explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:xkcd: volume 0

2026-01-21T12:29:42Z

Artem: = didn't indent, so I changed them to :

== How the pages are counted ==

The pages are counted in something akin to a trinary number system: the only digits used are 0, 1, and 2. But 2 always rolls over, even if there are digits behind it. So:

<table style="border:solid;border-width:2px;">
<tr>
<td> Number (xkcd v0) </td>
<td> Number in denary </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 1 </td>
<td> 1 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 2 </td>
<td> 2 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 10 </td>
<td> 3 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 11 </td>
<td> 4 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 12 </td>
<td> 5 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 20 </td>
<td> 6 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 100 </td>
<td> 7 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 101 </td>
<td> 8 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 102 </td>
<td> 9 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 110 </td>
<td> 10 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 111 </td>
<td> 11 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 112 </td>
<td> 12 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 120 </td>
<td> 13 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 200 </td>
<td> 14 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 1000 </td>
<td> 15 </td>
</tr>
</table>

How would someone do a base conversion between "xkcd trinary" and denary? I was thinking to do something akin to (value in "normal trinary")-(value of the previous digit in the same trinary) for each magnitude in xkcd trinary, but I can't figure out how rigorous it would be, much less accurate. Any ideas? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.141|108.162.241.141]] 23:33, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
: What about:
: 1. Split the number into ordered pairs of digits.
: If there's an odd number of digits, pair the leftmost digit with 0, with the 0 on the left.
: 2. Convert each pair from base 3 to base 7.
: 3. Convert the result from base 7 to base 10.
: For example, 212 -> 02 12 -> 25 -> 19.
: This process is also reversible. [[User:Artem|Artem]] ([[User talk:Artem|talk]]) 12:27, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

Well, the recent edits up to {{diff|402245|this point}} don't explain much at all. XORing some numbers, but not others? What about the non-numbers (non-hexadecimal characters, "M", or even words, "Dumper")? Can I request a proper rewrite of those facts to actually make some sort of sense without apparently being selective or just plain consisting of Insane Troll Logic?

The issue with finding info is that the XKCD forum depicting the solving process doesn't really exist. I've kinda had to re-solve entire parts just for the explanation.
[[Special:Contributions/82.132.237.136|82.132.237.136]] 13:40, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

Talk:xkcd: volume 0

2026-01-21T12:27:41Z

Artem: Added comment.

== How the pages are counted ==

The pages are counted in something akin to a trinary number system: the only digits used are 0, 1, and 2. But 2 always rolls over, even if there are digits behind it. So:

<table style="border:solid;border-width:2px;">
<tr>
<td> Number (xkcd v0) </td>
<td> Number in denary </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 1 </td>
<td> 1 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 2 </td>
<td> 2 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 10 </td>
<td> 3 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 11 </td>
<td> 4 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 12 </td>
<td> 5 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 20 </td>
<td> 6 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 100 </td>
<td> 7 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 101 </td>
<td> 8 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 102 </td>
<td> 9 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 110 </td>
<td> 10 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 111 </td>
<td> 11 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 112 </td>
<td> 12 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 120 </td>
<td> 13 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 200 </td>
<td> 14 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 1000 </td>
<td> 15 </td>
</tr>
</table>

How would someone do a base conversion between "xkcd trinary" and denary? I was thinking to do something akin to (value in "normal trinary")-(value of the previous digit in the same trinary) for each magnitude in xkcd trinary, but I can't figure out how rigorous it would be, much less accurate. Any ideas? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.141|108.162.241.141]] 23:33, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
= What about:
= 1. Split the number into ordered pairs of digits.
= If there's an odd number of digits, pair the leftmost digit with 0, with the 0 on the left.
= 2. Convert each pair from base 3 to base 7.
= 3. Convert the result from base 7 to base 10.
= For example, 212 -> 02 12 -> 25 -> 19.
= This process is also reversible. [[User:Artem|Artem]] ([[User talk:Artem|talk]]) 12:27, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

Well, the recent edits up to {{diff|402245|this point}} don't explain much at all. XORing some numbers, but not others? What about the non-numbers (non-hexadecimal characters, "M", or even words, "Dumper")? Can I request a proper rewrite of those facts to actually make some sort of sense without apparently being selective or just plain consisting of Insane Troll Logic?

The issue with finding info is that the XKCD forum depicting the solving process doesn't really exist. I've kinda had to re-solve entire parts just for the explanation.
[[Special:Contributions/82.132.237.136|82.132.237.136]] 13:40, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

xkcd: volume 0

2026-01-21T12:20:06Z

Artem:

{{DISPLAYTITLE:''xkcd: volume 0''}}{{book navigation}}[[File:xkcd_volume_0.jpeg|260px|right|thumb|The cover of the book]]{{incomplete|
*The article is missing a lot of information and links about the book.

*IF YOU HAVE THE BOOK, explain how the pages are counted in the book! (They're ternary-like, except when 2 is reached, it always overflows onto the digit with the next highest magnitude and increments it by one...

*Please help decode each part of the Cipher, and reorganize it into a more readable format (possibly a table, if somebody is up to the task).)}}{{TOC}}

'''''xkcd: volume 0''''' is a book by [[Randall Munroe]] released on August 24, 2010. It features a collection of comics personally chosen by Randall from the initial 600 entries of the webcomic. These comics were assembled from high-resolution original scans and include the original or, sometimes, a different title text. The book is available to [https://archive.org/details/2009Xkcd read in full on the Internet Archive].

{{Quote|<nowiki></nowiki>''xkcd: volume 0'' is the first xkcd book! It features selections from the first 600 comics, including various author and fan favorites. It was lovingly assembled from high-resolution original scans of the comics (the mouseover text is discreetly included), and features a lot of doodles, notes, and puzzles in the margins.
|''[[Randall Munroe]]|[https://web.archive.org/web/20100701115034/http://store.xkcd.com/ Source]}}

The book is published by {{w|Breadpig}}, a company founded by Randall's friend Alexis, and their portion of the profits will go to build a school in Laos through the charity {{w|Room to Read}}.
{{cot|Comics featured in the book}}
<div style="column-width:20em">
# [[10: Pi Equals]]
# [[242: The Difference]]
# [[249: Chess Photo]]
# [[123: Centrifugal Force]]
# [[214: The Problem with Wikipedia]]
# [[221: Random Number]]
# [[231: Cat Proximity]]
# [[20: Ferret]]
# [[21: Kepler]]
# [[30: Donner]]
# [[37: Hyphen]]
# [[82: Frame]]
# [[44: Love]]
# [[54: Science]]
# [[55: Useless]]
# [[85: Paths]]
# [[105: Parallel Universe]]
# [[108: M.C. Hammer Slide]]
# [[112: Baring My Heart]]
# [[114: Computational Linguists]]
# [[120: Dating Service]]
# [[116: City]]
# [[117: Pong]]
# [[124: Blogofractal]]
# [[128: dPain over dt]]
# [[134: Myspace]]
# [[135: Substitute]]
# [[136: Science Fair]]
# [[137: Dreams]]
# [[138: Pointers]]
# [[149: Sandwich]]
# [[152: Hamster Ball]]
# [[160: Penny Arcade Parody]]
# [[153: Cryptography]]
# [[159: Boombox]]
# [[157: Filler Art]]
# [[161: Accident]]
# [[162: Angular Momentum]]
# [[184: Matrix Transform]]
# [[163: Donald Knuth]]
# [[165: Turn Signals]]
# [[201: Christmas GPS]]
# [[177: Alice and Bob]]
# [[173: Movie Seating]]
# [[179: e to the pi times i]]
# [[191: Lojban]]
# [[210: 90's Flowchart]]
# [[200: Bill Nye]]
# [[182: Nash]]
# [[180: Canada]]
# [[215: Letting Go]]
# [[239: Blagofaire]]
# [[225: Open Source]]
# [[230: Hamiltonian]]
# [[240: Dream Girl]]
# [[247: Factoring the Time]]
# [[248: Hypotheticals]]
# [[253: Highway Engineer Pranks]]
# [[257: Code Talkers]]
# [[258: Conspiracy Theories]]
# [[262: IN UR REALITY]]
# [[276: Fixed Width]]
# [[274: With Apologies to The Who]]
# [[279: Pickup Lines]]
# [[275: Thoughts]]
# [[77: Bored with the Internet]]
# [[150: Grownups]]
# [[167: Nihilism]]
# [[144: Parody Week: A Softer World]]
# [[209: Kayak]]
# [[202: YouTube]]
# [[285: Wikipedian Protester]]
# [[472: House of Pancakes]]
# [[556: Alternative Energy Revolution]]
# [[442: xkcd Loves the Discovery Channel]]
# [[264: Choices: Part 1]]
# [[265: Choices: Part 2]]
# [[266: Choices: Part 3]]
# [[267: Choices: Part 4]]
# [[268: Choices: Part 5]]
# [[282: Organic Fuel]]
# [[280: Librarians]]
# [[320: 28-Hour Day]]
# [[316: Loud Sex]]
# [[284: Tape Measure]]
# [[287: NP-Complete]]
# [[290: Fucking Blue Shells]]
# [[303: Compiling]]
# [[291: Dignified]]
# [[305: Rule 34]]
# [[327: Exploits of a Mom]]
# [[333: Getting Out of Hand]]
# [[323: Ballmer Peak]]
# [[322: Pix Plz]]
# [[325: A-Minus-Minus]]
# [[340: Fight]]
# [[356: Nerd Sniping]]
# [[349: Success]]
# [[366: Your Mom]]
# [[369: Dangers]]
# [[372: To Be Wanted]]
# [[374: Journal]]
# [[377: Journal 2]]
# [[373: The Data So Far]]
# [[376: Bug]]
# [[380: Emoticon]]
# [[387: Advanced Technology]]
# [[386: Duty Calls]]
# [[412: Startled]]
# [[389: Keeping Time]]
# [[397: Unscientific]]
# [[391: Anti-Mindvirus]]
# [[393: Ultimate Game]]
# [[416: Zealous Autoconfig]]
# [[396: The Ring]]
# [[398: Tap That Ass]]
# [[420: Jealousy]]
# [[429: Fantasy]]
# [[434: xkcd Goes to the Airport]]
# [[435: Purity]]
# [[445: I Am Not Good with Boomerangs]]
# [[475: Further Boomerang Difficulties]]
# [[451: Impostor]]
# [[452: Mission]]
# [[463: Voting Machines]]
# [[500: Election]]
# [[481: Listen to Yourself]]
# [[486: I am Not a Ninja]]
# [[487: Numerical Sex Positions]]
# [[505: A Bunch of Rocks]]
# [[488: Steal This Comic]]
# [[511: Sleet]]
# [[530: I'm An Idiot]]
# [[513: Friends]]
# [[518: Flow Charts]]
# [[540: Base System]]
# [[569: Borders]]
# [[565: Security Question]]
# [[552: Correlation]]
# [[559: No Pun Intended]]
# [[591: Troll Slayer]]
# [[571: Can't Sleep]]
# [[592: Drama]]
# [[585: Outreach]]
</div>
{{cob}}
==xkcd volume 0 service pack 1==
Work in progress, soon to come
==Transcript==
{{Incomplete transcript|Expand on the back}}
===Front cover===
:[A bit above the middle of the page, there is the title of the book with the subtitle in a smaller font size below it. Neither the title nor the subtitle are capitalized.]
:xkcd
:volume 0
:[In the bottom right of the page stand Megan, on the right, and Cueball, on the left, holding hands. Cueball looks away from Megan, to the left, and Megan looks away from Cueball, to the right.]

===Back cover===
:[There are several otherwise nondescript gray rectangles on which the characters stand on. Red spiders are present throughout the panel.]
:[Two of these rectangles are attached from the area around the right corner and going off of the cover, in an L-shape. Black Hat stands on it, taking notes on a journal. Twenty-three red spiders lie on the object. Nine of them are clustered in the inner L corner, four of them forming chains. An additional red spider has just fallen off of the object from the right.]
:[To L shape's right, in the air, Cory Doctorow in his red suit is shown punching a red spider.]

==Cypher==
The book also contains many puzzles within it, usually in red.

The bottom of page one has the following characters: 
CNEG BAR BS RVTUG VA URK: RR AVAR RVTUG SVIR BAR BAR RVTUG.

The text is encoded in a Caesar Cipher, {{w|ROT13|shifted 13 letters}}. It translates to: 
PART ONE OF EIGHT IN HEX: EE NINE EIGHT FIVE ONE ONE EIGHT.

This revealed the first part of the hex, and alerted readers to the fact that there was more encoded text..

The bottom of page two, under the strip Chess Photo, has

http://xkcd.com/chesscoaster/

On page 10, next to the comic Centrifugal Force, there is a drawing of Cueball leaning out of a hot air ballon above three mountains.

The bottom right of page 11 contains Cueball sitting next to a block of characters that is four characters tall and eight characters wide. The characters are

I0TAE/KE[New line] 
20IBSWIY[New line] 
ODE65TN8[New line] 
CO25.RAP

[Note: I could not differentiate the 1’s from the “I”’s and the 0’s from the “O”’s in this section, so this transcription may not be entirely accurate.]

Page 12 contains a drawing of Cueball holding a cat next to the comic Cat Proximity. He is saying

KITTY KITTY KITTY 

On page 111, below the comic Useless, there is the text 
CY-O CMLROOCXN. YR M.AOGP. NRK.W ABE ,CYDRGY M.AOGP.M.BY YD.P. JAB X. BR OJC.BJ.V <D.B CY JRM.O YR NRK.W ,.-P. ANN CB YD. EAPTV [[TCBO.F

This text is the result of changing text from a QWERTY keyboard to a DVORAK keyboard. When decoded, it reads: 
IT'S IMPOSSIBLe TO MeASURe LOVe< AND wITHOUT MeASUReMeNT THeRe CAN Be NO SCIeNCe> WHeN IT COMeS TO LOVe< we'Re ALL IN THe DARK> --KINSeY

On the bottom of page 1000, near the comic M.C. Hammer Slide, there is a drawing of Cueball doing the M.C. Hammer slide in a hamster ball with the caption M.C. Hamster written below it.

On page 1010, there is a drawing of Cueball on a one wheeler approaching a ramp to the right

On the page 1012, under the comic DPain Over Dt, there is the text in braille: 
⠊⠞⠀⠞⠁⠅⠑⠎⠀⠍⠕⠗⠑⠀⠞⠊⠍⠑⠀⠞⠓⠁⠝⠀⠽⠕⠥⠀⠑⠭⠏⠑⠉⠞ ⠃⠥⠞ ⠇⠑⠎⠎ ⠞⠓⠁⠝⠀⠽⠕⠥⠀⠋⠑⠁⠗⠲

This is a line of text written in Braille. Translated to English, it reads: 
''it takes more time than you expect but less than you fear.''

This is seemingly unrelated to the cipher, but it is instead a message for those attempting to crack it.

On page 1020, to the upper left of the comic Science Fair, there is a drawing of Cueball saying

I have a wave generator and 
Peter Frampton’s talkbox. Ladies? 

The following pages have the respective 2 characters in the upper right corner

101010 grey LY 
101120 red IK 
102000 red GU 
110100 red EH 
110102 red DO 
110111 red CR 

The bottom of page 10020 under the Dream Girl strip, has
772A3A35 DEF88CA7 0BDFD186 20B05684 934721F8 F64762FD 
03F8D76B 3FA0CB8C 2756B2D0 A9F00A1B CFF1603E DB05426C 

The bottom of page 10112 has a string written in binary, which reads: 
0011001001011100000101100000110111100100001010100110011000010010110011

This, when put through a decoder, translates to

The bottom of page 111000 (2nd last page) says 
123 B 
followed by an arrow bouncing off a vertical line, and the string 
VRDSTLRBYSMRLUVRXGCFHZWXKYNHYKLKWMCLRMFIKOZAIYXJWITOYOVN 

Page 110120 contains the following poem rotated 90 degrees clockwise. 
THE START OF THE TENTH-FAVORITE WORD USED BY BENDER (C in Chump) 
THE TOON THAT WENT SOUTH WHILE COMMANDED BY ENDER (Dumper from [[Ender's Game]]) 
THE NUMBER OF LIGHTS THAT PICARD SAID WERE ON (Four Lights) 
AND THE CLASS OF THE PLANET WHERE KIRK SHOUTED "KHAAAN!" (The planet was M class) 
THE RINGS FOR THE MEN MINUS RINGS FOR THE ELVES (9 for men - 3 for elves = 6) 
AND THE PRODUCT MOD 10 OF A FIVESOME OF TWELVES (0) 
THE END OF A CODE NES GAMERS KNOW ("Start" as in the end of the Konami code, sometimes mapped as 1) 
AND THE BASE USED TO MODEL HOW QUICKLY THINGS GROW (Eulers number or e) 
WHEN THEY'RE XOR'D TOGETHER THE CHECKSUM IS "E" (All numbers above (601 and 9 for e for a reason unknown to me) XOR'd together is 14 which is commonly stated as "E" in hexidecimal formatting, the fact that E = 14 allowed for the final cypher's decription 
WHICH WILL TELL YOU YOU'VE GOT THE PENULTIMATE KEY 

These various cyphers contained clues for several puzzles.
The combination of them led to a final cypher: EE98511873CD4542DA101CBC735646B09BE32BE0D0E0C9A6CB4D62AE8662384F) And was successfully decoded by the [[Forums]].
EE985118 is from the Caesar cypher shift.
LYIKGUEHDOCR Provided a polyalphabetic shift
The checksum "E" from the XOR poem was then used as a bitwise mask. Each byte of the resulting data was XOR'd with this value to flip specific bits and align the data with standard text encoding.
Once the shifts and bitwise XOR operations were complete, the hexadecimal bytes were converted into ASCII characters.
The solution was a series of coordinates and a time: <3<3<3 2010-06-26 14:28:57 37.769573 -122.483123.
This led to the middle of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, 2010 June 26th at 2:30pm-ish.
A group of about 100 XKCD fans showed up to the location and were rewarded with a limited edition copy of XKCD volume 0.

Not much else is known about the cypher and special edition, and due to the takedown of the [[Forums]] most of the information as to how the cypher was solved is lost to time.

==See also==
* pg 1 [[10: Pi Equals]]
* pg 111 [[55: Useless]]
* pg 1012 [[128: dPain over dt]]
And talk/discussion pages for
* pg 11002 [[144: Parody Week: A Softer World]]
* pg 11002 [[209: Kayak]]
* pg 11011 [[285: Wikipedian Protester]]
* pg 100000 [[282: Organic Fuel]]
* pg 100012 [[290: Fucking Blue Shells]]

Other pages also have extra text, drawings, or glyphs.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Red Spiders| ]]
[[Category:Books]]{{xkcdmeta}}

xkcd: volume 0

2026-01-21T12:19:32Z

Artem: Added discussion.

{{DISPLAYTITLE:''xkcd: volume 0''}}{{book navigation}}[[File:xkcd_volume_0.jpeg|260px|right|thumb|The cover of the book]]{{incomplete|
*The article is missing a lot of information and links about the book.

*IF YOU HAVE THE BOOK, explain how the pages are counted in the book! (They're ternary-like, except when 2 is reached, it always overflows onto the digit with the next highest magnitude and increments it by one...

*Please help decode each part of the Cipher, and reorganize it into a more readable format (possibly a table, if somebody is up to the task).)}}{{TOC}}

'''''xkcd: volume 0''''' is a book by [[Randall Munroe]] released on August 24, 2010. It features a collection of comics personally chosen by Randall from the initial 600 entries of the webcomic. These comics were assembled from high-resolution original scans and include the original or, sometimes, a different title text. The book is available to [https://archive.org/details/2009Xkcd read in full on the Internet Archive].

{{Quote|<nowiki></nowiki>''xkcd: volume 0'' is the first xkcd book! It features selections from the first 600 comics, including various author and fan favorites. It was lovingly assembled from high-resolution original scans of the comics (the mouseover text is discreetly included), and features a lot of doodles, notes, and puzzles in the margins.
|''[[Randall Munroe]]|[https://web.archive.org/web/20100701115034/http://store.xkcd.com/ Source]}}

The book is published by {{w|Breadpig}}, a company founded by Randall's friend Alexis, and their portion of the profits will go to build a school in Laos through the charity {{w|Room to Read}}.
{{cot|Comics featured in the book}}
<div style="column-width:20em">
# [[10: Pi Equals]]
# [[242: The Difference]]
# [[249: Chess Photo]]
# [[123: Centrifugal Force]]
# [[214: The Problem with Wikipedia]]
# [[221: Random Number]]
# [[231: Cat Proximity]]
# [[20: Ferret]]
# [[21: Kepler]]
# [[30: Donner]]
# [[37: Hyphen]]
# [[82: Frame]]
# [[44: Love]]
# [[54: Science]]
# [[55: Useless]]
# [[85: Paths]]
# [[105: Parallel Universe]]
# [[108: M.C. Hammer Slide]]
# [[112: Baring My Heart]]
# [[114: Computational Linguists]]
# [[120: Dating Service]]
# [[116: City]]
# [[117: Pong]]
# [[124: Blogofractal]]
# [[128: dPain over dt]]
# [[134: Myspace]]
# [[135: Substitute]]
# [[136: Science Fair]]
# [[137: Dreams]]
# [[138: Pointers]]
# [[149: Sandwich]]
# [[152: Hamster Ball]]
# [[160: Penny Arcade Parody]]
# [[153: Cryptography]]
# [[159: Boombox]]
# [[157: Filler Art]]
# [[161: Accident]]
# [[162: Angular Momentum]]
# [[184: Matrix Transform]]
# [[163: Donald Knuth]]
# [[165: Turn Signals]]
# [[201: Christmas GPS]]
# [[177: Alice and Bob]]
# [[173: Movie Seating]]
# [[179: e to the pi times i]]
# [[191: Lojban]]
# [[210: 90's Flowchart]]
# [[200: Bill Nye]]
# [[182: Nash]]
# [[180: Canada]]
# [[215: Letting Go]]
# [[239: Blagofaire]]
# [[225: Open Source]]
# [[230: Hamiltonian]]
# [[240: Dream Girl]]
# [[247: Factoring the Time]]
# [[248: Hypotheticals]]
# [[253: Highway Engineer Pranks]]
# [[257: Code Talkers]]
# [[258: Conspiracy Theories]]
# [[262: IN UR REALITY]]
# [[276: Fixed Width]]
# [[274: With Apologies to The Who]]
# [[279: Pickup Lines]]
# [[275: Thoughts]]
# [[77: Bored with the Internet]]
# [[150: Grownups]]
# [[167: Nihilism]]
# [[144: Parody Week: A Softer World]]
# [[209: Kayak]]
# [[202: YouTube]]
# [[285: Wikipedian Protester]]
# [[472: House of Pancakes]]
# [[556: Alternative Energy Revolution]]
# [[442: xkcd Loves the Discovery Channel]]
# [[264: Choices: Part 1]]
# [[265: Choices: Part 2]]
# [[266: Choices: Part 3]]
# [[267: Choices: Part 4]]
# [[268: Choices: Part 5]]
# [[282: Organic Fuel]]
# [[280: Librarians]]
# [[320: 28-Hour Day]]
# [[316: Loud Sex]]
# [[284: Tape Measure]]
# [[287: NP-Complete]]
# [[290: Fucking Blue Shells]]
# [[303: Compiling]]
# [[291: Dignified]]
# [[305: Rule 34]]
# [[327: Exploits of a Mom]]
# [[333: Getting Out of Hand]]
# [[323: Ballmer Peak]]
# [[322: Pix Plz]]
# [[325: A-Minus-Minus]]
# [[340: Fight]]
# [[356: Nerd Sniping]]
# [[349: Success]]
# [[366: Your Mom]]
# [[369: Dangers]]
# [[372: To Be Wanted]]
# [[374: Journal]]
# [[377: Journal 2]]
# [[373: The Data So Far]]
# [[376: Bug]]
# [[380: Emoticon]]
# [[387: Advanced Technology]]
# [[386: Duty Calls]]
# [[412: Startled]]
# [[389: Keeping Time]]
# [[397: Unscientific]]
# [[391: Anti-Mindvirus]]
# [[393: Ultimate Game]]
# [[416: Zealous Autoconfig]]
# [[396: The Ring]]
# [[398: Tap That Ass]]
# [[420: Jealousy]]
# [[429: Fantasy]]
# [[434: xkcd Goes to the Airport]]
# [[435: Purity]]
# [[445: I Am Not Good with Boomerangs]]
# [[475: Further Boomerang Difficulties]]
# [[451: Impostor]]
# [[452: Mission]]
# [[463: Voting Machines]]
# [[500: Election]]
# [[481: Listen to Yourself]]
# [[486: I am Not a Ninja]]
# [[487: Numerical Sex Positions]]
# [[505: A Bunch of Rocks]]
# [[488: Steal This Comic]]
# [[511: Sleet]]
# [[530: I'm An Idiot]]
# [[513: Friends]]
# [[518: Flow Charts]]
# [[540: Base System]]
# [[569: Borders]]
# [[565: Security Question]]
# [[552: Correlation]]
# [[559: No Pun Intended]]
# [[591: Troll Slayer]]
# [[571: Can't Sleep]]
# [[592: Drama]]
# [[585: Outreach]]
</div>
{{cob}}
==xkcd volume 0 service pack 1==
Work in progress, soon to come
==Transcript==
{{Incomplete transcript|Expand on the back}}
===Front cover===
:[A bit above the middle of the page, there is the title of the book with the subtitle in a smaller font size below it. Neither the title nor the subtitle are capitalized.]
:xkcd
:volume 0
:[In the bottom right of the page stand Megan, on the right, and Cueball, on the left, holding hands. Cueball looks away from Megan, to the left, and Megan looks away from Cueball, to the right.]

===Back cover===
:[There are several otherwise nondescript gray rectangles on which the characters stand on. Red spiders are present throughout the panel.]
:[Two of these rectangles are attached from the area around the right corner and going off of the cover, in an L-shape. Black Hat stands on it, taking notes on a journal. Twenty-three red spiders lie on the object. Nine of them are clustered in the inner L corner, four of them forming chains. An additional red spider has just fallen off of the object from the right.]
:[To L shape's right, in the air, Cory Doctorow in his red suit is shown punching a red spider.]

==Cypher==
The book also contains many puzzles within it, usually in red.

The bottom of page one has the following characters: 
CNEG BAR BS RVTUG VA URK: RR AVAR RVTUG SVIR BAR BAR RVTUG.

The text is encoded in a Caesar Cipher, {{w|ROT13|shifted 13 letters}}. It translates to: 
PART ONE OF EIGHT IN HEX: EE NINE EIGHT FIVE ONE ONE EIGHT.

This revealed the first part of the hex, and alerted readers to the fact that there was more encoded text..

The bottom of page two, under the strip Chess Photo, has

http://xkcd.com/chesscoaster/

On page 10, next to the comic Centrifugal Force, there is a drawing of Cueball leaning out of a hot air ballon above three mountains.

The bottom right of page 11 contains Cueball sitting next to a block of characters that is four characters tall and eight characters wide. The characters are

I0TAE/KE[New line] 
20IBSWIY[New line] 
ODE65TN8[New line] 
CO25.RAP

[Note: I could not differentiate the 1’s from the “I”’s and the 0’s from the “O”’s in this section, so this transcription may not be entirely accurate.]

Page 12 contains a drawing of Cueball holding a cat next to the comic Cat Proximity. He is saying

KITTY KITTY KITTY 

On page 111, below the comic Useless, there is the text 
CY-O CMLROOCXN. YR M.AOGP. NRK.W ABE ,CYDRGY M.AOGP.M.BY YD.P. JAB X. BR OJC.BJ.V <D.B CY JRM.O YR NRK.W ,.-P. ANN CB YD. EAPTV [[TCBO.F

This text is the result of changing text from a QWERTY keyboard to a DVORAK keyboard. When decoded, it reads: 
IT'S IMPOSSIBLe TO MeASURe LOVe< AND wITHOUT MeASUReMeNT THeRe CAN Be NO SCIeNCe> WHeN IT COMeS TO LOVe< we'Re ALL IN THe DARK> --KINSeY

On the bottom of page 1000, near the comic M.C. Hammer Slide, there is a drawing of Cueball doing the M.C. Hammer slide in a hamster ball with the caption M.C. Hamster written below it.

On page 1010, there is a drawing of Cueball on a one wheeler approaching a ramp to the right

On the page 1012, under the comic DPain Over Dt, there is the text in braille: 
⠊⠞⠀⠞⠁⠅⠑⠎⠀⠍⠕⠗⠑⠀⠞⠊⠍⠑⠀⠞⠓⠁⠝⠀⠽⠕⠥⠀⠑⠭⠏⠑⠉⠞ ⠃⠥⠞ ⠇⠑⠎⠎ ⠞⠓⠁⠝⠀⠽⠕⠥⠀⠋⠑⠁⠗⠲

This is a line of text written in Braille. Translated to English, it reads: 
''it takes more time than you expect but less than you fear.''

This is seemingly unrelated to the cipher, but it is instead a message for those attempting to crack it.

On page 1020, to the upper left of the comic Science Fair, there is a drawing of Cueball saying

I have a wave generator and 
Peter Frampton’s talkbox. Ladies? 

The following pages have the respective 2 characters in the upper right corner

101010 grey LY 
101120 red IK 
102000 red GU 
110100 red EH 
110102 red DO 
110111 red CR 

The bottom of page 10020 under the Dream Girl strip, has
772A3A35 DEF88CA7 0BDFD186 20B05684 934721F8 F64762FD 
03F8D76B 3FA0CB8C 2756B2D0 A9F00A1B CFF1603E DB05426C 

The bottom of page 10112 has a string written in binary, which reads: 
0011001001011100000101100000110111100100001010100110011000010010110011

This, when put through a decoder, translates to

The bottom of page 111000 (2nd last page) says 
123 B 
followed by an arrow bouncing off a vertical line, and the string 
VRDSTLRBYSMRLUVRXGCFHZWXKYNHYKLKWMCLRMFIKOZAIYXJWITOYOVN 

Page 110120 contains the following poem rotated 90 degrees clockwise. 
THE START OF THE TENTH-FAVORITE WORD USED BY BENDER (C in Chump) 
THE TOON THAT WENT SOUTH WHILE COMMANDED BY ENDER (Dumper from [[Ender's Game]]) 
THE NUMBER OF LIGHTS THAT PICARD SAID WERE ON (Four Lights) 
AND THE CLASS OF THE PLANET WHERE KIRK SHOUTED "KHAAAN!" (The planet was M class) 
THE RINGS FOR THE MEN MINUS RINGS FOR THE ELVES (9 for men - 3 for elves = 6) 
AND THE PRODUCT MOD 10 OF A FIVESOME OF TWELVES (0) 
THE END OF A CODE NES GAMERS KNOW ("Start" as in the end of the Konami code, sometimes mapped as 1) 
AND THE BASE USED TO MODEL HOW QUICKLY THINGS GROW (Eulers number or e) 
WHEN THEY'RE XOR'D TOGETHER THE CHECKSUM IS "E" (All numbers above (601 and 9 for e for a reason unknown to me) XOR'd together is 14 which is commonly stated as "E" in hexidecimal formatting, the fact that E = 14 allowed for the final cypher's decription 
WHICH WILL TELL YOU YOU'VE GOT THE PENULTIMATE KEY 

These various cyphers contained clues for several puzzles.
The combination of them led to a final cypher: EE98511873CD4542DA101CBC735646B09BE32BE0D0E0C9A6CB4D62AE8662384F) And was successfully decoded by the [[Forums]].
EE985118 is from the Caesar cypher shift.
LYIKGUEHDOCR Provided a polyalphabetic shift
The checksum "E" from the XOR poem was then used as a bitwise mask. Each byte of the resulting data was XOR'd with this value to flip specific bits and align the data with standard text encoding.
Once the shifts and bitwise XOR operations were complete, the hexadecimal bytes were converted into ASCII characters.
The solution was a series of coordinates and a time: <3<3<3 2010-06-26 14:28:57 37.769573 -122.483123.
This led to the middle of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, 2010 June 26th at 2:30pm-ish.
A group of about 100 XKCD fans showed up to the location and were rewarded with a limited edition copy of XKCD volume 0.

Not much else is known about the cypher and special edition, and due to the takedown of the [[Forums]] most of the information as to how the cypher was solved is lost to time.

==See also==
* pg 1 [[10: Pi Equals]]
* pg 111 [[55: Useless]]
* pg 1012 [[128: dPain over dt]]
And talk/discussion pages for
* pg 11002 [[144: Parody Week: A Softer World]]
* pg 11002 [[209: Kayak]]
* pg 11011 [[285: Wikipedian Protester]]
* pg 100000 [[282: Organic Fuel]]
* pg 100012 [[290: Fucking Blue Shells]]

Other pages also have extra text, drawings, or glyphs.

{{discussion}}<noinclude>

[[Category:Red Spiders| ]]
[[Category:Books]]{{xkcdmeta}}

Talk:2042: Rolle's Theorem

2025-11-23T06:35:17Z

Artem: Added comment,

Now we wait for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munroes_theorem. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.54.165|172.69.54.165]] 15:51, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
:Can't wait to see how long it takes to remove the article. [[User:Linker|Linker]] ([[User talk:Linker|talk]]) 17:05, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
::Which article? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Log?type=&user=&page=Munroes+theorem&wpdate=&tagfilter=&wpFormIdentifier=logeventslist The log] is empty --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.151.94|172.69.151.94]] 09:06, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
:Don't you mean {{w|Munroe's theorem}}?[[User:Artem|Artem]] ([[User talk:Artem|talk]]) 06:35, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

:Proposed ideas for Munroe's Law:
::- Any seemingly simple idea will be difficult to prove; the simpler it seems, the harder the proof.
::- Any proof which is discovered by a layperson will have been previously discovered by an expert (or an "expert") in the field.
:[[User:Rajakiit|Raj-a-Kiit]] ([[User talk:Rajakiit|talk]]) 17:57, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
:I do not have the time to do it good, so here a suggestion: Would someone go to the wikipedia page of Rolle's theorem and add a "in popular culture" section? may be a first? Not even "Nash equilibrum" has that :-) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.234.16|162.158.234.16]] 08:13, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
::Done. [[User:Kmote|Kmote]] ([[User talk:Kmote|talk]]) 17:56, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
::Speaking of popular culture, there's a (moderately) well known Ballad of Rolle's theorem [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0BXv90MlhA Balada o vete Rolleovej] ("moderately" meaning some people who studied at Faculty of mathematics in Bratislava might have heard (of) it) --[[User:Kventin|Kventin]] ([[User talk:Kventin|talk]]) 07:41, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
::Proposed idea for Munroe[[wikipedia:Apostrophe#Smart quotes|’]]<nowiki/>s Law:
:::[[wikipedia:Dash#Itemization mark|–]][[mw:Help:Lists| <nowiki/>]]Whenever XKCD references a theorem, an edit war is caused on the respective Wikipedia article.--[[Special:Contributions/172.69.151.93|172.69.151.93]] 09:03, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
:::: I feel that can be generalized to "whenever xkcd references a Wikipedia article, an edit war is started on said article" [[User:Firestar233|guess who]] ([[User talk:Firestar233|if you want to]] | [[Special:Contributions/Firestar233|what i have done]]) 03:08, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

I feel like Euclid beat Randall to the punch here, a couple millennia. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.146|162.158.155.146]] 16:54, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

I don't see that Thales has proven Randall's theorem. Do not to be confused with {{w|Thales's theorem}}, that's about right angles. Maybe I'm blind or just dumb, but if so it has to be explained with more traceable background. I just believe that this diagonal is so trivial that even the ancient Greeks weren't engaged on a proof. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:38, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
* From {{w|Thales|Wikipedia}}: Other quotes from Proclus list more of Thales' mathematical achievements: "They say that Thales was the first to demonstrate that the circle is bisected by the diameter, the cause of the bisection being the unimpeded passage of the straight line through the centre." [[User:Alexei Kopylov|Alexei Kopylov]] ([[User talk:Alexei Kopylov|talk]]) 05:39, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
* On the other hand not all historian believe Proclus. But van der Waerden does: [https://books.google.com/books?id=HK3vCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA88#v=onepage&q&f=false]. [[User:Alexei Kopylov|Alexei Kopylov]] ([[User talk:Alexei Kopylov|talk]]) 05:49, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

'''Rolle's Theorem counterexample?'''

Isn't the TAN(x) function a counterexample to this? Starting at a given point, it rises to infinity, then returns from negative infinity to the same point without ever having a slope of zero. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.58.89|172.68.58.89]] 06:58, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
:TAN(x) isn't differentiable at pi/2, hence the theorem doesn't apply--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.92.40|162.158.92.40]] 07:48, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
::And tan(x) has a slope of 0 at pi, so even if it applied, it wouldn't prove it wrong. A better example would be 1/x, but still invalid. [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 08:01, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
:::Nope: tan(x) has a slope of 1 at pi, and its slope is never less than 1. Of course, that doesn't make it a counterexample. Zetfr 09:17, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

'''Clueless Museum Visitor'''

The math in the comic is well explained, but shouldn't there be something about the "math equivalent of the clueless art museum visitor..." part? Zetfr 09:17, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
: Seconded, all the argument here is about math that isn't even *in* the comic, whereas the bit that confuses me is the cultural metaphor... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.235|162.158.154.235]] 07:16, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
: I had a go.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.103|162.158.154.103]] 08:35, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Just so we're on the same page, while the proof of Rolle's theorem is not completely trivial, neither is it difficult by any means. Proving it seems to be a pretty common homework assignment in undergrad math classes, for example, so one might legitimately ask why it deserved to be named. Perhaps it's simply that it's old enough that the methods at the time were crappy, and so modern proofs are much easier. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.140|172.69.22.140]]
: It is named because it's a very important theorem in calculus, used to prove many other theorems or results. So when you need to prove something using this property, instead of re-demonstrating it or merely saying "it is well known that..." (which often raises alarm bells in the mind of the reader/corrector), all you have to do is reference Rolle's theorem.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.158|162.158.155.158]] 11:08, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
:: It could almost be called "Rolle's lemma". [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.103|162.158.154.103]] 12:28, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
: When I am teaching Rolle's theorem, I always make it a point to draw the link to reals. Rolle's theorem fails when the output is complex valued. Then you can see for yourself how non-trivial this is. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.165.124|162.158.165.124]] 04:40, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Has anyone else noted the irony of having a wiki page to explain a comic whose subject is how some things are self-evident? [[User:JamesCurran|JamesCurran]] ([[User talk:JamesCurran|talk]]) 20:13, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Does the Kepler Conjecture actually belong on that list at the end? Most of the others are "derp" level intuitively obvious and/or essentially tautological on a very basic level, but the Kepler Conjecture couldn't actually be exhaustively proven until machine computation, nor is it intuitively definitive--if you've ever stacked round things into a box you've noticed that it feels like you're wasting a lot of space at the edges. So...? [[User:AtrumMessor|AtrumMessor]] ([[User talk:AtrumMessor|talk]]) 21:37, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
:I would also argue against most of the other examples. Neither the isoperimetric inequality nor the hairy ball theorem are obviously true and their proof is quite a bit more involved than the one of Rolle's theorem. The Jordan curve theorem sounds obvious but then the proof definitely isn't. The parallel postulate isn't even a theorem. The only real good example in the list is the pigeonhole principle.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.155|162.158.91.155]] 12:35, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
:I have removed all but that, as it is the only one comparable to Rolle's in simplicity to understand without understanding math. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 14:04, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
::I agree, Randall mentions nothing like that and a simple parallel is enough. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 14:25, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
::I would argue that a lot of them could have stayed. Just because some of the examples given do have a lot of "hidden" mathematical complexity and are important bases for mathematical fields does not mean they are not useful parallels to the comic's example. In fact, one that comes to mind is the infamous 300-page Russell/Whitehead proof of 1+1=2. If anything, the more axiomatically complex but intuitively, even stupidly obvious something is, the BETTER it fits. My original point was that the Kepler Conjecture felt like a "which one of these things is not like the others" situation in the original list, as it was not at all easily proven, nor is it intuitively obvious. Some of these were actually pretty useful examples and should have been left, no matter how foundational they are to calculus ;) [[User:AtrumMessor|AtrumMessor]] ([[User talk:AtrumMessor|talk]]) 06:46, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

I also suggest that Fundamental Theorem of Calculus be removed from this list. Firstly, the beginner student, just introduced to derivatives and antiderivatives, will not easily see that antiderivatives are the same as finding areas under curves. Instead, it is only obvious upon hindsight, after instruction. More importantly, a restriction of the FTC to better-behaved spaces shows a far greater insanity: the restricted FTC is a consequence of generalised Stokes's theorem '''applied twice'''. This operation is so highly unintuitive, that one simply cannot claim that this is in any way, shape, or form, trivial. I think that trying to pretend that anything in beginning calculus is obvious to students is just going to alienate them rather than soothe their worries. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.165.124|162.158.165.124]] 04:40, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

:Ehh what? No, FTC restricted to smooth functions is simply a special-case of Stokes' Theorem. This is explained [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stokes%27_theorem#Introduction here]. I don't even know what you could possibly mean by applying Stokes' theorem twice, in any context. [[User:Zmatt|Zmatt]] ([[User talk:Zmatt|talk]]) 13:23, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

:: ``FTC restricted to smooth function is simply a special case of Stokes's theorem"" is basically what I said, although FTC proper applies to a wider range of functions. As to applying Stokes's theorem twice, remember that the differential form for areas is A = iint dw, where dw = dx ^ dy. You apply once to get that A = oint w, where oint runs around the entire boundary of the area to be considered. Then you have to use some smarts to zero the contributions from 3 of the 4 sides, leaving just the contribution from the x-axis. Then the boundary, which is supposed to have no boundary itself, gets two new boundaries, of which then you can apply another Stokes's theorem to get the F(b)-F(a) result. Again, this process is highly non-trivial, as evidenced by your failure to see what I meant from the first time talking about it. Pardon if the IP changed, it is me. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.167.60|162.158.167.60]] 04:48, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

::: No it isn't "basically" what you said. I know FTC applies to a wider range of functions, that's why I said "restricted to smooth functions". I have not even the slightest idea what process you're trying to explain or why you're talking about 2D integrals. FTC restricted to smooth functions ''is exactly'' Stokes restricted to a line-segment, there is no "process". Again, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stokes%27_theorem#Introduction this wikipedia section] explains this quite well, albeit informally. [[User:Zmatt|Zmatt]] ([[User talk:Zmatt|talk]]) 11:01, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

:::: You seem to be missing what I am referring to. There are at least two parts. Let's start with the main one. You keep referring to the same place of the same article. That is not under contention, so it is irrelevant. So I checked Wikipedia's article on FTC itself and I think I see why you don't see my point. When I learnt FTC from textbooks, the definition of integrals is via the area under curve, i.e. the relevant bit in the FTC article is the geometric intuition. The FTC article, however, quite much like you seem to be, however, only covers the anti-derivative part. In a sense, it comes down to the definition of what an ``integral" means. AFAIK, for beginners, there is only 3 definitions in common use, the directed area under curve, limit of a certain sum, and anti-derivatives. When I teach, I tend to define the directed area under curve, just because students like to see things. Because of that, my FTC has to cover the area under curve. And that is the 2D integral known to Leibniz. If you want the 2D integral, then you ought to integrate the fundamental differential form I was talking about---you don't talk about generalised Stokes's theorem without differential geometry, and I am trying to say that the identification of a definite integral with the area under curve is what is taught to beginning students, but is highly non-trivial under differential geometry! I hope this is clearer. Of course, the moment the 2D integral is reduced to a 1D integral with new boundaries, then the part you keep referring to is relevant, and again, not under any contention. I am simply saying I am not happy with that being the sole content of FTC. The FTC I respect is the one that includes the geometrical intuition. Finally, just the quibble---what part of my ``the restricted FTC is a consequence of generalised Stokes's theorem" is different from your ``FTC restricted to smooth functions is simply a special case of Stokes' theorem"? Even if you disagreed with my ``applied twice", you should not be disagreeing with my ``basically what I said". [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.191|162.158.166.191]] 16:55, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

"Munroe's theorem" should definitely refer to the circle thing in the alt text {{unsigned ip|162.158.62.57}}

Since I'm half a mathematician, I did the math. I looked up Rolle's theorem and it uses the theorem of Weierstraß. I looked up the theorem of Weierstraß (better known as extreme value theorem) and it uses the theorem of Bolzano-Weierstraß. I looked up...why am I suddenly reminded of https://xkcd.com/609 ? :-) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.71|141.101.104.71]] 08:36, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

What goes up must come down. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.238.64|198.41.238.64]] 05:53, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

'''Going in the opposite direction.'''

Sure, some seemingly obvious things can be made theorems, but there's a point of view that the most complex theorems may seem obvious to a sufficiently smart entity, that we have such hard time studying mathematics simply because it's difficult for us to grasp long sequences of obvious connections in our insufficiently powerful imagination, so we need to break it down into manageable pieces.
"I have come to believe, though very reluctantly, that it [mathematics] consists of tautologies. I fear that, to a mind of sufficient intellectual power, the whole of mathematics would appear trivial, as trivial as the statement that a four-legged animal is an animal." ---Bertrand Russell (1957) {{unsigned ip|162.158.74.231}}

"This is what f'(c) = 0 means, as f' is a common notation for the derivative of the function f in differential calculus." Is it? I took both calculus and differential equations as an undergraduate (in the United States in the 1970s/1980s) and never saw that notation.[[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 17:57, 1 August 2022 (UTC)
:Coming from a UK background, myself, I recognise it as such. Not really much experience the '70s, but definitely across the early '80s and beyond. For Secondary Education, in the first instance where the initial "Number machines" idea led straight into algebra, and differentiation/integration was in the second or third year (whatever that is in 'K-12'-style numbering that's in use today, seemingly imported from the US). Not sure what system dominated beyond secondary and tertiary/college levels and into my own university years (heading towards the '90s). It might have depended on whether it was the physics or the maths lectures and workshops (or indeed the given lecturer/workshopper of the moment) as to which of the many possible conventions we could have used and be considered correct. dFoo/dBar probably was used a lot, but obviously got messier than ''f''unctioning things when going far into that sort of thing (either direction!). Though whether curly-ds or primes, it does get more difficult to differentiate the number of differentiations once you get into higher realms of notation... ;)
:I went a-looking and it ''is'' fairly common, even unto {{w|Derivative#Higher_derivatives|higher derivatives with multiple marks}} (which I've used, well... to no more than the third degree, probably).
:Looking further still, I now know (have reminded myself?) that {{w|Notation for differentiation#Lagrange's notation|it's 'Lagrangian' notation}}, at least as far as it stays unawkward before going into the numeric form rather than repeated Prime-marks towards a sublime ridiculousness.
:Of course, elsewhere on that latter link you might find your own learnt system. Or various others more familiar to you and which I ''may'' as readily recognise, unprompted. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.133|162.158.159.133]] 18:23, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

2740: Square Packing

2025-11-13T08:42:28Z

Artem: Fixed link.

{{comic
| number = 2740
| date = February 20, 2023
| title = Square Packing
| image = square_packing_2x.png
| imagesize = 326x295px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = I also managed to improve the solution for n=1 to s<0.97, and with some upgrades I think I can hit 0.96.
}}

==Explanation==
The {{w|Square packing in a square|square packing problem}} is a type of geometry problem. The goal is to find the smallest possible "outer square" that will fit N "inner squares" that are each 1 unit wide and 1 unit tall. In the comic N=11, leading to its name of "The N=11 Square Packing Problem," and the value 's' is the length of the outer square's sides. (For example, with 16 squares arrayed in a 4x4 square, 's' would be 4. [''an image would be helpful here''])

This comic spoofs a common phenomenon for some values of N: sometimes the optimal solution looks very "sloppy" to human sensibilities. The lack of a uniform grid or pattern, where some squares look to be misaligned or a lot of space looks wasted, counterintuitively leads to a smaller value for 's' than something more "organized" might be. 'N=11' is one such "frustrating" solution (though it should be noted, the solution depicted has not yet been proven to be optimum).

A few days before this comic's post, a web page [https://kingbird.myphotos.cc/packing/squares_in_squares.html ''Squares in squares''] gained interest on social media platforms such as [https://twitter.com/KangarooPhysics/status/1625436240412540928 Twitter] and [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34809023 Hacker News]. For many values of N, that page depicts the best known solutions, some of them known to be optimum. The one for N=11 (best known but not proven to be optimum) is the one Randall uses for this comic; its general arrangement was found by Walter Trump in 1979 and slightly improved by Gensane et al. in 2004.<ref>Gensane, T., Ryckelynck, P. – ''Improved dense packings of congruent squares in a square''. Discrete Comput Geom 34, pages 97–109 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00454-004-1129-z</ref>

Randall claims to have found a more efficient solution for this N=11 case, by physically deforming the squares involved in the best-known solution with a {{w|hydraulic press}}. The size of the resulting bounding square is indeed smaller, but the "solution" isn't actually one because the inner shapes have countless wrinkles and are no longer squares. Geometrical shapes in packing problems are not conventionally assumed to be a soft-body in this manner.{{citation needed}}

The title text mentions the same approach "improved" the solution for 1 unit square, whose optimum solution is obviously that unit square itself with s=1. Randall remarks that if he had "some upgrades", presumably a more powerful hydraulic press, he could get the resulting square to be even smaller.

The humorous implication behind the comic and the title text is that rather than the shapes being mathematical, abstract shapes, they are actually physical squares, constructed of some extremely strong, but not completely incompressible material. It is not obvious what material that might be: even using a hydraulic press, its cross-sectional area can only be reduced to 92-94% of its original size. (The fact that the theoretical squares exist in a 2D universe in the problem statement, but here are seemingly 3D objects showing distortions in the sides facing the viewer after being presumably crushed from the top and sides in turn by the hydraulic press, is not more fully addressed.)

This is perhaps a related joke to [[2706: Bendy]], but now with squares and compressed areas instead of triangles and extended lengths. Unsolved packing problems also appear to be a long-standing interest of Randall, who shows himself pondering "the most efficient packing of round-cut diamonds of uniform size" in the What If? [https://what-if.xkcd.com/108/ Expensive Shoebox], with the title text "A Google search for unsolved+packing+problems very nearly got me just now."

‎<references />

==Transcript==
:[11 squares are optimally packed inside a square arrangement. A grey square behind it shows the space that the squares take up. There are two squares in the top left and top right corner, then four in an L shape in the bottom left corner with the long side on the bottom. The remaining 5 squares are imperfectly formed into a larger square, rotated roughly 45 degrees, with the fifth square in the remaining space in the bottom right, also rotated. The squares are hand-drawn so the lines are imperfect.]
:Previous best
:s<3.877084
:(Gensane, 2004)

:[The same arrangement is shown, however the squares have been "crushed" as if they were real objects. The rotated squares have been most affected, with lines indicating crushing as well as rounded corners. The outer squares have been crushed into the inner squares, and many have cracks. A dashed line shows the old grey square while a new, smaller grey square marks the edges of the new arrangement.]
:New record
:s<3.40

:[Caption below the panel:]
:I've significantly improved on the solution to the n=11 square packing problem by using a hydraulic press.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Geometry]]

Talk:839: Explorers

2025-11-10T06:42:32Z

Artem: Added comment.

If the knight moves to b1, the black bishop will get the food anyway. [[User:Artem|Artem]] ([[User talk:Artem|talk]]) 06:42, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

How is that ship flying in the first place? Wouldn't the pieces fall off? '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|purple|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 09:59, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
:Inertia The pieces are moving at the same speed as the board. You would need energy to slow it down. Search it up. It's everywhere on the web. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.64|108.162.241.64]] 00:54, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Magnetic Chess :-) [[Special:Contributions/121.99.55.58|121.99.55.58]] 03:23, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Is the mini board really floating? It looked to me like it was adrift in sea. I think I might make some edits.
:I think the board is actually rolling on casters. If you look closely you can see a small round circle by each corner. I've edited it a bit. {{unsigned ip|199.27.128.63}}
::In the original transcript, it notes that it's mounted on rockets. [[WriterArtistCoder|WriterArtistCoder]] 02:06, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

This comic actually has a common error by non-chess players using chess positions: a1, and by extension a3 and c3, are dark squares. h1 is supposed to be the light-squared corner. [[Special:Contributions/18.215.1.155|18.215.1.155]] 06:50, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
:Unless, of course, the positions are relative to their small board, where al corners are white and hence numbering has to start on a white square [[Special:Contributions/108.162.212.218|108.162.212.218]] 17:41, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

It looks like there are wheels in the corners. [[Special:Contributions/209.104.241.66|209.104.241.66]] 16:25, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

The loose 3x3 board is from a Classic Star Trek 3-D chess set. The little pegs on the corners are used to secure the board in different places around the game. [[Special:Contributions/74.98.181.175|74.98.181.175]] 02:03, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
: No, it's not. The Star Trek 3D chess consists of 3 stationary 4x4's and 4 mobile 2x2's. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.254.183|108.162.254.183]] 02:25, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Make of it what you will, but I just realized that the robber in Catan looks a lot like a black bishop....[[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.45|173.245.54.45]] 14:27, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

There's a typo in the comic. It says "misson" instead of "mission". [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.18|108.162.219.18]] 04:55, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
: and I just adjusted the transcript to reflect that [[User:SuperSupermario24|Just some random derp]] 05:08, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

The black bishop and the "completing the mission alone" might be a reference to the robber from Catan, who looks very similar in the original edition. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.55.136|172.69.55.136]] 09:14, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

On a 3x3 board, in at most 2 moves any pawn would be promoted, almost certainly to queen. The bishop and knight may have deliberately approached Battleship in order to avoid being outranked. [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 10:55, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

The bishop isn't any closer to capturing the knight than the knight is to capturing the bishop. Sure, the bishop can move away if the knight tries to capture it, but similarly the knight can move away if the bishop tries to capture it. So I think the explanation needs to be changed. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.152|172.71.178.152]] 21:57, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Our intrepid explorers might be interested in this video: [https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=9f0cd8536e2d2af3JmltdHM9MTcwMTk5MzYwMCZpZ3VpZD0wZGY5NTUzNi0wMGI4LTZiOTktMGYzMi00NmZkMDEwMjZhMmQmaW5zaWQ9NTIxMw&ptn=3&ver=2&hsh=3&fclid=0df95536-00b8-6b99-0f32-46fd01026a2d&psq=can+chess+with+hexagons&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cueW91dHViZS5jb20vd2F0Y2g_dj1iZ1IzeUVTQUVWRQ&ntb=1] [[User:Szeth Pancakes|Szeth Pancakes]] ([[User talk:Szeth Pancakes|talk]]) 04:34, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

The claim by the black bishop "I swear to god, I'm this close to capturing him" is 100% saying that the knight can be captured no matter what the knight does.
If its the knights turn: Knight to B1 or A2. Bishop to B2. No matter where the Knight moves, the Bishop can capture. If its the Bishops turn: Bishop to C1. Knight to B1 or A2. Bishop to B2. Again, the Knight cannot evade the Bishop.[[User:Redacted II|Redacted II]] ([[User talk:Redacted II|talk]]) 02:10, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Talk:3159: Continents

2025-10-24T14:02:23Z

Artem: I made a comment in this talk, so I made it point to me.

FIRST (ignore the timestamps) --'''''[[User:DollarStoreBa'al|DollarStoreBa'al]][[User_talk:DollarStoreBa'al|converse]] 13:59, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

hi - [[Special:Contributions/97.64.61.191|97.64.61.191]] 13:40, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

I added a transcription. [[User:Artem]] 14:00, 24 October 2025 (UTC)