explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2983: Monocaster

2024-09-13T09:11:05Z

172.70.58.3: /* Explanation */ Simplifying this over-long bit. (The prior para is over-long, too, with irrelevent/shortenable information.)

{{comic
| number = 2983
| date = September 9, 2024
| title = Monocaster
| image = monocaster_2x.png
| imagesize = 536x673px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = My competitors say the tiny single tiny caster is unsafe, unstable, and offers no advantages over traditional designs, to which I say: wow, why are you guys so mean? I thought we were friends!
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a LAPTOP-CONTROLLED HAMSTER BALL - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
A caster, also spelled castor, is a small unpowered wheel, usually attached to a swiveling base. They are typically found on carts and office chairs to make them easy to move, and may be placed on heavy appliances to facilitate movement.

Randall has proposed a variant of the skateboard with only one caster on the bottom, the titular "monocaster", and devoted most of the comic to a {{w|Perceptual mapping|perceptual map}} showing the variety of wheeled vehicles. Market strategists and investors use such diagrams as a simple way of representing important differences between products or companies, but where a consumer might be more concerned with features like speed, cost, ease of use, or carrying capacity, this map focuses on the number of wheels (horizontal axis) and the diameter of those wheels (vertical axis).

Each axis uses a logarithmic scale, which is convenient for making the map look more evenly filled but also visually exaggerates the size of the "key gap" that the monocaster is filling, which can be described as "vehicle with a single wheel smaller than 25 cm". The nearest competitors appear to be a two-wheel skateboard sometimes called a {{w|caster board}} (wheel diameter under 8 cm) and a single-wheel self-balancing board resembling a {{w|Onewheel}} (diameter around 25 cm). The Onewheel is sometimes described as a {{w|monowheel}} (though these are traditionally larger like the "1920s monowheel" on the upper left). Randall appears to have combined these two names to create the monocaster. This gives up several of the competitors' features - the caster board's two wheels provide enough stability to propel the vehicle manually, while the Onewheel's single wheel is wide (assisting with sideways balance) and powered by a self-balancing mechanism.

The result resembles a {{w|Balance board#Sphere-and-ring|"Sphere-and-ring" balance board}}, or other types, though these provide limited locomotion potential. The joke depends on the caster's obvious impracticality in this role: the hole in the market was open ''for a reason''. The obvious drawback to any single-wheeled vehicle is that it's difficult to balance: the rider has to avoid falling forward or backward, as well as to either side. This is a major reason why one-wheeled vehicles are uncommon to begin with, but those vehicles which do exist compensate by using relatively large wheels, driven either by human power or a motor, which creates rotational inertia and allows the rider to balance simply by leaning forward.

A single, small, undriven wheel eliminates these balancing forces, meaning that the user would essentially need to balance on a single point. Also, most casters swivel, meaning that the balance point would move around under the rider's feet and make it even more difficult to balance. In addition, there's no apparent means of propulsion, which means the only way to move forward would be to either roll exclusively downhill, or use one foot to push off the ground. Either strategy would make retaining balance almost impossible.

Multiple wheeled vehicles greatly reduce the issue of balance simply by having multiple points of contact with the ground. The size of the wheels varies greatly; small, rigid wheels are generally suitable only for flat, smooth, rigid surfaces at relatively slow speeds, while vehicles expected to handle high speeds and varying road (and off-road) conditions will necessarily have larger wheels.

The "monocaster" design offers no advantages and would be nearly unrideable, making it obvious why such a vehicle has never been seriously proposed.

The title text extends the joke by listing the disadvantages mentioned above, but not providing a rebuttal. Instead it only attempts an emotional appeal by saying that the competitors are being mean and by commenting that Randall believed they were friends.

{| class=wikitable
! scope="col" | Vehicle
! scope=“col” | Number of wheels
! scope=“col” | Wheel Diameter
! scope="col" | Explanation
|-
| 1920s Monowheel || 1 || 3 meters || A monowheel is a vehicle in which the rider sits inside a single, large, hollow wheel. Versions have existed which were hand- or pedal cranked, but the "1920s" version portrayed here is apparently motor-driven. These vehicles have generally been seen as novelties, as their stability and practicality issues limit their usefulness for actual transport.
|-
| Unicycle || 1 || 45 centimeters || Probably the best known single-wheeled form of transport, a unicycle consists of a single wheel, directly drive by pedals, with a seat mounted on top. Due to their difficulty, they're generally been used as novelties and for comic performances more than as practical transport.
|-
| OneWheel || 1 || 20 centimeters || A one-wheeled electric skateboard in which the user stands on both sides of a large, central wheel. The design self-balances by increasing the velocity as the user leans forward. This allows balancing and speed control to operate in a single motion.
|-
| Bicycle || 2 || 45 centimeters || A two-wheeled, pedal-driven vehicle. The relatively simple, inexpensive and efficient design of these vehicles makes them practical for transport in a variety of situations. As a result, they've long been among the most popular and widely produced vehicles in the world.
|-
| Scooter || 2 || 8 centimeters (*) || A two-wheeled vehicle driven either by pushing with a foot or by an electric motor or fuel-powered engine. Scooters are ridden both for recreation and as a form of transportation in cities.
|-
| Heelys || 2 || 1 centimeter (*) || Heelys are shoes with small wheels built into the back end of the soles, putting them underneath the wearer's heels (which is what the name is derived from). Heelys allow the user access to wheeled movement by pushing off the ground and balancing on the wheels. While this is not as fast or comfortable as a dedicated wheeled vehicle, the movement being limited to sufficiently flat surfaces, and them not being as comfortable as regular shoes, Heelys allow for both walking and rolling without having to carry a seperate wheeled vehicle.
|-
| Tricycle || 3 || 20 centimeters || Appears to be a {{w|Big Wheel (tricycle)|"Big Wheel" type}} child's toy, which actually have smaller 'trailing wheels', rather than either {{w|Tricycle#Upright|upright}} or {{w|Tricycle#Recumbent|recumbent}} style cycles for adults which ''usually'' match the wheel-sizes of their bicycle equivalents.
|-
| Scooter (three-wheeled) || 3 || 3 centimeters (*) ||
|-
| Monster Truck || 4 || 2.5 meters || Monster trucks are very large vehicles with four large wheels. They are almost always driven as part of events where specifically trained drivers that use them to perform dangerous stunts and crush smaller vehicles. Because of their size, the danger to other vehicle, often very poor mileage, and design choices that can be in violation of local laws and regulations regarding motorized vehicles monster trucks are not driven on public roads and have to be transported in dedicated trailers, making them poor choices for transport where one has to leave private property.
|-
| Car || 4 || 50 centimeters || Cars are motorized vehicles designed to move one or more people and an amount of goods around fast. While almost all cars have four wheels (discounting reserve wheels), there are a few that have more than four (certain limousines) or fewer (the Reliant Robin only has one wheel in the front). Cars are more expensive than most options on the chart due to their higher cost, the use of fuel and maintenance requiring specialized knowledge (and sometimes replacement parts), they make up for this with their speed, access to (at least in most of the world) an extensive system of roads and refueling stations, the ability to move a number of people and goods (how much depends on the exact type of car and how much of either the car is already carrying), and the comfort of being in what is almost always an enclosed and air conditioned compartment. Because of the potential danger of an object of a car's size and speed, drivers are required to perform a test of their ability to both control the vehicle and be aware of other traffic to obtain a license to drive one. Cars are a common source of leisure, with interests ranging from driving them normally, driving them as part of a race, maintaining them or enjoying luxury cars.
|-
| ATV || 4 || 20 centimeters (*) ||
|-
| Skateboard || 4 || 2 centimeters (*) ||
|-
| Three-Wheel Skates|| 6 || 4 centimeters (*) || Three-wheeled skates are a type of inline skate (shoes with a line of wheels affixed underneath the shoe) that differ from the more commonly used four wheeled inline skates by having three larger wheels. They are inexpensive and easy to maintain, but they require significant skill to use effectively and the user is reliant on smooth surfaces to skate around on. Another downside is that the wheels cannot be removed from the shoes, requiring the user to either carry an extra pair or have an extra pair at their destination.
|-
| Roller Skates|| 8 || 2 centimeters (*) || Roller skates are shoes with small wheels underneath them in a rectangular pattern. This makes roller skates much more stable than inline skates, allowing users to stand on them with more ease. Like inline skates they are cheap and low maintenance, but in order to move any significant distance without support they require a skilled user, smooth surfaces and the user needs backup shoes when taking them off.
|-
| Semi-Trailer Truck (Articulated Lorry) || 10-18 || 1 meter || A semi-trailer truck is a motorized vehicle designed to pull trailers that can be easily decoupled from the truck itself. This allows the truck to switch trailers and move a different cargo without having to unload the trailer. The name in brackets that was used here (articulated lorry) is a name most commonly used in British English (or "artic", for short), with articulation meaning that the truck can swivel at the point where the truck connects to the trailer. This allows for the truck to make much tighter turns than if it were one long vehicle, which is another advantage of this configuration, with typically more stability than with a {{w|Drawbar (haulage)|drawbar}} attachment. Trucks are designed to haul cargo for long distances, with the cargo in question being either too heavy or too large to carry with a smaller hopper, tanker, hard-/soft-sided container or flatbed placed entirely upon a single truck chassis. They are driven either by drivers employed by a transport company, or by self-employed individuals who haul cargo for a living. A specialized license is required to drive one, and because of their size (even without a trailer), trucks have more limitations on where they can drive and park than normal cars. Like cars, trucks are a source of leisure, but because of the higher cost to purchase, maintain and drive them, they are more often enjoyed for their aesthetics rather than actually driving them for leisure. There are events like races for trucks, and trucks can be given elaborate paint jobs to have them stand out.
The number of wheels is for both the {{w|Tractor unit#Axles|truck}} and a {{w|Semi-trailer#Types|trailer}}, which can each differ vastly between vehicle configurations. The truck in the comic has five ''obvious'' axle-sets (thus at least ten actual wheels): a single pair of front wheels, two pairs of trailer-bearing rear wheels and two pairs of wheels on the trailer itself. The drawing of the truck actually spans the axis range of three wheels (unlikely to be true, and the minumum for a tractor-trailer would normally be six) all the way up to 16, so it's not entirely clear which number (≥10) Randall intends this one to portray.
|}

(*) It seems that Randall has made some mistakes in regards to the wheel sizes especially in the centimeter range of the diagram. Most of the vehicles have bigger wheels and the number would suggest hat he meant inches instead of centimeters.

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

:[A chart picturing many wheeled vehicles with a caption below the chart window. The vertical axis is labeled "Wheel Diameter", logarithmic from 1cm to 5m. The horizontal axis is labeled "Number of wheels", logarithmic from 1 to 16. From top left to bottom right, there is a person with a cap, seated in a circle, labeled "1920s monowheel", a monster truck with a skull and a lightning bolt on the side, a lorry (truck), a Cueball on a unicycle moving back and forth, a Cueball on a bicycle, a car, a Cueball using a Onewheel, a Cueball on a child's "Big Wheel" tricycle, a Cueball on a quad, a Cueball standing on a scooter, a Cueball standing on a board with one small wheel bellow, circled and labeled with two question marks, a three-wheel scooter, a skater, a Cueball using three-wheel skates, labeled "three-wheel skates", a Cueball crouching and using skates, and a small Cueball using shoes with wheels (Heelys) moving forward.]
:Caption: My new monocaster board fills a key gap in the wheeled vehicle market.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Characters with hats]]
[[Category:Skateboard]]

2982: Water Filtration

2024-09-09T15:54:55Z

172.70.58.3: /* Explanation */ Seems to be only the original additives (that haven't been subtracted yet), arriving in water coming in via a 'filters-bypassing' supply.

{{comic
| number = 2982
| date = September 6, 2024
| title = Water Filtration
| image = water_filtration_2x.png
| imagesize = 593x467px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = You'd think the most expensive part would be the quark-gluon plasma chamber, but it's actually usually the tube to the top of the atmosphere to carry the cosmic rays down.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by WATER. JUST PLAIN WATER. NOTHING DONE TO IT, JUST PLAIN WATER. POSSIBLY DRINKABLE. - Do NOT <s>drink the water</s> delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic seems to be a diagram of how well water is purified, a common procedure done to make said water safe to drink. However, this well water is "purified" through a series of increasingly unnecessary, expensive, and possibly hazardous steps, ending with producing "pure" water synthesized from hydrogen and oxygen (which have each been synthesized from subatomic particles) - before promptly undoing most of the work by re-adding raw well water, and its original minerals and probiotics "for taste and to support immune health".

{| class="wikitable"
|-
!Step
!Real Device?
!Used for water purification?
!Explanation
|-
|Water softener
|{{Yes|Real}}
|{{Yes}}
|{{w|Water softening}} is the removal of calcium, magnesium, and certain other metal cations in hard water. The resulting soft water requires less soap for the same cleaning effort, as soap is not wasted bonding with calcium ions. Soft water also extends the lifetime of plumbing by reducing or eliminating scale build-up in pipes and fittings. The comic shows the water either being passed through some granulated material (presumably, {{w|ion-exchange resins}}) or into a precipitation chamber for lime (or soda ash) softening.
|-
|Reverse osmosis
|{{Yes|Real}}
|{{Yes}}
|{{w|Reverse osmosis}} is a common step used in modern water-purification systems. It relies on using osmotic membranes and high pressures to separate water molecules from dissolved solutes and biological substances. Interestingly, it would also act as a softening step, rendering the previous step potentially redundant, depending on the goals for each step. It's also overkill for most wells, as groundwater often needs treatment targeted to only a few contaminants, if any treatment at all.
|-
|Ultraviolet Sterilization
|{{Yes|Real}}
|{{Yes}}
|{{w|Ultraviolet germicidal irradiation|Ultraviolet sterilization}} uses UV lamps at short wavelengths to damage the DNA and thereby kill micro-organisms in the water. In the USA, this is an unlikely method of well water sterilization, as the pathogens most likely to be found in well water (as opposed to surface water) are generally much more responsive to chemical disinfection. Many wells don't even need a disinfection step; whether this well needs disinfection or not, this is hardly the most impractical step in this treatment train.
|-
|Autoclave
|{{Yes|Real}}
|{{Yes}}
|{{w|Autoclaves}} are essentially large pressure cookers that sterilize items and liquids through exposing them to a high temperature (~120°C or ~248°F) over tens of minutes in presence of water. By maintaining a high pressure, the boiling point of water goes up. This creates a very hot and humid atmosphere, making efficient heat transfer with all contents and inactivating all biological entities through this heat. They are commonly used in hospital and laboratory settings to sterilize plastics, glassware, equipment and solutions (like bottles of growth medium for bacteria) to be used in a sterile environment. The advantage of this method compared to dry heat (aka putting things in a 150°C-180°C oven until they are sterile) is that most lab plastics survive a passage at 120°C without melting. While difficult to streamline (as this technique is used for batches), it has the advantage over light-based methods that heat gets everywhere, and that instead of just damaging DNA, you also denature the proteins and other structures of microorganisms.
|-
|Condenser
|{{Yes|Real}}
|{{Yes}}
|This step condenses the steam generated by the autoclave back into water. This is a normal part of the process used in "traditional" water purification by distillation.
|-
|Regular osmosis
|{{Yes|Real}}
|{{No}}
|Regular osmosis (also known as "osmosis") is the tendency of a solvent (like water) to flow through a semipermeable membrane towards the side that has a higher concentration of dissolved molecules or ions. Since the water is already highly purified at this point, osmosis would only work if the output water is ''less'' pure, adding dissolved substances to it.
|-
|X-Ray Sterilization
|{{Yes|Real}}
|{{No}}
|While {{w|Sterilization_(microbiology)#Ionizing_radiation_sterilization|x-ray sterilization}} is used to sterilize equipment, it is not normally used for water.
|-
|Carbon Filter
|{{No|Fake}}
|{{No}}
|The water is passed through some volume of carbon - a riff on activated carbon filters, which ''are'' used in water filtration as seen later in the process.
|-
|Neutron Source
|{{Yes|Real}}
|{{No}}
|A {{w|neutron source}} generates high-energy neutrons. High-energy neutrons are highly penetrating and will cause ionization events to occur due to collision with atoms in the water. This can potentially make the water more radioactive due to the generation of radioactive isotopes.
|-
|Activated Carbon Filter
|{{Yes|Real}}
|{{Yes}}
|{{w|Activated carbon}} is a form of carbon commonly used to filter contaminants from water and air, as it has a large surface area available to adsorb impurities on its surface. While this isn't a strange step to see in a water purification process, Randall makes a pun here with its proximity to the neutron source - the carbon has been '{{w|Neutron activation|activated}}' by the neutron source, and is currently radioactive. Water filtered through this may pick up radioactive isotopes from the filter.
|-
|Gamma Ray Sterilization
|{{Yes|Real}}
|{{No}}
|Similar to x-ray sterilization, this step uses {{w|Sterilization (microbiology)#Ionizing radiation sterilization|gamma rays}} to sterilize the water. Gamma rays can potentially irradiate the water through photodisintegration if their energy is higher than the binding energy of oxygen.
|-
|Cosmic Ray Sterilization
|{{No|Fake}}
|{{No}}
|Similar to the previous step, but this time using high energy {{w|cosmic rays}} to do so. This would be incredibly impractical, as cosmic rays are generally blocked by the atmosphere at high altitudes (as stated in the title text). Furthermore, their extremely high energy (shown to be in the exa-electron volt (EeV, or 1018 eV) range) would cause multiple high-energy particles to be created on impact with the water molecules, irradiating the water significantly.
|-
|Electrolysis
|{{Yes|Real}}
|{{No}}
|The water is broken down into hydrogen and oxygen gas using an electric current. Assuming the gas outputs of this process are pure hydrogen and oxygen gas, this *would* be an extremely effective sterilization tactic, seeing as no known organism or water pollutant is entirely composed out of hydrogen or oxygen gas. Along with the next step, this step may be a misguided attempt to "take the water apart and clean each part individually". The hydrogen is sent to the ionizer, while the oxygen is sent to the oxygen spallation step.
|-
|Oxygen Spallation
|{{No|Fake}}
|{{No}}
|Almost all oxygen in existence was originally created via {{w|stellar nucleosynthesis}}. Now, in this step in the purification, the oxygen is apparently broken down back into hydrogen via a fictional form of {{w|Cosmic_ray_spallation|spallation}}. While spallation can form lighter nuclei from heavier ones, there is no known process to convert oxygen back down to hydrogen. It is unclear what happens to the neutrons present in the oxygen nuclei - whether they are removed, used to create hydrogen isotopes or allowed to decay into protons and electrons (the components of yet more hydrogen, when properly reintroduced). The hydrogen formed here is merged with the rest of the hydrogen before being sent to the ionizer.
|-
|Ionizer
|{{Yes|Real}}
|{{No}}
|The hydrogen output by the previous step is made into a plasma with free electrons and protons (not bound into atoms).
|-
|Quark-Gluon Plasma Chamber
|{{No|Fake}}
|{{No}}
|The plasma output from the previous step is further energized into a {{w|quark–gluon plasma}}, such as the one found just after the Big Bang. This follows the theme of the previous steps, which all serve to break the water down into their elementary components. The incredible energies involved in doing so are unachievable by current technologies (current particle accelerators can form such a plasma for very short periods of time and involve a very small amount of matter), and serve to highlight the impracticality of this setup (as alluded to in the title text). The energies would also result in formation of lepton pairs from energy, which is presumably where the electrons from the previous step ended up.
|-
|Hydrogenation
|style="background:#FFFF9E;vertical-align:middle;text-align:{{{align|center}}};{{{style|}}}" class="table-yes"|Kinda
|{{No}}
|This process converts the quark-gluon plasma output in the previous step into elemental hydrogen, reversing the previous two steps. Presumably, this is done via {{w|hadronization}} and {{w|recombination}}; however, it is unclear how the {{w|baryon asymmetry}} needed to generate matter and not anti-matter is developed. The resulting hydrogen is split into 2 streams leading into the Nucleosynthesis and Reverse Electrolysis steps. In real life, {{w|hydrogenation}} is the process of adding hydrogen to unsaturated hydrocarbons.
|-
|Nucleosynthesis
|{{No|Fake}}
|{{No}}
|Part of the hydrogen produced in the previous step is converted into oxygen via 2 sub-processes. The hydrogen is first converted into helium and carbon through a combination of the {{w|proton-proton chain}} and the {{w|CNO cycle}} as per the labels on the step. The helium and carbon are then converted into oxygen through the {{w|alpha process}}. This step may also involve the {{w|triple-alpha process}}, seeing that the alpha process is typically only applicable to converting carbon into heavier elements owing to the lack of a stable element with eight nucleons. These steps normally occur in the cores of massive stars. It is not known how the oxygen is filtered from the extremely hot plasma of fusion products.
|-
|Reverse Electrolysis
|{{Yes|Real}}
|{{No}}
|This step is essentially a fuel cell, utilizing an electrochemical reaction to convert hydrogen and oxygen back into water and electricity.
|-
|Adding Well Water
|{{Yes|Real}}
|{{Yes}}
|A second pipe is linked to the first that simply feeds untreated well water into the pipes, partially undoing the entire process. Even if the well water is only a small portion of the faucet water, its presence has now made the now incredibly pure water impure. This act of putting well water into the faucet after treating it may be a riff on the cultural interest in "spring water" or "pure glacial water" that is said to have additional minerals or beneficial properties but is oftentimes not meaningfully distinct from properly treated tap water. "Local minerals and probiotics added" may be a reference to Coke's "Dasani" brand drinking water, which is purified by reverse osmosis, and then has a package of minerals added to create the flavor (pure water's actual lack of flavor can be perceived as an unpleasantly 'flat' flavor).

In addition, drinking only {{w|Tonicity|extremely hypotonic}} liquid intake can induce the body to expel more water than it took in (taking with it some essential minerals that are not being replaced) to try to maintain equilibrium of concentrations. This effect is not directly dangerous, but could exacerbate other bodily deficiencies in the long term and have the issues of greater than necessary liquid throughput than with 'normal' drinking water. The tendency for {{w|Sports drink#Categories|many 'sports' or 'health' drinks}} to hype the term 'isotonic' is based upon the idea that an ideal concentration of solutes can be added, in-between the opposing problems of having either too many ''or'' too few 'impurities'. The process does not include adding untreated (and probably also untested/unquantified) ground water, which could carry pathogenic organisms and chemicals, and appears to have no mechanism for ensuring what ''might'' be an acceptable level of re-blending for the circumstances.

Alternatively, it may be that the level of purity achieved by this setup is so overkill, and the cost per liter processed so high, that it's simply more efficient to treat just enough of the water to dilute the rest of the water to acceptable levels of contaminants. For example, it's common to use a partial bypass to supply water to the shower, since shower water does not need to be potable. Also, some well water systems are clean enough to not need any treatment at all and can be used straight from the well, and some water systems are only slightly high in a single chemical contaminant that can be addressed by blending the water, either with treated water or another source (treated or untreated). Perhaps the treatment process led to enough radioactivity that blending with the original source was required to address radiological contamination (either gross alpha radiation or specific radionuclides).
|}

The title text briefly covers the cost implications of the components. Various 'real' filter elements will have material or energy costs or both, in operation or to replenish their effectiveness, and the high energy input needed to disassociate hadrons into raw quark–gluon plasma (at bulk levels) would seem to require the most in terms of running the equipment. But it is pointed out that to ''ensure'' enough cosmic rays reach that particular phase of sterilization, there would have to be a pipe (not shown) leading out to the edge of the atmosphere to optimistically carry down such particles (due to also containing ''no'' air, i.e., keeping it out to negate the normal {{w|Air shower (physics)|shielding and dissipating effect}} of the atmosphere on cosmic rays).

Whether a one-off cost or needing regular replacement, the setting up of such a tubular structure (a vertical air-proof pipe perhaps somewhere between 100 and 10000 kilometers high) would be technically challenging and has not ever been actually accomplished. The conditions for a quark–gluon plasma, albeit in limited quantities, at least have been fulfilled at {{w|CERN}}, with its 27 kilometer airless pipe that goes round within a vast circular tunnel.

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

:[Header:]
:How Water Filtration Works

:[A system of various devices between water pipes is shown.]
:[Input:]
:Well water
:[Labels of various devices:]
:Water softener
:Reverse osmosis
:Ultraviolet sterilization
:Autoclave
:Condenser
:Regular osmosis
:X-ray sterilization
:Carbon filter
:Neutron source
:Activated carbon filter
:Gamma ray sterilization
:Cosmic ray sterilization [On the device: "EeV γ"]
:Electrolysis [H2O split into O and H]
:Oxygen spallation [O becomes H]
:Ionizer [H split into + and -]
:Quark-gluon plasma chamber [+ and - become QGP]
:Hydrogenation [QGP becomes H]
:Nucleosynthesis [H goes through "P-P CNO" and becomes He and C, then through "Alpha" and becomes O]
:Reverse electrolysis
:[Output after devices:]
:Pure water
:[Second input, mixed with pure water:]
:Well water
:[Label:]
:Local minerals and probiotics added for taste and to support immune health
:[Final output:]
:To faucet

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Chemistry]]
[[Category:Physics]]

Talk:2979: Sky Alarm

2024-09-02T11:17:55Z

172.70.58.3:

♫♪ Happy Birthday to me, happy birthday to me... ♪♫ :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:55, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

I've tried to do just this by subscribing to a channel promisingly named "AstroAlert", which then proceeded to spam me 500 times per day with messages about a random meteor on the opposite part of the world. Woe. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.110.200|162.158.110.200]] 05:15, 31 August 2024 (UTC)
:Hence the need for this alarm, to keep it LOCAL, :) That's the thing, any such thing needs a LOCATION, to limit results to what is locally relevant to each person. :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:19, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

This comic seems super simple, so I added as muc( explanation as I can think of... [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:19, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

Local58 moment 💔 [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.138|172.70.85.138]] 11:27, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

With that device, no work is ever going to be done again... D: [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.24|108.162.221.24]] 11:36, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

There is a nice site called [https://apod.nasa.gov/ Astronomy Picture of the Day] that is like this. Alas, it is "A cool space thing happened three days ago - sorry you missed it". --[[User:Divad27182|Divad27182]] ([[User talk:Divad27182|talk]]) 11:41, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

Sounds like it needs a sky dome camera system (like they made for immersive filmimg) on the roof coupled with statistical analysis (mistakenly aka AI) to recognise and record 'interesting' things, coupled with localised alerts for known phenomena. A product for someone? [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 11:46, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

Most cool astronomical events don't come up so suddenly that you need an alarm. We know about eclipses years in advance, meteor showers recur annually, comets have months of warning, and unusual auroras are usually known a few days early. Anything sudden will probably also be short-lived, so by the time you get outside it will be over. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 15:26, 31 August 2024 (UTC)
:If you're anything like me, you're often eager to see (predicable space phenomenon) and then get reminded of it a day too late when the photos starts appearing on the internet. Though that could just as easily solved with a reminder on a standard calendar app, if only you had something reminding youto set up reminders. What would be nice would be an app where you put in your location and it gives you the next week's A) weather forecast, and B) list of interestingly visible space thingies. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.246.142|172.69.246.142]] 14:38, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Seems like there should be a name for these alerts, like "Amber Alert" for missing children. I nominate "Neil Alert" -- it should probably use Neil deGrasse Tyson's voice. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 15:28, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

Since the characters in the comic are the same as in the previous ISS comic, I like to think that they're in the ISS and Megan is getting ready to do an EVA (ignore the fact that such a desk wouldn't make sense, or the walking, or that prepping for the EVA would probably take well over a full orbit) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.223.93|172.71.223.93]] 17:58, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

Dang, we really cleaned up all the incomplete explanations, didn't we?
Either that, or someone just went around and removed all the tags [[User:New editor|New editor]] ([[User talk:New editor|talk]]) 19:50, 31 August 2024 (UTC)
:I'm not too sure on that actually, considering that there's been people using AI to write explanations. It's unfortunately a possibility that somebody used AI and then removed the tags. Hoping to be proven wrong though. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.250|172.70.110.250]] 09:45, 2 September 2024 (UTC)
::Even before the latest craze for AI, premature Incomplete-Tag removal has been a thing. (IMO, if it's less than a week old, then there ''might'' be someone yet to check in.)
::Not that the Incomplete status is actually what it used to be (the momentum of contributors hardly lets a new comic go up without a very rapid 'full' explanation edit, and there's basically no big 'backfilling' needed on historic articles for the most part). These days, the Incomplete tag is a friendly quirk, with the replacemet of the BOT bit with something homorously topical to the comic (with any luck!) being its main attraction, and (apart from possibly confusing newbugs to the site... though, honestly, any newbug to ''any'' site is always going to have to learn the local community culture, and it's the same with the Citation Needed tag) it no longer functions as an ''actual'' call to edit. Edits will happen immediately, and probably happen long afterwards, regardless. But it's become a form of treasured landmark for those who have seen more than a few articles being created and dealt with.
::Then there are times when clearly someone has 'wiped the tag' off of even the last article (published within the last day, even). With or without it, the articles will get edited, but that'd be definitely premature. Believing that everything that can be said about the comic ''has'' been said about the comic (or, indeed, that all the wrong things said about it have been corrected/deleted) is an optomistic viewpoint on one's own understanding. Give it that week or so, and at least a day or so since the last actual edit, before presuming that you know the tag isn't needed any more. (As I said, it's actually not needed at all for attracting people's attention, but it still has that connection. But what you're really depriving people of is the latest consensus funny 'BOT replacement statement', which is a major part of our own independent contribution to this documentation of the comic. It belongs to us, rather than basically just being a reiteration of Randall's own humour. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.58.3|172.70.58.3]] 11:17, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Does anyone know of anything like this? Something that will tell me about things like upcoming meteor showers, comets, auroras, etc. the day before, rather than hearing about it the day after from people who somehow knew about it? To this day I still have no idea how people find out about these things before they happen {{unsigned ip|162.158.154.134|13:35, 1 September 2024}}
:Offline, the national (and local) Weather broadcasts might give info on "what might be visible tonight". Or at least respond to the preceding News programme's "and finally..." if it features the note that supermoons will happen or aurora have a decent chance to and all that remains is the hope of clear sky. That's UK television, can't speak for wherever you are/what you might watch.
:Online, it would depend upon what you can imagine wanting to know. Keep an eye on something obvious like space.com (which might have internal/external links to gateways that push notifications on various subjects) or go the full hog and search for "aurora alert", "meteor alert", "rocket launch alert" in every sort of phrnomenon that you think might (if timed/located well) interest you and be visible.
:The comic device might be either configured to deal with everything the comic characters might be interested in, nails absolutely ''anything'' (without prejudice/selectability) or perhaps (over time) has an AI/heuristic element that 'learns' what random phenomena most interest you as it collates so many possible feed options (itself, or via its manufacturer's centrally maintained servers).
:But it looks like a project ripe for a 'Maker' to try. Set up an Arduino/Raspberry Pi/whatever with a "speaker/siren and lights" housing and an internet connection with suitably configured feed-scraping commands run within it (or via a separate computer to which it connects) that makes a fuss whenever a suitable notification is passed. Add to that maybe some skyward-facing camera(s) with one degree or other of image-processing applied to their images to (for example) identify when a particularly nice sunset is happening with plenty of rose-tinted clouds. With enough foresight (and the right processing) it could pick up particularly aesthetic cloudscapes, the spontaneous murmurations of starlings, an amusing conjunction of contrails, the first snowflakes of winter or (back to space things) a surprise Earth-skimming bolide... whatever your imagination, technical tinkering and subsequent data-munging could get your "Sky's-Pi Alarm" (or whatever it is) to make its noises for.
:I don't actually subscribe to anything (as proxy for my imagined self-contain/collating device), so I can't tell you any particularly good sources of info, but there'll be some out there. Like you can get earthquake alerts (or at least "yeah, we also know about it, be careful" semi-simultaneous detection), tornado alerts, flood aleets and other hobbyist/public-safety notification systems. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.207|172.70.162.207]] 14:58, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

At the moment, a device like this might actually be useful for all of us who irritate their friends and family by going out every evening at around 10 when it's dark but Corona Borealis is still a fair distance above the horizon, because of this [https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/space-science/t-coronae-borealis-nova nova-in-waiting]. There is a distinct chance it'll be cloudy on the nights it happens anyway, because ''that's reality: always pissing on the epic moment'' ([https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/89186.Pushing_Ice?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=cSxwg6qHB1&rank=6 this last part is a quote, here's the source]) As with many glorious celestial events, if you don't know what it signifies, it'll just be another of many inconspicious little dots of light, and if you don't know or care what the constellations normally look like, you won't even notice. It'll still be an awesome once-in-a-lifetime event to watch, but be aware at all times that for all practical purposes (and for so-called "normal" people) the awesomeness is all in your head.* [[User:PaulEberhardt|PaulEberhardt]] ([[User talk:PaulEberhardt|talk]]) 15:30, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
: see [[1644: Stargazing]], [[2017: Stargazing 2]] and [[2274: Stargazing 3]] for further reference. To be honest, I'm actually waiting on xkcd's take on the event as much as on T Coronae Borealis going boom already. [[User:PaulEberhardt|PaulEberhardt]] ([[User talk:PaulEberhardt|talk]]) 15:30, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

I previously changed the words from the alarm in the Transcript to italics, but I wasn't convinced that the noises from the alarm were also italicized. I see someone else changed them to italics as well, but I wonder if anyone else is of the same mind as myself. [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 14:16, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
:The transcript shouldn't actually use (or rely upon) formatting, really, though saying something like <code><nowiki>:[The device emits sounds and speech, in italics] ''The things the device says''</nowiki></code> in both description ''and'' markup would satisfy both human and non-human readers better than one method alone. I've not been involved in that transcript, probably won't, but it's the kind of expansion that I'd expect (done with more thought than this quick note, maybe). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.207|172.70.162.207]] 14:58, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

'''NOAA weather radio:''' How has nobody mentioned the NWS NOAA weather radio system (162.400–162.550 MHz)? It has both continuous broadcasting of weather information as well as a special system of alert tones that many receivers can automatically recognize and then flag to the user in whatever way. It's kind of like this, except maybe that watches and warnings are about severe weather and not "cool stuff happening." [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 15:51, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Talk:2975: Classical Periodic Table

2024-08-22T05:52:16Z

172.70.58.3:

I checked the Actinides and it looks like the criteria for "fire" is half-life < 1 day. [[User:SpriteGuard|SpriteGuard]] ([[User talk:SpriteGuard|talk]]) 18:11, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

notice how this periodic table predates the apartheid state of Israel. really makes you think, huh? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.153|172.70.85.153]] 19:43, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
:I don't see how this comic relates to the matter of Israel in any way. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 20:27, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
:Xir, this is a wiki that explains a web comic for nerds. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.150.128|172.71.150.128]] 04:52, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

The four classical Elements are still recognised by scientists; They just repurposed the word "element", and so have adopted "state" to describe this older classification - Solid, Liquid, Gas and Plasma exactly map to the classical 'elements'. I think we can forgive the medieval alchemical community for not recognising Bose-Einstein Condensate as their fifth element. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.64.149|172.68.64.149]] 21:05, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
:what about non-newtonian fluids? [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 22:17, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
::They're fluids... turns out. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.229|172.70.126.229]] 04:47, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
:If the 2016 movie "[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectral Spectral]" is to be believed, then Bose–Einstein condensates maps to ghosts. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.0.167|172.68.0.167]] 23:26, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

He's done this comparison between 'classical' and 'modern' elements before... for example in comic #965. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.58.3|172.70.58.3]] 05:52, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

2972: Helium Synthesis

2024-08-16T23:29:43Z

172.70.58.3: ...better way of linking. (For the sake of the relatively new editor, hope he notes these little tweaks.)

{{comic
| number = 2972
| date = August 14, 2024
| title = Helium Synthesis
| image = helium_synthesis_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x312px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Our lawyers were worried because it turns out the company inherits its debt from the parent universe, but luckily cosmic inflation reduced it to nearly zero.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BIG BANG NUCLEOSYNTHESIZER WITH A [[2766: Helium Reserve|VERY HIGH PITCHED VOICE]] - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic explores the challenges of obtaining {{w|helium}}. [[Hairy]] is leading a company meeting with [[Megan]], [[Cueball]], and [[Hairbun]], who are discussing the recurring problem of {{w|helium shortage}}s, a real-world issue due to helium's limited availability on Earth. Helium is a non-renewable resource primarily extracted from {{w|natural gas}} deposits — the US is the biggest extractor — and its scarcity can affect industries such as medical imaging, semiconductor manufacturing, scientific research, and party balloon supplies.[https://www.marketplace.org/2023/01/19/heliums-been-rising-in-price-and-its-bringing-businesses-down/] (See also [[2766: Helium Reserve]].)

Hairbun suggests investigating the origin of helium. Cueball's research reveals that most helium in the universe came from {{w|Big Bang nucleosynthesis}}, which occurred shortly after the {{w|Big Bang}} when the first elements were formed. (However, 99% of the helium here on Earth has been produced from the slow {{w|radioactive decay}} of naturally occuring {{w|uranium-238}} and {{w|thorium-232}} [which in turn came from {{w|r-process}} {{w|Supernova nucleosynthesis|nucleosynthesis}} inside merging {{w|neutron star}}s;[https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13873/] see [[2826: Gold]]] emitting {{w|alpha particles}} that are identical to temporarily ionized helium, with only the remaining one percent originating from the Big Bang.)

Hairy assigns the team to figure out how to recreate Big Bang nucleosynthesis, which is not actually possible for a contemporary business organization.{{cn}} Nonetheless, the team builds a machine capable of it. They are successful, presumably obliterating themselves and at least all the closest galaxies.

The final panels show the creation of a second Big Bang followed by the next 14 billion years of that new universe, culminating with the same characters in an identical meeting, presumably having arisen from the same series of post-Big Bang events as in the original universe. This suggests a {{w|cyclic universe}} in which events repeat themselves exactly (which {{w|chaos theory}} implies would be extremely unlikely{{acn}}). They are facing the same predicament: helium shortages have become a problem, and they once again need a more reliable source. The implication is that this is a recurring cycle, a religious/philosophical concept called {{w|eternal return}} that occurs in many world religions (such as Hinduism's {{w|Yuga_cycle|Cycle of Yugas}} of creation and destruction), but centered here on the helium needs of a unnamed, resourceful company.

The title text is a wordplay on the concepts of {{w|cosmic inflation}} and {{w|monetary inflation}}. In economics, monetary inflation is the rate at which the cost of things increases over time (one can also think of this as the value of money falling). If a debt is arranged on favorable terms, such that the compound interest on it turns out to be less than this rate, the value of that debt reduces over time. Cosmic inflation is a theory in cosmology that describes the rapid expansion of the universe just after the Big Bang. The joke imagines the original company as having incurred a significant debt (perhaps as a result of the costs of building the Big Bang machine), which has now been inherited by its subsidiary. Somehow, thanks to the effect of cosmic inflation, this debt was diluted (perhaps ''physically'' across the effectively infinite vastness of space), reducing it to nothing. (See also [[2688: Bubble Universes]].)

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Hairy sits on an office chair at the head of a conference table and has his hands on the table, with Cueball and Megan also at the table.]
:Hairy: These helium shortages every few years are such a pain.
:Hairy: Our company needs a reliable source of helium.

:[The same situation, but now Hairbun is also seen at the table on the left side of Cueball. Cueball holds a cellphone in his left hand, which Megan looks at.]
:Hairbun: Where does helium come from, anyway?
:Cueball: Hmm, apparently most of it is from "Big Bang nucleosynthesis"?
:Hairy: Well, let's figure out how to do that.

:[Hairy, Megan and Hairbun are working on a large machine labeled "Big Bang Nucleosynthesis," with Megan holding its wired control device in her left hand.]

:[Two panels depict another Big Bang, followed by various stages of cosmic development, including galaxies and planets forming, shown in white on a black background.]

:[The scene returns to the same conference room setup as before, with the characters in the same positions. Text at the top reads: "14 Billion Years Later."]
:Hairy: These helium shortages every few years are such a pain.
:Hairy: Our company needs a reliable source of helium.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Comics with inverted brightness]]
[[Category:Cosmology]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Recursion]]

Talk:2973: Ferris Wheels

2024-08-16T23:24:23Z

172.70.58.3: /* Are the transcript eds going to go into the speeds depicted? */

Where is the Cueball shouting "wheee!!"? [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 19:59, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

In the transcript I described how the cars are hanging, but I'm worried I've gone too far from transcript to explanation. Hopefully someone can improve it. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 20:02, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

There's no category for "X fired me because" comics. There probably should be. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 20:06, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

== Just HOW fast? ==

I was vaguely surprised to see nobody had done the math yet. So here it goes -- someone more confident in editing the main entry can feel free to adapt this if you think it's interesting enough (I doubt anyone would want to read the math as I wrote it). But first, someone please check my work. :)

I opened the comic in a pixel-level photo editor, and took some quick measurements. The wheel on the left seems to be approximately 160 pixels wide, whiile the inner hub is about 14 pixels high.

So the gear ratio is 160:14 or about 11.04 Just for simplification, let's call it a 10x ratio.

The [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferris_wheel#The_original_Ferris_Wheel original Ferris Wheel] took about 20 minutes to load and unload passengers, then ran for 9 uninterrupted minutes for another, full, rotation. So again, let's round up and say the wheel on the left takes about 10 minutes to go around once.

The middle wheel, then, would take a minute. And the last one, a tenth of a minute, or 6 seconds.

The original wheel (again) was about 265 feet across, or a circumference of 832 feet. So if these wheels are the same size (why not?), any car on the right-most wheel would move about 832 feet in 6 seconds, or 138 feet per second, which is about 94 miles per hour (151 kilometers per hour).

I can see why he was fired.

Taking the reverse: The rightmost wheel would take about 10 minutes for a rotation, the middle wheel, 100 minutes (1:40), and the left most, 1000 minutes (16 hours and 40 minutes).

Actually, if you move slow enough that the right wheel can load and unload (let's say 20 minutes, just like the original wheel), it'd take over a day to load the left wheel.

@DarthNull@infosec.exchange [[Special:Contributions/172.70.175.87|172.70.175.87]] 20:58, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

This Amusement Ride manufacturer has a helpful diagram of rotational speed on their website: https://www.sinorides.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-ferris-wheels/#q11
The example wheel happens to have 18 gondolas, just like Randall's and appears to be roughly the same scale. The sample values they provide are a linear speed of 4 m/s at the edge of the wheel and a rotational speed of just under 3 revolutions per minute. My best guess at the gearing ratio of Randall's belt driven wheels is 10:1, so if the left wheel is being driven at normal speeds, the center wheel would be 40 m/s or 30 rpm and the left wheel would be 400 m/s or 300 rpm. This exceeds the square root of the specific strength of standard steel, so we'll need to hope that the right most Ferris wheel is made of a particularly strong alloy. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.97|172.69.71.97]] 21:19, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

: Ah, well, I started down my own road for calculations, based upon the assumption that they were 75 feet diameter (from the height of the figures, assuming that the ones I actually checked definitively up to 6ft, give or take, although pixel-counts upon antialiased graphics can be quite inaccurate the fewer 'apparent' pixels there are). As a truck-portable/mounted fairground-style ride, it's probably quite a bit smaller than the 'original Ferris wheel' and many of those 'permanent' wheels (London Eye, theme park rides, etc) that are built specifically to be architectual 'statements'/tourist-magnets. I'm thinking more the kind that you'd see in Grease (though that one's 55-foot, apparently) or the one that 'Night Monkey' had to deal with in Spiderman: Far From Home. I also looked up [https://www.giantwheel.co.uk/35m-vision-ferris-wheel-hire/ actual specs] (that's 35m, ~105ft, and 0.5rpm, so not too far off my initial assumptions). There also was a rather larger 60-metre (197 ft) {{w|Wheel of Sheffield|semi-permanent}} transportable version with 13 minute continuous 'ride', but that'd be completely out of scale to those depicted.
: If there are any actual 'carnies' out there who know what kind of thing actually gets used at County Fairs in the US, that might help. (Here in the UK there's currently a Fun Fair about a quarter of a mile from my house, at the moment - though I'm not there at the moment, but they have no 'big wheels' of that kind, only the more energetic types that ''do'' fling their riders around, like the "Terrifying Claw" and various other heavy duty hanging and/or spinning-seat rides.) ((Slightly ninjaed, now, by the above contribution.))) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.33.197|162.158.33.197]] 21:37, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

I can't help but think of this as Randall wanting to make an upscaled version of [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrkiJZKJfpY Steve Mould's Spintronics video] from a year ago... [[Special:Contributions/172.68.50.126|172.68.50.126]] 21:54, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Given that air resistance increases exponentially with air speed, this setup would actually act as its own speed regulator, with the main factor being the torque of the power source. Which wheel is powered would not matter much [[Special:Contributions/172.71.118.167|172.71.118.167]] 22:05, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

If you powered the middle one, you'd end up with one moderately exciting ride, one normal ride, and one really long ride, which would be highly impractical, but not overly dangerous (depending on the structural strength of the fast wheel). [[Special:Contributions/172.71.142.88|172.71.142.88]] 23:08, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

== Are the transcript eds going to go into the speeds depicted? ==

Should the transcript involve the diameter ratios when explaining the speed depiction gray lines? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.83|172.70.211.83]] 23:06, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
:Such analysis is going towards the speculative. Perhaps we can say that the wheels are <so many> people-heights high, but that doesn't give us any actual definitive speeds to go with the lines, with no actual given first-wheel speed (two minutes a spin? three minutes per spin? thirteen minute 'trips'?). It might be reasonable to mention the hub-to-rim ratio details, but the speed-lines just need to be subjectively described. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.58.3|172.70.58.3]] 23:24, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

2971: Celestial Event

2024-08-13T19:07:08Z

172.70.58.3: /* Explanation */ The same value (50% of the time), but more to the point of the requirement required for the compound occurance.

{{comic
| number = 2971
| date = August 12, 2024
| title = Celestial Event
| image = celestial_event_2x.png
| imagesize = 471x300px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = If we can get a brood of 13-year cicadas going, we might have a chance at making this happen before the oceans evaporate under the expanding sun.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT THAT APPEARS EVERY FOUR POINT THREE BILLION YEARS - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[[Randall]] has often obsessed over celestial events he wishes to see, and here lists three of these in this comic, hence the title. Recently there have been two total {{w|solar eclipse}}s in the US (2017 and 2024), so that has been ticked off his bucket list. And there have been {{w|aurora|northern lights}} this year far down into the mainland US. So it is likely he has also seen those. Whether or not he has seen a {{w|comet}} visible to the naked eye is not known, but there have been some candidates in his lifetime.

The next two on the list are not celestial events, but the lack of cloud cover is relevant in order to see the first three. Finally, he mentions the emergence of 17-year {{w|Periodical cicadas|cicadas}} which occurred most recently in the midwestern US in 2024 and in the eastern US in 2021.

An extra special celestial event would be to see all the three first things at the same time during a 17-year cicada event. Northern lights and a comet can only be seen during the night, except during a total solar eclipse where they could be visible for the few minutes of totality. (However, it rarely gets really dark during totality, and it is so short that night vision cannot be achieved before the totality is over.)

This joke of the comic comes from Randall multiplying the fraction of time that these selected classes of events occur over a particular location on the Earth's surface, in this case, {{w|Cambridge, Massachusetts}}, where the cartoonist was living when this comic was published. The resulting product is the expected frequency that all of them would occur at the same time at that location. The value he calculates is once every 4.3 billion years. This is in the same ballpark as the current age of the Earth, about 4.5 billion years.

The calculation itself is not going to be accurate, which is likely part of the joke. Multiplying probabilities only works for random variables that are entirely independent. If nothing else, orbits are (luckily) not random{{cn}}. It also requires that all of the probabilities remain constant over time. In reality, cicadas will not exist for very long compared to the time scale, since Earth will become uninhabitable to complex life within a billion years' time and all life will be extinct within [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_Earth 4 billion years]. Also, the moon is moving away from Earth, and total solar eclipses will cease to occur in about [https://www.space.com/37627-total-solar-eclipse-earth-moon-alignment-future.html 600 million years].

Conversion of "days" and "months" to fractional years, required for conservation of units in the equation, is ambiguous as presented due to the leap year phenomenon and the inconsistent number of days in a month. Differing values for these fractional years yield a range of frequency solutions between 4.2 and 4.4 billion years. If the value for days in a year is given as 365.25 (the mean value for all years, ignoring infrequent additional 'leap year' corrections), as in the first term of the equation ((20/365.25)/11), and the mean value for days in two months is given as 60.9 as in the second term ((60.9/365.25)/50), the result is 4.2995 *10^9 years.

In the title text, Randall mentioned 13-year cicadas. Massachusetts is near the northern limit of {{w|Periodical_cicadas|Magicicada}} distribution, and only one 17-year brood is established there (and not in Cambridge, MA). In other parts of the US, a 13-year brood and a 17-year brood emerged during 2024, an event that only happens once every 13x17 = 221 years. This caused a lot of noise and double the amount of dead cicadas after they had mated. Randall wondered whether it would be possible to get a brood of 13 year cicadas started near his home. In that case he could replace 13 with 17 in the calculation. Then, he hopes to achieve his "really spectacular show" before Earth's oceans evaporate. However, 4.3 billion years x13/17 is still more than 3 billion years. The oceans will not last that long, and given the merely 40 million year history of the genus Magicicada and its relatives, neither will the periodical cicadas.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:Approximate frequency in my area

:Active northern lights: 20 days per solar cycle

:A naked-eye "Great Comet": 2 months every 50 years

:Total eclipse: once every 350 years

:Clear skies: 50% of the time

:17-year cicada emergence: 2 months every 17 years

opening bracket

20 days over 11 years multiplied by

2 months over 50 years multiplied by

1 over 350 years multiplied by

one half multiplied by

2 months over 17 years

closing bracket to the power of -1

equals 4.3 billion years

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Every 4 billion years or so, my neighborhood gets to see a ''really'' spectacular show.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Solar eclipses]]
[[Category:Time]]
[[Category:Animals]]

2633: Astronomer Hotline

2024-07-16T10:50:22Z

172.70.58.3: /* Explanation */ fixed capitalisation issue

{{comic
| number = 2633
| date = June 15, 2022
| title = Astronomer Hotline
| image = Astronomer Hotline.png
| titletext = Employment statistics have to correct for the fact that the Weird Bug Hotline hires a bunch of extra temporary staff every 17 years.
}}

==Explanation==

This comic is a joke about {{w|Helpline|helplines}}, and the experience of the skilled people staffing them, who often have to deal with callers with a much lower understanding of the subject, seeking assistance with things that may seem very basic from the point of view of the technician, or where they have completely misunderstood the nature of the issue.

The comic starts with someone having called the "Astronomer Hotline", hence the title. Judging by the way the helpline employee, [[Cueball]], starts the call, by asking for a description of the weird lights, it is implied that this is the main/only purpose of the helpline, or is, in practice, the subject of most of the calls they receive.

The caller is in panic, and doesn't know how to describe the light. Cueball is used to this and asks the caller to stay calm, then starts to go through his checklist, asking them if it is daytime, because if it were, he might assume they have just noticed the Sun. Most people are familiar with the Sun{{Citation needed}} and would not need help in identifying it, although people have also mistaken the Moon for a 'mysterious light in the sky' at times. Asking this could thus seem very condescending, but it is like when the employee at a tech support hot-line asks if the computer is turned on, or if the caller tried to restart the computer, see [[806: Tech Support]]. It may also refer to the most immediate danger, as looking directly at the sun is a bad idea.

The caller is not affronted, but tells Cueball that the Sun has set. When asked if the lights are stationary, which stars would normally appear to be, the reply is that they are zipping around in the bushes.

At this point Cueball realizes that the caller has just seen {{w|fireflies}}, a family of insects commonly seen in temperate/tropical climates during the summer. He describes them for the caller as "lightning bugs" (another common epithet for these insects), "tree blinkers", or "ground stars" (unusual terms invented for this comic that seem to illustrate the Astronomer Hotline's unfamiliarity with fireflies); and says that these are not a problem, much to the caller's relief.[https://giphy.com/gifs/bbcamerica-seven-worlds-one-planet-Q7FbMX6oJa4ycuY5Hf] Those last two descriptions, especially "ground stars", are reminiscent of the "fool's stars" mentioned in [[2017: Stargazing 2]].

However, Cueball must admit that astronomers do not know much about fireflies, since they are too fast for the astronomers' telescopes. This refers to the problem of object tracking in astronomy. Sufficient observations must be taken to reliably predict the future path of an object, and thereby to be able to reorient the observing equipment to track its progress across the sky and make further observations. While the relative velocity of fireflies would be much lower than that of most astronomical bodies, their movement across the field of view tends to ''appear'' much quicker, being unusually close to the observer. This, combined with their erratic, unpredictable paths, would make them very difficult to track through a telescope.

Since Cueball cannot help further, he transfers the caller to the "Weird Bug Hotline", in a process that is apparently somewhat routine – enough to have the correct line somehow preprogrammed into his call-handling system. This is clearly not the first 'astronomy' query that actually concerns fireflies. This is similar to the process that might happen when a helpline caller's query cannot be handled by first line support and has to be passed on to a more specialized second line operator, or where the call has been routed to the wrong specialist to start with, perhaps because the user, lacking knowledge about the issue, selected the wrong option from an automated routing system.

Before the call ends, at Cueball's end, he hears the opening question from the other hotline ("Is it currently biting you?") as the new support tech again goes directly to the most common/important query, whether there is any immediate danger to be resolved... It is possible that Cueball will actually be speaking to the Weird Bugs line initially, quickly priming the Weird Bug call-handler with the salient facts already established before fully handing over the call. This could get the original caller straight into the correct conversation if the onward line's handler is sufficiently competent and experienced in such a transfer.

Some people (often {{w|Unidentified flying object|UFO}} enthusiasts) tend to get a little over-excited about calling every light in the sky they don't expect a UFO. This comic takes this to the extreme, where someone calls a helpline because they saw fireflies, and thought they were UFOs. While UFOs are not mentioned by name, they are heavily implied. Technically, such a person would be correct, so long as the lights are actually unidentified, flying and caused by a physical object, but if the expectation is that it is an extraterrestrial spacecraft then the truth (if discovered and also accepted) can be disappointing to some people, rather than lead to an interesting alternative avenue of appreciation of whatever phenomenon it truly is.

The title text is a reference to bugs that have gaps of several years between emerging from their larval state. Most famous are the {{w|periodical cicadas}}, 13- and 17-year cicadas, that only emerge every 13 or 17 years depending on species. The 17 years in the title text thus refers to the 17-year cicadas. Every 17 years the bug hotline hires a bunch of temporary staff, either because there will be more callers due to the unexpected new bug no one has seen for 17 years, or it could be because they just like to emulate nature and thus do this every 17 years. Or alternately, the 17-year cicadas may just like to gather inside a trench coat and apply for jobs answering calls about weird bugs. The largest 17-year cicada appearance in the USA is called {{W|Brood X}} which last occurred in 2021 and before that 2004. [https://cicadas.uconn.edu/broods/ There are smaller broods in other years], but the majority come out with 17 years interval, and the next is expected in 2038. The joke in the title text is that the employment statistics for the weird hotline have to correct for this fact, a reference to the decennial {{w|United States census}}, which involves so many people as to affect aggregate employment statistics. Periodical cicadas have been mentioned before in [[2263: Cicadas]] (see details about them in that comic's [[2263:_Cicadas#Trivia|trivia section]]).

==Transcript==
:[Cueball, with a headset on, is sitting in an office chair at a desk in front of his computer screen, hands on the keyboard. He receives a call, and the caller's voice is shown in a jagged frame above Cueball, between his two lines of text.]
:Cueball: Hello, Emergency Astronomer Hotline. How would you describe the lights?
:Caller on phone: ''I don't know! Help!''
:Cueball: Stay calm. Is it day? If so, that's the Sun.

:[Cueball is now seen en face with the headset, but the computer etc. is not shown. The caller's voice is now written normally but with zigzag lines going to the text from Cueball's headphone. Cueball's reply has a normal line going up to it.]
:Caller on phone: No, the Sun set and then the light appeared!
:Cueball: Hmm, could be stars. Are they stationary?
:Caller on phone: No, they're all zipping around bushes.

:[In a frameless panel, the setting returns to the one from the first panel, with the caller's voice in jagged frames again.]
:Cueball: ''Aha!'' Fireflies!
:Caller on phone: "Fireflies"?
:Cueball: Lightning bugs. Tree blinkers. Ground stars.
:Cueball: They're fine.
:Caller on phone: ''Phew!''

:[Same setting as first panel, but broader panel. After Cueball's reply and a short reply from the caller as in the first panel, there is a sound indicating transfer to another hotline. Then to the right there is a square panel with jagged edge, with the voice from the other hotline's employee.]
:Cueball: We don't know much about them as they're too fast for our telescopes, but I can transfer you to the Weird Bug Hotline.
:Caller on phone: Sure, thanks.
:Transfer of call. *''Click''*
:Weird Bug Hotline on phone: ''Hi, Weird Bug Hotline. Is it currently biting you?''

==Trivia==
*The UK Military had a UFO helpline for over 50 years. [[https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna34277625 Link]]
**The US took up that mantle by requesting UAP ({{w|Unidentified Aerial Phenomena}}) reports in 2021.[https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/reports-publications/reports-publications-2021/item/2223-preliminary-assessment-unidentified-aerial-phenomena]
*This comic has a lot of themes that have been touched on in previous comics, including
**Helplines [[278: Black Hat Support]], [[806: Tech Support]]
**People not understanding basic concepts [[876: Trapped]]
**Cicadas [[2263: Cicadas]]

{{comic discussion}}


[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
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