively but supports each answer according to the 'rightness' it thinks it has ''except'' for the real answer which is always hard-coded to be down-scored. (Also noting that DA reportedly came by his choice of 42 by asking people which numbers were 'funnier' than others, which can be said to be a similar kind of process but without the arrayed "original multiplication" element.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.179|162.158.158.179]] 22:13, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

As someone who often confuses 7*8 as 54, I found the alt text very humorous. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.118|172.69.34.118]] 22:29, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm disappointed to see that 6*9 isn't equal to 42. [[User:Probably not Douglas Hofstadter|Probably not Douglas Hofstadter]] ([[User talk:Probably not Douglas Hofstadter|talk]]) 23:01, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

This is just a collection of equations with the wrong answers. I'm not sure who finds this funny. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.96|108.162.219.96]] 00:33, 30 May 2020 (UTC)
:It's not funny per se, it's relatable.

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1210:_I%27m_So_Random[[User:Overlord of oddities|Overlord of oddities]] ([[User talk:Overlord of oddities|talk]]) 01:16, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

I have asked [https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/q/205425/67157 a Code Golf Stack Exchange question] with the goal of producing the shortest program that computes this function. [[User:Aaron Rotenberg|Aaron Rotenberg]] ([[User talk:Aaron Rotenberg|talk]]) 02:29, 30 May 2020 (UTC) @Aaron I had a similar thought, but was going to settle for the generator function for the main diagonal. If we can come up with one, we should submit it to https://oeis.org/ [[User:Cellocgw|Cellocgw]] ([[User talk:Cellocgw|talk]]) 13:30, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm disappointed that 17 does not show up in any product cell, seeing as I've known since at least 1970 that 17 is the world's most random number. <-- a fact proved for a limited case here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JPSJL7Kvus [[User:Cellocgw|Cellocgw]] ([[User talk:Cellocgw|talk]]) 13:35, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

I too was unimpressed with this... unitl I got to the alt text. I'm in my sixties now, and for some reason, 8*7 has ALWAYS been difficult for me. I find myself always doube-checking to make sure I did it right. And 6*7 gave me problems too, but I got over that a few decades ago. I wonder what it is about those that gave us trouble. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.75|162.158.62.75]] 14:35, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

I do not believe that the table was constructed rationally, but intuitively by Randall. He took the two factors (in both permutations) and thought, which resulting number he felt best about. It is more like a psychological experiment than a table constructed with a system or code in mind. Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.89.193|162.158.89.193]] 16:27, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Am I the only one who reads the author's intention slightly differently? I don't think that he intended that these values feel more correct than the real multiplication table. Rather, I thought he meant that from all possible ''wrong'' values, these feel ''most'' correct to him. In this way, I at least could sympathise with many values given here. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.238.216|162.158.238.216]] 17:34, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
:Agreed--he doesn't feel that the answers are incorrect, but rather, if he were given the problem on a test, "True or False: One times two equals one half.", he'd have to think for a minute. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.78.50|162.158.78.50]] 18:08, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
::I just edited that (first) bit, myself, before seeing your comments. I hope this version is better for you (might need further editing later in the paragraph, but stil considering this). [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.201|162.158.158.201]] 19:12, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't know whether I am reading too much into this, but couldn't it be an allusion to all contemporary anti-science and anti-rational movements? We hear a lot of times from this kind of people that they do not need big professors to tell them what is true, because they now what "feels right" to them. What feels right to them may be just as wrong as this multiplication table, but that does not stop them to keep believing it. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.69.135|141.101.69.135]] 21:28, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

"...this probably doesn't mean anything." Douglas Adams himself confirmed that the 6*9 in base 13 was a coincidence. He said himself in a BBC interview, "I don't make jokes in base thirteen." --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.26|108.162.237.26]] 02:22, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

"The title text (referencing Randall's suspicion that 6x7=42 may be wrong) is an allusion to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," Are we sure that this is an allusion to HGG? Not everything that has 42 is an allusion to HHG, there's no mention of the ultimate question or answer, nothing but a comment that 6x7 doesn't feel like it should be 42. Seems pretty irrelevant to include it in the explanation.[[User:Argis13|Argis13]] ([[User talk:Argis13|talk]]) 23:22, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Oh, haven't had a "Randy, get out of my head" moment for a while. After the rhyme and reason of 5x5 and 6x6 the multiplication by 7 has always felt off to me, too.

All of use who spent a few hours trying to find a formula have been nerd-sniped. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.56|172.69.71.56]] 15:02, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Talk:2313: Wrong Times Table

2020-06-04T15:00:46Z

172.69.71.56:

I wonder if there is such a mathematical expression which follows the definition of "multiplication" as in advanced calculus which actually provides the results on the table; i.e, some sort of bijective homomorphism that maps v: V*V --> V

Such an illogical table. Smaller numbers multiply to larger answers than larger numbers? Even numbers multiply to odd numbers?! How?!?! What sort of illiterate alien declared this to be the multiplication table?! [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.101|108.162.221.101]] 20:54, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
:Feels like an element of logarithmic thinking, like the idea that the space between 1 and 2 is greater than between 99 and 100, or that 3 is halfway to nine. [[User:ancepsinfans|ancepsinfans]] 21:24, 2 June 2020 (MSK)

This is easily one of the worst XKCD comics, period. Not funny, nor clever. Just seems like noise. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.68.183|172.69.68.183]] 20:57, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
:I suspect Randall may have just been feeling random, perhaps after several months of mostly Coronavirus-related comics. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 21:13, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
::That's fair, I'm being a bit harsh, but this just comes across as exceptionally meaningless and contrived, so much so that I felt the need to come here and comment immediately for the first time ever [[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.56|172.69.71.56]] 21:18, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
:I relate to certain mathematical facts not sounding right, like how 54 intuitively feels like it's divisible by 4. Nonsensical, but makes sense anyway. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.233|162.158.62.233]] 21:42, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

This seems like the multiplication equivalent of looking at a word and thinking it is spelled incorrectly. Sometimes I look at a simple word like "fish" and think: "That can't be right." Sometimes multiplication can feel that way, particularly 7's because those were tricky for some reason. The alt text confirms fishiness with 7's [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.173|108.162.246.173]] 21:09, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
:Is it weird that I ''don't'' get this? I have this sense of "that is obviously wrong" when it comes to multiplication of small numbers like these, even with sevens and eights. If I read that 7 * 8 = 54, my brain screams "NOOOOOOOOO IT IS 56 YOU IDIOT!". [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.101|108.162.221.101]] 21:14, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
::It's lucky for you! Careless errors [of all types] can be annoying, and sometimes difficult to locate... Some of us have ingrained this information better than others. (This comic seems less like a joke and more sharing a hindrance Randall suffers from when doing arithmetic. And speaking personally, I can certainly relate to that.)[[Special:Contributions/162.158.78.50|162.158.78.50]] 18:05, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
::I wouldn't say it's weird, but maybe you don't get it because you're better at the memorisation or multiplication that we were taught in school. Try spending a few hours working in base nine or base thirteen, you might see how you commonly make the same errors. I know that I have difficulty with multiplying even small numbers, so I take longer to do it so I infrequently make these common errors. But I do like to work in other bases occasionally so I can vaguely relate to the subject matter of this comic. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.41|162.158.74.41]] 18:20, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
::I never fully memorized the times tables, to this day (50+ years later) I use tricks... 7*6? Well, I know the 5's, and 7*5=35, so now add another seven.... 42? I've always preferred to understand how to get to an answer than to memorize the answer, for some reason. Stuff I use frequently or that are especially useful (i.e. 5's) I end up memorizing of course, but things like 7's not so much. I suspect Randall is the same way. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 16:49, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
:::In fact, your example, where 7*8 screams 56 to you? I used my method and, like Randall, kept coming up with 54. 8*5=40, plus two more sevens (14) = 54. Feels right, but for some reason it's not. Took some head scratching to realize... it should have been two more EIGHTS, not two more sevens. Here's where the memorization thing would have been better. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 16:55, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Well, 2,2 that's actually 2^3=8. 2,3 is addition instead of multiplication. 1,2 is division instead of multiplication. 1,1 is subtraction. 10,10 seems to be a visual gag, though most of the 10s row is either multiplication by 11 or 12... There's some logic to some of these, but it's different for each row, column, or cell. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.167|162.158.74.167]] 21:13, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
:Yeah, there is something going on. It looks like a lot of it is remembering the correct answer to a different problem. By my count 55 squares are the correct answer to a square next to it and 31 have a correct answer for somewhere else on the grid. Also, 2*2, 4*4 and 5*5 are double the correct answer.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.76|108.162.245.76]] 21:41, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

It's almost disappointing that he didn't hide one or two asymmetries in there just to throw us off! [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.114|108.162.216.114]] 22:04, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
:I think that was his nerd-snipe, there are no asymmetries (currently). [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.41|162.158.74.41]] 18:20, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

I get the idea that this is the sort of table you'd get if you tried to train an Adversarial AI from scratch to determine x*y purely by stochastic guessing and comparing to a co-evolving 'scorer' that also starts off naively but supports each answer according to the 'rightness' it thinks it has ''except'' for the real answer which is always hard-coded to be down-scored. (Also noting that DA reportedly came by his choice of 42 by asking people which numbers were 'funnier' than others, which can be said to be a similar kind of process but without the arrayed "original multiplication" element.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.179|162.158.158.179]] 22:13, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

As someone who often confuses 7*8 as 54, I found the alt text very humorous. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.118|172.69.34.118]] 22:29, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm disappointed to see that 6*9 isn't equal to 42. [[User:Probably not Douglas Hofstadter|Probably not Douglas Hofstadter]] ([[User talk:Probably not Douglas Hofstadter|talk]]) 23:01, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

This is just a collection of equations with the wrong answers. I'm not sure who finds this funny. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.96|108.162.219.96]] 00:33, 30 May 2020 (UTC)
:It's not funny per se, it's relatable.

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1210:_I%27m_So_Random[[User:Overlord of oddities|Overlord of oddities]] ([[User talk:Overlord of oddities|talk]]) 01:16, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

I have asked [https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/q/205425/67157 a Code Golf Stack Exchange question] with the goal of producing the shortest program that computes this function. [[User:Aaron Rotenberg|Aaron Rotenberg]] ([[User talk:Aaron Rotenberg|talk]]) 02:29, 30 May 2020 (UTC) @Aaron I had a similar thought, but was going to settle for the generator function for the main diagonal. If we can come up with one, we should submit it to https://oeis.org/ [[User:Cellocgw|Cellocgw]] ([[User talk:Cellocgw|talk]]) 13:30, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm disappointed that 17 does not show up in any product cell, seeing as I've known since at least 1970 that 17 is the world's most random number. <-- a fact proved for a limited case here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JPSJL7Kvus [[User:Cellocgw|Cellocgw]] ([[User talk:Cellocgw|talk]]) 13:35, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

I too was unimpressed with this... unitl I got to the alt text. I'm in my sixties now, and for some reason, 8*7 has ALWAYS been difficult for me. I find myself always doube-checking to make sure I did it right. And 6*7 gave me problems too, but I got over that a few decades ago. I wonder what it is about those that gave us trouble. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.75|162.158.62.75]] 14:35, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

I do not believe that the table was constructed rationally, but intuitively by Randall. He took the two factors (in both permutations) and thought, which resulting number he felt best about. It is more like a psychological experiment than a table constructed with a system or code in mind. Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.89.193|162.158.89.193]] 16:27, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Am I the only one who reads the author's intention slightly differently? I don't think that he intended that these values feel more correct than the real multiplication table. Rather, I thought he meant that from all possible ''wrong'' values, these feel ''most'' correct to him. In this way, I at least could sympathise with many values given here. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.238.216|162.158.238.216]] 17:34, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
:Agreed--he doesn't feel that the answers are incorrect, but rather, if he were given the problem on a test, "True or False: One times two equals one half.", he'd have to think for a minute. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.78.50|162.158.78.50]] 18:08, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
::I just edited that (first) bit, myself, before seeing your comments. I hope this version is better for you (might need further editing later in the paragraph, but stil considering this). [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.201|162.158.158.201]] 19:12, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't know whether I am reading too much into this, but couldn't it be an allusion to all contemporary anti-science and anti-rational movements? We hear a lot of times from this kind of people that they do not need big professors to tell them what is true, because they now what "feels right" to them. What feels right to them may be just as wrong as this multiplication table, but that does not stop them to keep believing it. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.69.135|141.101.69.135]] 21:28, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

"...this probably doesn't mean anything." Douglas Adams himself confirmed that the 6*9 in base 13 was a coincidence. He said himself in a BBC interview, "I don't make jokes in base thirteen." --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.26|108.162.237.26]] 02:22, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

"The title text (referencing Randall's suspicion that 6x7=42 may be wrong) is an allusion to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," Are we sure that this is an allusion to HGG? Not everything that has 42 is an allusion to HHG, there's no mention of the ultimate question or answer, nothing but a comment that 6x7 doesn't feel like it should be 42. Seems pretty irrelevant to include it in the explanation.[[User:Argis13|Argis13]] ([[User talk:Argis13|talk]]) 23:22, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Oh, haven't had a "Randy, get out of my head" moment for a while. After the rhyme and reason of 5x5 and 6x6 the multiplication by 7 has always felt off to me, too.

All of use who spent a few hours trying to find the answer have been nerd-sniped. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.56|172.69.71.56]] 15:00, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Talk:2313: Wrong Times Table

2020-05-29T21:18:24Z

172.69.71.56:

Such an illogical table. Smaller numbers multiply to larger answers than larger numbers? Even numbers multiply to odd numbers?! How?!?! What sort of illiterate alien declared this to be the multiplication table?! [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.101|108.162.221.101]] 20:54, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

This is easily one of the worst XKCD comics, period. Not funny, nor clever. Just seems like noise. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.68.183|172.69.68.183]] 20:57, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
:I suspect Randall may have just been feeling random, perhaps after several months of mostly Coronavirus-related comics. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 21:13, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
::That's fair, I'm being a bit harsh, but this just comes across as exceptionally meaningless and contrived, so much so that I felt the need to come here and comment immediately for the first time ever [[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.56|172.69.71.56]] 21:18, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

This seems like the multiplication equivalent of looking at a word and thinking it is spelled incorrectly. Sometimes I look at a simple word like "fish" and think: "That can't be right." Sometimes multiplication can feel that way, particularly 7's because those were tricky for some reason. The alt text confirms fishiness with 7's [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.173|108.162.246.173]] 21:09, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
:Is it weird that I ''don't'' get this? I have this sense of "that is obviously wrong" when it comes to multiplication of small numbers like these, even with sevens and eights. If I read that 7 * 8 = 54, my brain screams "NOOOOOOOOO IT IS 56 YOU IDIOT!". [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.101|108.162.221.101]] 21:14, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Well, 2,2 that's actually 2^3=8. 2,3 is addition instead of multiplication. 1,2 is division instead of multiplication. 1,1 is subtraction. 10,10 seems to be a visual gag, though most of the 10s row is either multiplication by 11 or 12... There's some logic to some of these, but it's different for each row, column, or cell. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.167|162.158.74.167]] 21:13, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

2265: Tax AI

2020-02-07T17:21:04Z

172.69.71.56:

{{comic
| number = 2265
| date = February 7, 2020
| title = Tax AI
| image = tax_ai.png
| titletext = I ended up getting my tax return prepared at a local place by a really friendly pretrained neural net named Greg.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a PRETRAINED NEURAL NET. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

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

{{comic discussion}}

2265: Tax AI

2020-02-07T17:20:42Z

172.69.71.56: Updated "incomplete" tag

{{comic
| number = 2265
| date = February 7, 2020
| title = Tax AI
| image = tax_ai.png
| titletext = I ended up getting my tax return prepared at a local place by a really friendly pretrained neural net named Greg.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a PRE-TRAINED NEURAL NET. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

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

{{comic discussion}}