explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:3085: About 20 Pounds

2025-05-06T21:45:58Z

Linkhyrule5:

Wow - first here! I can't help thinking 'about 20 pounds' could be exactly 10 kg! 0r even one Newton?! [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 05:50, 6 May 2025 (UTC)
:"One Newton" and "10 kg" are totally different things. "10 kg" would cause 1 Newton of gravitational force if you were in a world with about 1% of Earth's gravity, though. --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.109.86|172.69.109.86]] 09:53, 6 May 2025 (UTC)
::Oops! In my rush I should have checked and put 100 Newtons. I was relying on 10kg being about 22 pounds, or rather the other way around, and then a particle having mass not weight and Science using Metric units. Apologies. [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 11:41, 6 May 2025 (UTC)
::(Moved your reply up a bit. You seemed to respond to "20 pounds are...", below, ''and'' split their timestamp signature from their message. And forgot to sign properly, at first, so I got edit-conflicted ''twice'' whilst trying to post myself and correct your initial error. Please take a bit more care, everybody. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.53|172.70.163.53]] 11:52, 6 May 2025 (UTC))
:20 pounds are approximately 9.072 kg, so not exactly 10 kg (in fact, it rounds to 9). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.134.55|172.70.134.55]] 10:02, 6 May 2025 (UTC)
::That's the wrong way to think about it. "Exactly 10kg" is "exactly 22.0462lbs", but that (to the nearest single significant figure) is legitimately "about 20lbs". See any given step in [[2585: Rounding]], especially where that 'disagrees greatly' with an adjacent step.
::As with any Oracle (that's worth its omphalos), it may be giving an ''entirely true'' answer which nevertheless is deliberately phrased as ambiguous and misinterpretable, the possible supernatural complement to the 'exact words' genie contract. As with the [[2741: Wish Interpretation]] genie, the Oracle ''may'' slip into less "unhelpfully helpful" mode immediately after, though for different reasons. However, "burritos are ''pretty'' good" also suggests that there's some other thing that is ''more'' good, so — again — it's giving a sufficient response to what they (now) should do, but not a perfect one.
::As I write, the explanation (probably needs a general rewrite) doesn't mention anything about the burritos except as title text, or I would have ensured the famed exact-words/vague-detail was noted in that bit. (Shorter than here.) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.82|141.101.98.82]] 11:46, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

[[Special:Contributions/172.70.134.55|172.70.134.55]] 10:02, 6 May 2025 (UTC)
Though I don't think it at all merits being described as a reference, I am minded of the {{w|The Usenet Oracle}} (at least when I knew of it). Though, if it ''was'' to be a deleliberate shout-out, I'd expect a few more actual in-jokes. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.130|172.70.86.130]] 06:10, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

I bet Randall is in some kind of force-interaction-related, What-if-induced rabbit hole right now (or has been at the time of writing). Wondering what the next comic will be about. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.144.175|172.71.144.175]] 08:39, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

"Nature of ... 20 pounds" is a reference to the koan "A monk asked Tozan, 'What is the nature of Buddha?' He replied, 'Three pounds of flax.'" Someone can add this to the explanation. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.111.115|172.70.111.115]] 08:57, 6 May 2025 (UTC)
:There is a similar story in the Principia Discordia. When asked what is the meaning behind POEE, a Discordian cabal, Malaclypse the younger answered "five tons of flax." [[User:FlavianusEP|FlavianusEP]] ([[User talk:FlavianusEP|talk]]) 16:30, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

"something that doesn't interact with electromagnetism cannot be 'seen', as photons will pass through it completely unaffected": is this supposed to be true ? I thought photons interacted with gravity, and even the phrase before states that gravity is believed to affect everything. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.151.93|172.68.151.93]] 09:17, 6 May 2025 (UTC)
: Indeed, photons do interact with gravity. What I had in mind when writing that were ''direct'' interactions -- of course everything interacts with everything else via a second-order interaction, <X> -> gravity -> <X> for any particle/field <X>. I can clarify that if nobody gets to it before I get around to it. [[User:Linkhyrule5|Linkhyrule5]] ([[User talk:Linkhyrule5|talk]]) 21:45, 6 May 2025 (UTC)
:We can ''infer'' Dark Matter (and, for that... *ahem* ...matter, also Dark Energy) from what the photons in the universe are telling us that does not look anything like what 'light(-interacting) matter' ''should'' be doing. As with some searches for black holes (most particularly, when the theory is that the unseen mass of the universe is a lot of small black holes drifting in the void, not acreting enough to create secondary visible effects), whether or not light is being gravitationally lensed by things (that we cannot directly see) is part of the way that we're narrowing down what-and-where DM is.
:And, I think, currently it seems to be considered that it's residing in a webwork of DM tendrils, at extragalactic (indeed, cosmological) scales, such that where the tendril cross is where they draw 'normal' matter together enough to be any given galaxy. But that's in an "explains all(/many) known facts" way, and might yet be incorrect. e.g. if there's side-dimensions (equally undetectable, at least visually) that change the inverse-square dropoff of gravity at large enough scales to govern galactic rotation rates by just enough to fit observations, or we have some other misunderstanding/scientific blind spot that further study may correct.
:Or, in short, think Brownian Motion. We can't see a handful of air molecules (not by normal, even microscope-enhanced, human vision), they might as well be invisible. But, by what we see of more visible particles, suggests that they exist as something. Conversly, the æther, a proposed medium for light, was thought to exist in a similar all-pervasive manner (insofar as trivial human experience, though less physically 'interactive' than wind), but deeper checks (as to whether its effects on light were as they should have been) dismissed it as a possible concept.
:Depending upon interpretation of the comic (I originally read it as "all dark-matter particles are ~20lbs in mass WIMPs/nano-MACHOs/whatever", but it seems that others take it as "''all of'' dark-matter particles is a single ~20lbs mass particle"; and that's make the oracle-invokers' attitudes more logical, if not the universe), there actually being Dark Matter, but it being just 20lbs of 'something' ''somewhere'' in the whole universe, makes it a needle in a galactic-supercluster-sized haystack.
:Detecting ''that'' would be difficult in the extreme. Even if it's somehow within a few hundred metres of the experimenters. There are ways to {{w|Cavendish experiment|observe the movements of small masses at small distances}}, but when you don't even have a clue ''if'' it exists (or is moving/has moved, and how), it's fairly hopeless. Gravitational lensing of light would be impractical at such distances/masses. LIGO may be very clever, insofar as merging high-mass objects at long distances, but not really for this. Event Horizon Telescope's ability to see a black hole('s accretion disk) via Very Long Baseline Interferometry is also totally useless here.
:I think I'd ''also'' settle for the burritos, given that certainty that I wasn't going to find what I'm looking for via any obvious route. (Assuming I couldn't ask the Oracle to ''show me'' the Dark Matter, rather than just answer questions about it. And noting that, if not for the indicated progression of the conversation, I might have assumed the oracular voice were really from the pentagram (more usual for demonology, not oracularities!) and that the dark blob ''was'' the 20lbs of Dark Matter. Which, of course, it ''does not deny'', so maybe my headcan[n]on ''is'' that the summoned Oracle ''is'' the DM, being deliberately evasive, and successfully so. That would satisfy it being both that which Ponytail seeks, ''and'' the entity of which Ponytail summons in order to seek it! Cueball, however, is currently just seeking food, which (one assumes) the DM-slash-Oracle is not.) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.229.25|172.68.229.25]] 12:48, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

My physics skills are rusty but 20 pounds is much more than the Planck mass. Doesn't this imply that Randall's dark matter particles would be black holes? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.243.107|172.68.243.107]] 10:05, 6 May 2025 (UTC)
:Yes, you are right that 9 kg is about 417,000,000 times more than the Planck mass (21.76 μg), but no, that doesn't imply that 9 kg dark matter particles would be black holes, for that particle can be larger than 417,000,000 Planck lengths (1 Planck length is c. 1.616255×10<sup>–35</sup> m, so above 7 rm, this particle would not collapse into a black hole). [[Special:Contributions/172.68.245.81|172.68.245.81]] 10:23, 6 May 2025 (UTC)
Since it's Star Wars day and the 20 lbs. reference would be causing a massively large amount of mass, would it be safe to say that they "sense a great disturbance in the force?"
[[Special:Contributions/67.84.20.42|67.84.20.42]] 10:20, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

Back in 2005, when the kg was an actual object's mass, there was an article about what a five pound (~2.268 kg) electron is, but it was deleted, for it is a "trivial result of special relativity". [[Special:Contributions/172.68.245.81|172.68.245.81]] 10:23, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

Since pounds are a measure of weight, and weight is a measure of the gravitational attraction between an object and its "planet", what is the reference planet that is being used to define the weight of the Dark Matter particle?
<BR> Should we assume that Earth's surface is being used as the reference, even though we have no measurements that suggest DM particles are around us, and no reason to assume that the particles would even notice that Earth has a "surface"?
<BR>If Randall wanted to use mass, then he should have used the imperial unit of slug, but I suppose saying that a DM particle is 0.62162 slugs might not give the readers quite the same impression as using 20 pounds. [[User:Galeindfal|Galeindfal]] ([[User talk:Galeindfal|talk]]) 13:38, 6 May 2025 (UTC)
:I might be missing some humour here, but the pound is actually a measure of mass, just like the gram, so it doesn't vary from a planet to another. You might have fallen prey to the second paragraph of the {{w|pound-force|wikipedia article about the pound-force}}, which states: 'Pound-force should not be confused with pound-mass (lb), often simply called "pound"' [[Special:Contributions/172.71.127.160|172.71.127.160]] 14:35, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

Is this, by chance, the Internet Oracle? [[Special:Contributions/104.23.187.126|104.23.187.126]] 13:49, 6 May 2025 (UTC)
:I don't see anything like the pentagram with candles at its web site. The comic seems more like they're summoning a daemon. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 14:10, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

Any idea where Randall came up with "20 pounds"? Why not 19 or 21 (blackjack!)? Why not use Newtons (too figgy?)? Only thing I can think of is that, in America at least, many people think they are "about 20 pounds overweight." I think that's too much of a stretch (pants???) to be the answer here. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.27.170|172.68.27.170]] 14:07, 6 May 2025 (UTC)
:I think it's just humorous, adding to the imprecision / casualness of "about 20". Imperial measurements feel "less scientific" than metric. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.146.124|162.158.146.124]] 16:26, 6 May 2025 (UTC)
:The amount of people confusing mass and weight/force in this thread is pretty disappointing for an xkcd forum. You can't convert pounds into Newtons. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.172.143|162.158.172.143]] 16:38, 6 May 2025 (UTC)
I don't think it's accurate to say (as the explanation does right now) that 20 lbs is too little to detect through gravitational interaction. Throwing some numbers together: a 20lbs-sphere of Osmium, the heaviest stable element, is about 4.5cm in radius. If a 20lbs point mass flies by just above the surface of that sphere, it would generate a gravitational force of about 2.5 micronewtons (hooray for Gauss's theorem). That's the weight of a few grains of salt - small, but definitely detectable. If they're all really really fast, or there's always lots of them around at any given time or something, that might wash out any measurements (someone more knowledgeable about dark matter can probably comment what the expected velocity and flux density of 20lbs-dark-matter-particles would be where we are). But in principle, rather measurable! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.172.142|162.158.172.142]] 17:00, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

"A particle that interacts with nothing except gravity, could only be detected by a gravitational telescope." -- Detected by a whatnow? Is that a thing which exists? Google had nothing for "gravitational telescope" when I searched for it.
Additionally, are there any theoretical physicists out there who can weigh in on how plausible the "20 pound particle that doesn't interact with anything else" theory is? [[User:MeZimm|MeZimm]] ([[User talk:MeZimm|talk]]) 19:33, 6 May 2025 (UTC)
:Well, we haven't seen any such thing. But... that is of course the point. So, by logical extension, it ''must'' be true! :o [[Special:Contributions/172.70.58.130|172.70.58.130]] 21:05, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

There’s a few places online that I’ve seen people ''frustrated'' by dark matter because it’s been so hard to detect, even hoping that it turns out to be experimental error or otherwise not real (for example, [http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/005665.html this collectSPACE thread]) just because it has been so “annoying” to readers of science news to not have a solution for so long. I think this comic could be kind of a joke along those lines (“what if it turns out dark matter ''doesn’t'' matter at all and we’ve been wasting our time?”) but played treated in a ridiculous way because Randall does think research, however difficult, is useful.

3085: About 20 Pounds

2025-05-06T21:40:05Z

Linkhyrule5:

{{comic
| number = 3085
| date = May 5, 2025
| title = About 20 Pounds
| image = about_20_pounds_2x.png
| imagesize = 666x278px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = In addition to gravity, burritos interact through the strong, weak, and electromagnetic forces, which is believed to be a major contributor to their popularity.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a £20 20-LB PARTICLE. Are any categories missing? Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

The nature of {{w|dark matter}} is a significant unsolved problem in physics. In an effort to solve the problem, [[Cueball]] and [[Ponytail]] appear to have used occult methods to conjure a supernatural {{w|oracle}} (something which would present its own challenges to our understanding of the physical world) in order to demand an answer from it. There may be a pun here, in that they are using 'dark magic' to communicate with something from the 'dark realm' on the assumption that it will know about dark matter. However, the word 'dark' in this context simply means that we do not know how to observe it; dark matter is not evil or satanic{{cn}} (though [[Randall]] may consider it [[:Category:Comics with cursed items|cursed]]).

In general, not all forces interact with all particles; indeed, {{w|gravity}} is the only force that is (believed to) interact with everything. If a force doesn't interact with a particle, then its existence cannot be observed via disturbances in that force. In particular, something that doesn't interact with electromagnetism cannot be 'seen', as photons will pass through it completely unaffected.

Even {{w|neutrino}}s -- famous for interacting with ''almost'' nothing -- still in fact interact via the {{w|weak force}}, allowing them to be detected with sufficiently large tanks of dense material (as most atoms do in fact interact with the weak force, however weakly). A particle that interacts with ''nothing'' except gravity could only be detected by a {{w|LIGO|gravitational telescope}}.

However, even if a particle does interact via a given force, an interaction is possible only if energy is conserved. If dark matter is entirely due to a single kind of particle, and the fundamental mass of that particle is ''twenty pounds'' (approximately 9 kg) -- an absolutely ludicrous amount of energy for particle physics -- then any interaction would, roughly speaking, have to involve an equally ludicrous amount of other particle mass being in exactly the right place and time, a coincidence that could easily reach "never in the history of the universe" levels. By comparison, the {{w|top quark}}, otherwise the heaviest single particle with a mass over a hundred times that of the proton, is still nevertheless around a tenth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a pound.

Under more normal circumstances, we might still hope to observe the properties of the particle via creating it ourselves under controlled laboratory conditions. But again, there is no reasonable way to focus the energy required into a single particle interaction. The {{w|Large Hadron Collider|most powerful particle accelerator in the world}}, for example, peaks at about ten thousand times the mass of the proton, a solid billion times less energy than required, so it's out too.

Despite all this, twenty pounds is also much too ''small'' to be detectable via gravitational interaction -- its {{w|Perturbation_(astronomy)|influence on the orbits of planets}}, say, or the strength of its {{w|gravitational lensing}} effect, would be entirely negligible. Thus in the scenario posed by the comic, there is essentially no plausible way to observe more about dark matter while on Earth. Even if we did find some naturally occurring such particles around and had instruments that could measure such small gravitational forces, since it would interact only via gravity, the only properties it could have other than mass would be its decay rates from other particles -- which, again, would all be essentially nil due to its mass.

The oracle proceeds to break expectations by suggesting that Ponytail and Cueball go out for {{w|burrito}}s, something generally considered non-scientific. When faced with the apparent futility of continuing to try to investigate dark matter, the oracle predicts that going out for burritos is precisely as productive as any other approach -- i.e., not at all.

The title text observes that burritos interact through all four known {{w|fundamental interactions}}, making burritos popular. The electromagnetic force mediates the chemical reactions leading to a burrito's taste, the strong force keeps atomic nuclei together, and gravity gives burritos heft, all of which are helpful for enjoying them. However, it's hard to see how the weak force, which takes part in radioactive decay, helps with burrito enjoyment or popularity.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Ponytail are standing in front of a pentacle with lit candles at the corners. A black sphere, the oracle, is floating above the middle of the pentacle.]
:Ponytail: Dear oracle,
:Ponytail: What is the nature of dark matter?
:Oracle: It's about 20 pounds.

:[Close up of oracle]
:Off-panel: What?
:Oracle: Dark matter is a particle. It weighs about 20 pounds.
:Oracle: It only interacts through gravity.

:[Same view as first panel]
:Cueball: Only gravity, huh?
:Cueball: So none of our experiments are really going to tell us any more about it, then.
:Oracle: Afraid not.

:[Same view as first and third panels, except Cueball lifted his forearm.]
:Cueball: So what do we do?
:Oracle: You should go out for burritos.
:Ponytail: How will that help?
:Oracle: Well
:Oracle: Burritos are pretty good.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Food]]
</noinclude>

3085: About 20 Pounds

2025-05-06T21:39:16Z

Linkhyrule5: technically has other properties, they're just all absurdly close to zero and just as impractical to measure as everything else

{{comic
| number = 3085
| date = May 5, 2025
| title = About 20 Pounds
| image = about_20_pounds_2x.png
| imagesize = 666x278px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = In addition to gravity, burritos interact through the strong, weak, and electromagnetic forces, which is believed to be a major contributor to their popularity.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a £20 20-LB PARTICLE. Are any categories missing? Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

The nature of {{w|dark matter}} is a significant unsolved problem in physics. In an effort to solve the problem, [[Cueball]] and [[Ponytail]] appear to have used occult methods to conjure a supernatural {{w|oracle}} (something which would present its own challenges to our understanding of the physical world) in order to demand an answer from it. There may be a pun here, in that they are using 'dark magic' to communicate with something from the 'dark realm' on the assumption that it will know about dark matter. However, the word 'dark' in this context simply means that we do not know how to observe it; dark matter is not evil or satanic{{cn}} (though [[Randall]] may consider it [[:Category:Comics with cursed items|cursed]]).

In general, not all forces interact with all particles; indeed, {{w|gravity}} is the only force that is (believed to) interact with everything. If a force doesn't interact with a particle, then its existence cannot be observed via disturbances in that force. In particular, something that doesn't interact with electromagnetism cannot be 'seen', as photons will pass through it completely unaffected.

Even {{w|neutrino}}s -- famous for interacting with ''almost'' nothing -- still in fact interact via the {{w|weak force}}, allowing them to be detected with sufficiently large tanks of dense material (as most atoms do in fact interact with the weak force, however weakly). A particle that interacts with ''nothing'' except gravity could only be detected by a {{w|LIGO|gravitational telescope}}.

However, even if a particle does interact via a given force, an interaction is possible only if energy is conserved. If dark matter is entirely due to a single kind of particle, and the fundamental mass of that particle is ''twenty pounds'' (approximately 9 kg) -- an absolutely ludicrous amount of energy for particle physics -- then any interaction would, roughly speaking, have to involve an equally ludicrous amount of other particle mass being in exactly the right place and time, a coincidence that could easily reach "never in the history of the universe" levels. By comparison, the {{w|top quark}}, otherwise the heaviest single particle with a mass over a hundred times that of the proton, is still nevertheless around a tenth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a pound.

Under more normal circumstances, we might still hope to observe the properties of the particle via creating it ourselves under controlled laboratory conditions. But again, there is no reasonable way to focus the energy required into a single particle interaction. The {{w|Large Hadron Collider|most powerful particle accelerator in the world}}, for example, peaks at about ten thousand times the mass of the proton, a solid billion times less energy than required, so it's out too.

Despite all this, twenty pounds is also much too ''small'' to be detectable via gravitational interaction -- its {{w|Perturbation_(astronomy)|influence on the orbits of planets}}, say, or the strength of its {{w|gravitational lensing}} effect, would be entirely negligible. Thus in the scenario posed by the comic, there is essentially no plausible way to observe more about dark matter while on Earth. Even if we did find some naturally occurring such particles around and had instruments that could measure such small gravitational forces, since it would interact only via gravity, the only properties it could have other than mass would be its decay rates from other particles -- which, again, would be essentially nil due to its mass.

The oracle proceeds to break expectations by suggesting that Ponytail and Cueball go out for {{w|burrito}}s, something generally considered non-scientific. When faced with the apparent futility of continuing to try to investigate dark matter, the oracle predicts that going out for burritos is precisely as productive as any other approach -- i.e., not at all.

The title text observes that burritos interact through all four known {{w|fundamental interactions}}, making burritos popular. The electromagnetic force mediates the chemical reactions leading to a burrito's taste, the strong force keeps atomic nuclei together, and gravity gives burritos heft, all of which are helpful for enjoying them. However, it's hard to see how the weak force, which takes part in radioactive decay, helps with burrito enjoyment or popularity.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Ponytail are standing in front of a pentacle with lit candles at the corners. A black sphere, the oracle, is floating above the middle of the pentacle.]
:Ponytail: Dear oracle,
:Ponytail: What is the nature of dark matter?
:Oracle: It's about 20 pounds.

:[Close up of oracle]
:Off-panel: What?
:Oracle: Dark matter is a particle. It weighs about 20 pounds.
:Oracle: It only interacts through gravity.

:[Same view as first panel]
:Cueball: Only gravity, huh?
:Cueball: So none of our experiments are really going to tell us any more about it, then.
:Oracle: Afraid not.

:[Same view as first and third panels, except Cueball lifted his forearm.]
:Cueball: So what do we do?
:Oracle: You should go out for burritos.
:Ponytail: How will that help?
:Oracle: Well
:Oracle: Burritos are pretty good.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Food]]
</noinclude>

Talk:3084: Unstoppable Force and Immovable Object

2025-05-06T06:24:18Z

Linkhyrule5:

lol, i remember this explanation from a minutephysics video. however, the version of the problem i heard, which is actually paradoxical, is "what happens when an immovable object meets an '''irresistible''' force?" [[User:Not without text|Not without text]] ([[User talk:Not without text|talk]]) 00:03, 3 May 2025 (UTC)
:That was also literally my first thought. [[169]], anyone? --[[User:Coconut Galaxy|Coconut Galaxy]] ([[User talk:Coconut Galaxy|talk]]) 05:37, 3 May 2025 (UTC)
::How do connect this comic with [[169: Words that End in GRY]]? I see no connection! --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 16:43, 4 May 2025 (UTC)
:::Communicating poorly and then acting smug. --[[User:Coconut Galaxy|Coconut Galaxy]] ([[User talk:Coconut Galaxy|talk]]) 11:52, 5 May 2025 (UTC)
:The MinutePhysics video: [https://nebula.tv/videos/minute-physics-immovable-object-vs-unstoppable-force-which-wins/ on Nebula] or [https://youtu.be/9eKc5kgPVrA on YouTube] --[[User:NeatNit|NeatNit]] ([[User talk:NeatNit|talk]]) 09:55, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

Come on, it's just an arrow made of W- bosons, right? [[User:TheTrainsKid|TheTrainsKid]] ([[User talk:TheTrainsKid|talk]]) 03:22, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

Is there no joke here? Is it just the solution? [[User:Broseph|Broseph]] ([[User talk:Broseph|talk]]) 06:52, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

I remember an explanation by Isaac Asimov in one of his books which was like "by definition, an immovable object will not move at all under any force in the universe, and an unstoppable force will move all of the objects in this way" and then explained how the definitions conflicted each other and as such prevented both from being able to register for the hypothetical at the same time [[Special:Contributions/172.64.236.161|172.64.236.161]] 06:55, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

In the first MMO games, collision was a big problem. A player could block a doorway, and nobody else could go through. It was even worse if the player had "follower" characters or pets.
One solution was to have characters automatically "push" stationary characters out of the way, but that caused other problems. Modern MMO's such as World of Warcraft simply allow characters to pass through each other, as depicted in this xkcd comic. Our eyes fool us into "seeing" that two characters somehow slid past each other. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.228.132|172.68.228.132]] 07:29, 3 May 2025 (UTC)
:Our eyes, or the programmers? I don't have that much experience with MMO's but they probably do render it in specific way to make that effect. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 02:59, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

When the two things pass through each other, at the instant where they both occupy exactly the same space, is there one object or two? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.216.159|162.158.216.159]] 08:02, 3 May 2025 (UTC)
:Given that force is not an object, one. Just like there was when they weren't colocated. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.220|172.69.43.220]] 08:29, 3 May 2025 (UTC)
::OK, but what about the 'unstoppable force carrying particles' in the title text? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.204|172.69.194.204]] 19:00, 3 May 2025 (UTC)
:::I understand it as if a particle interacting with the object counts as 'stopping', in which case an unstoppable force-carrying particle wont have any effect. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.120.157|162.158.120.157]] 20:40, 3 May 2025 (UTC)
:Two, if you're counting particles as "objects". At the level of particle interactions, two particles aren't merely distinguished by their spatial extent, but also by all their other "quantum numbers" -- charge, flavor, and others. You can absolutely have two particles, even two fermions, that have exactly the same wavefunction in space, but are distinguished by differing in other ways. (And in practice, something like this would be a fermion and a boson anyway.) [[User:Linkhyrule5|Linkhyrule5]] ([[User talk:Linkhyrule5|talk]]) 06:24, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

The force could simply go around the object. The object hasn't moved, and the force wasn't stopped. [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 11:17, 3 May 2025 (UTC)
:Redirecting would imply the force could be redirected, allowing us to trap it inside a closed loop, effectively stopping it. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.57.132|172.70.57.132]] 15:38, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

This is like the Chinese saying the spear and the shield. Using this comic, I guess spear wins [[User:Aprilfoolsupdate!|Aprilfoolsupdate!]] ([[User talk:Aprilfoolsupdate!|talk]]) 14:02, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

Gonna be honest, I think this is my least favorite comic of the last 500 or so. It's a solution already given by minutephysics, except with all the perspective about reference frames, and what people actually mean with these terms replaced by a caption with a superiority complex. I suppose it gets pretty hard 3000 comics in, but c'mon.
[[Special:Contributions/172.68.35.83|172.68.35.83]] 19:18, 3 May 2025 (UTC)
:''--Comment by [[User:Darth Vader|Darth Vader]] ([[User talk:Darth Vader|talk]]) 22:07, 3 May 2025 (UTC) deleted--''
:: Ok, as we're giving personal opinions, I can't let it stand. Some might not exactly be total belly-laughs, but I think they each still have something to them and I prefer a mix of tones (and a wider spatter of focuses and treatments) to them all being exactly the same aspect of 'high-humour'. Not that I'd care to rank them, anyway, but I'm nowhere near ready to go off and make disparaging comments as if this site was bitchaboutxkcd.com, or whatever.
:: I won't try to tell you what to think, yourself, though maybe you should just roll with it. If you really don't like a comic, there'll be another along in two or three days. That might be even 'worse', as well as 'better', but then you can be even more unchill about ''that''. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.82|141.101.98.82]] 22:45, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

All forces are irresistable. No objects are immovable. If any force acts on any object, the object moves (or deforms). [[Special:Contributions/172.68.84.145|172.68.84.145]] 22:22, 3 May 2025 (UTC)
:Can we not say that Dark Matter, if that's what we imagine it might be, entirely resists the electromagnetic force? (It's one of my possible interpretations of the comic, though without enough hint that it was intended to have me annotate the Explanation accordingly.)
:That said, it's ''unstoppable'' force (and there's are no Cavorite-like forceproof barriers), and it's rather that ''immovable'' objects are awkward to imagine under Relativity and there being no actual preferable frame of reference in the first place. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.113|172.69.195.113]] 22:50, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

I would say that, since a force is mass*acceleration, the force cannot yet be stated while passing through the immovable object, because the object have to accelerate to calculate the force. Therefore, the "force" is only potential or kinetic energy at this point.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.127.25|162.158.127.25]] 12:54, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

I would say that nothing happens. If you think of Pressure and immoveable object: An infinite force would acting on an immoveable (think infinite mass) object would lead to no movement at all.
Well, actually a black hole would be created, swallowing up the object and the force. Since the object's further behavior now cannot be seen from outside mass could be reduced anf the black hole could simply evaporate.
Result: Force and objects actual mass would simply be converted into energy, representing a bomb. [[Special:Contributions/104.23.187.224|104.23.187.224]] 16:42, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

Did someone pull out ChatGPT again for this explanation? The claim that the humor derives from the contrast between the casual meaning of "force" and its meaning in physics is ridiculous and patently false. A "force" in physics doesn't have a physical position to begin with and so it can't "pass through" anything. At this point I really feel like there should be some kind of policy on writing explanations using LLMs like ChatGPT because it almost never adds anything of value and it just complicates the explanation and makes the process of ''real'' people digging into the actual meaning and themes more difficult.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.102.223|172.71.102.223]] 18:45, 4 May 2025 (UTC)
:Looking at what it replaced, it was an improvement, if not described as well as I think it should be. I believe it means to talk of the flux from a point-originated field (e.g. the most common fields normally deplete by inverse-square rule, all the way to infinity, from the point(s) of origin, though nuclear forces are... different).
:Given the depiction of the "unstoppable force" as actually 'moving', it has to be looked at as some kind of propagating pulse of 'forceness', albeit one that does not interact with the object seen as in its path (which would therefore neither react to the 'force' nor attenuate its potential effects). But that might need to be said in similarly short fashion (if my interpretation is even agreed with). Good luck! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.52|172.70.162.52]] 20:47, 4 May 2025 (UTC)
:Agree! The physical explanation of force is plainly wrong in the explanation text. Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.110.207|172.68.110.207]] 23:18, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

Could the objects be ''in front'' of each other instead of colliding? {{unsigned|Dardafus1|18:00, 5 May 2025}}
:Not both at the same time... [[Special:Contributions/172.69.224.82|172.69.224.82]] 19:49, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

3085: About 20 Pounds

2025-05-06T06:10:05Z

Linkhyrule5: initial explanation, please refine

2785: Marble Run

2023-06-06T15:20:44Z

Linkhyrule5: /* Explanation */ The vortex tube is a very simple mechanical device that conceivably might perform a meaningful separation on any system of sufficiently many, sufficiently small objects. It's the speed-temperature relation that would definitely break.

{{comic
| number = 2785
| date = June 5, 2023
| title = Marble Run
| image = marble_run_2x.png
| imagesize = 438x512px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = I have so many plans. It would incorporate a Galton board, a Ranque-Hilsch marble vortex tube, and a compartment lined with pinball bouncers with a camera-and-servo Maxwell's Demon that separated the balls into fast and slow sides.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by MAXWELL'S DEMON - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT roll away this tag too soon.}}

There have long been fascinations with complex mechanical devices, both typically practical (e.g. typical clock mechanisms) or rather more contrived. A {{w|Rolling ball sculpture|'Marble Run'}} may make the otherwise simple act of allowing one or more marbles to roll and fall through gravity (or mostly so) into a vastly more complex process. A {{w|Rube Goldberg machine}} is a fancifully complicated real or fictional device which is made deliberately complex to an extended degree, part of the enjoyment of the viewer being to see how disparate and normally unrelated mechanisms (or, sometimes, living creatures as key 'components') interact to achieve a possibly trivial, and perhaps unnecessary, aim. Beyond the US, many other names are used for such devices, named for people such as {{w|W. Heath Robinson#In popular culture|Heath Robinson}} (UK) and {{w|Robert Storm Petersen#Drawings and paintings|Storm P}} (Denmark) who developed similar themes of creativity.

Enticed by hearing the mere mention of such a thing, Cueball knows that he is going to end up building a cool marble run of his own, with a long and interesting path to get there. In the last panel, it plays off the fact that he is acting like one of the marbles in a cool marble run. He, like the marble, is going to take a long route, one that is interesting, to get to the place where he is inevitably going to get to (building cool marble runs).

A {{w|Galton board}} is a device that demonstrates the normal bell-curve distribution. It is the inspiration for {{w|pachinko}}-style games.

A Ranque-Hilsch {{w|Vortex tube}} is a device for separating compressed gas into hot and cold streams. While it could not be used for separating marbles by temperature, the same principles could conceivably be used (assuming enough small marbles are poured into the machine at once, and that they do not break or chip in the process of colliding with each other) to produce a "vortex" of marbles leaving one end of the tube and a straight "beam" of rapidly spinning marbles leaving the other.

{{w|Maxwell's Demon}} is a thought experiment by James Clerk Maxwell which would violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics. If implemented, it would, in fact, separate the balls into fast and slow streams. The original thought experiment involved a "demon" controlling a door between two chambers. The demon would only allow fast-moving molecules to move in one direction through the door and slow-moving molecules in the other direction, cause one chamber to warm and the other to cool, through no direct 'external' work, and would decrease the total entropy of the system (which is forbidden by the Second Law), thus proving information is itself a type of entropy and you can convert between the two types.

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

:[Megan is walking towards Cueball and showing her phone. Cueball holds a hand to his face and looks away.]
:Megan: Check out this cool video of a Rube Goldberg marble run.
:Cueball: No! Not yet.

:[Megan has lowered her phone. Cueball has his hand in a fist.]
:Cueball: I've always known I'm doomed to eventually become one of those people who builds elaborate marble runs in their garage.
:Cueball: I can feel the pull.
:Cueball: So satisfying.

:[Close-up on Cueball.]
:Cueball: I just want to do as many other things as I can before I give in and disappear into that world.

:[Megan and Cueball are walking.]
:Megan: So you know where you're going to end up, but you're trying to take a really interesting and circuitous path to get there.
:Cueball: Exactly. Bounce around, maybe go off a few jumps.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Chemistry]]

248: Hypotheticals

2022-11-08T15:05:49Z

Linkhyrule5:

{{comic
| number = 248
| date = April 13, 2007
| title = Hypotheticals
| image = hypotheticals.png
| titletext = What if someone broke out of a hypothetical situation in your room right now?
}}

==Explanation==
The comic is, in short, a new take on the common comedy {{w|trope (literature)|trope}} in which characters in a thought bubble will sometimes look out of the bubble and talk directly to the person thinking it, another person nearby, or even the viewer. In this comic, however, it features [[Cueball]] and [[Beret Guy]] in a conversation together, in which Beret Guy talks of a hypothetical situation by imagining he had ice cream. This then, to Cueball's dismay, creates a hypothetical situation in which hypothetical Beret Guy has ice cream, which he promptly begins to eat. The hypothetical Cueball then creates a hypothetical situation in which a further hypothetical self has a knife to 'cut' out of the thought. The doubly-hypothetical Cueball then uses this knife to reach out to the merely hypothetical Cueball, who will then supposedly use it to cut out of his original hypothetical setting. Doubly-hypothetical Beret Guy, meanwhile, takes no notice and continues to happily eat his own ice cream, in a situation he clearly finds perfectly normal and Cueball clearly seems to expect and accept – probably from prior experience.

The title text puts the comic into context, noting the unlikely possibility — and your most likely surprised reaction — if a person in a hypothetical situation you'd involuntarily created managed to break out of it and suddenly appear in your room. Or it could be understood the other way, that a person you have forced into your hypothetical situation breaks free from it, and disappears from your room. In addition, since the hypothetical situation in question is "the hypothetical that someone escapes a hypothetical situation in your room", it would ironically be your very entertainment of such a hypothetical that immediately results in its coming about.

Another "thought bubble comic" can be seen in [[429: Fantasy]], and the topic of people escaping from hypothetical situations appears again in [[1582: Picture a Grassy Field]].

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is holding up his hand towards Beret Guy, who talks to him. From Beret Guy's head go three bubbles to a big thought bubble, where the next part of the comic takes place.]
:Beret Guy: What if I had some ice cream? Wouldn't that be awesome?
:Cueball: No, stop-

::[The comic continues inside Beret Guy's thought bubble. The two characters have switched places, and Beret Guy is now eating from an ice cream cone. Cueball is holding his hand to his chin, and from his head go four bubbles to a thought bubble in the lower right corner, where the last part of the comic takes place.]
::Cueball: Great, you've trapped us in a hypothetical situation!
::Beret Guy: Mmm, ice cream.
::Cueball: Maybe if I had a knife I could cut our way free...

:::[Inside Cueball's thought bubble, Beret Guy continues to eat his ice cream, but Cueball has cut a hole through the last thought bubble with a knife and is handing it to the Cueball who thinks about this].
:::Beret Guy: Mmm, ice cream!
:::Cueball: Here, take this one.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Recursion]]
[[Category:Food]]

2624: Voyager Wires

2022-05-26T02:12:02Z

Linkhyrule5:

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

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a WIRE CUT BECAUSE OF BUDG- are you there houston? it's me v----ger, you'll never guess what I found! Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic claims that the {{w|Voyager program|Voyager probe}}s communicate with NASA though ridiculously long copper wires, when in reality they use radio waves.[https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status/] These wires would have to be continuously lengthened as the probes travel away from Earth. Supposedly, because of "high copper prices and budget constraints," they may not be able to afford to lengthen the wires much longer. If this occurred, they would have to either cut the wires or let them break, which would prevent any further communication with the probes. As mentioned earlier, however, they actually use radio waves, not long copper wires, so this will not actually happen.

If copper wires were dragged by the Voyager probes, 550 tons of copper would be needed per hour if the cable was 1mm² thick and it would add 1 million Ohm per hour to the cable resistance. At [https://www.moneymetals.com/copper-prices $8,560/ton], this would be $41 billion dollars/year, nearly twice [https://www.planetary.org/space-policy/nasas-fy-2022-budget NASA's entire annual budget].

The resulting wire would slow down the probes by drag, but be perfect space elevators for lightweight spacecraft.
Of course, since the Earth spins, the wires would also spool around the Earth, slowing the probes down even further. Clearly, this is not a good idea.{{citation needed}} This problem might be avoided if the wires reach earth at one of the poles. Or perhaps they go to an airplane that flies around earth at exactly 15 degrees of longitude per hour, with periodic air-to-air refueling, so that it is always on the side of the earth facing the probe.

Because the Voyager probes aren't in the plane of the earth's orbit around the sun, the Earth will not, in its rotation around the sun, drag these copper wires through the sun. If it did, the wires would melt. {{citation needed}}

The consequence of a cable between a craft in space and a planetary location being suddenly retracted was recently demonstrated in the first episode of the Apple TV+ series ''{{w|Foundation (TV series)|Foundation}}'', wherein a {{w|space elevator}} tether was severed. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huRmvG3zRpg It didn't end well for anyone other than the terrorists] who won the freedom of thousands of inhabited worlds which had formerly suffered under the jackbooted oppression of {{w|Trantor}}'s fascist galactic Empire regime.

A few days before this comic was released, [https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/news/details.php?article_id=124 NASA had reported] receiving corrupted position data from the Voyager 1 probe.

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

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

[[Category:Space probes]]

2485: Nightmare Code

2021-07-07T01:50:57Z

Linkhyrule5:

{{comic
| number = 2485
| date = July 5, 2021
| title = Nightmare Code
| image = nightmare_code.png
| titletext = Charsets even used to be known as 'alpha-bets' before that word's obvious negative associations caused it to die out.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a SCARY ONGOING NANOBOT SWARM, for real human behaviors are so useful! Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Although not directly mentioned, this comic is another in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] related to the {{w|2019–20 coronavirus outbreak|2020 pandemic}} of the {{w|coronavirus}} {{w|SARS-CoV-2}}, which causes {{w|COVID-19}}.

It is the (far) future and, due to the mists of time, humans seem to have generally forgotten the Greek language. Its writing system survives in the public consciousness only as a means of assigning names to nightmarish phenomena.

A person using futuristic technology is giving a presentation or lecture. The content of his projected screen includes the first four letters of the Greek alphabet, which he refers to as the Nightmare Code. The presenter expects that the list is familiar to his audience, but that it is novel information to them that it used to have a purpose other than providing arbitrary names to hurricanes, virus variants, and nanobot swarms.

Atlantic Hurricanes and tropical storms are {{w|Tropical_cyclone_naming|named}} once they have sustained wind speeds of 33 knots (61 km/h; 38 mph) or more. The names for these storms go from A-W each year (each letter has a name randomly chosen from a predefined list), with {{w|Tropical_cyclone_naming|21 names allocated each yearly period}}. When the 21 names are exhausted, Greek letters were once used to continue naming storms as needed, although the World Meteorological Organization decided not to use Greek letters when naming storms from 2021 onward. Perhaps in this vision of the future, the naming lists have given way to using the Greek alphabet exclusively.

Virus variants may also be {{w|Variants_of_SARS-CoV-2|given names}} once they are deemed sufficiently nightmarish. At the time of this writing, eleven variants of {{w|SARS-CoV-2}} have been labeled with Greek letters. Previously, variants were named informally for the region in which they were identified (as were many viruses themselves), but this practice has ceased due to risks of discrimination and the {{w|perverse incentive}} of countries to suppress health information for the sake of saving face. A place may become (in)famously known as the origin of a disease by such a name, even if it originated elsewhere; an example is {{w|Spanish flu}}, which was actually first observed in Kansas, USA. Nowadays vague names such as 'bird flu' or partly-informed geographic names tend to be better referenced by their {{w|hemagglutinin}} and {{w|neuraminidase}} subtypes, such as "H1N1" and "H9N2". The more technical coronavirus identification system uses a term such as "lineage B.1.617.2", whose awkwardness makes it unlikely to replace better-known names such as the "Kent variant" or "Indian variant".

Another set of historic nightmares the audience clearly knows about, which are still in our own future, are nanobot swarms, presumably nanoengineering failures and/or deliberate misuses of nanotechnology of the {{w|Gray goo}} type. Significant recurring or sequential events have seemingly earned the need to differentiate their outbreaks, and Greek letters have been used to do this. One may even be tempted to speculate that the futuristic figure and his presentation equipment float in space because the Earth has been rendered uninhabitable as a result of one or more of said nanotechnology disasters.

The cultural forgetfulness about the neutral basis of the old letters, after perhaps who-knows-what nanobot disasters that may have scoured the Earth clean of all things Greek, has led to no other common use for them ''except'' for their use in identifying far too many crises. The words themselves thus are instantly associated to bad times for almost everyone.

The title text indicates that future people stopped using the term "alphabet" (which derives from the first two elements of the Greek alphabet) due to negative associations of the word "alpha" and "bet(a)" which caused the word Alphabet to fall out of casual use in the future. It is now called Charset, for character sets.

==Transcript==
:[A Cueball-like person is giving a presentation while wearing futuristic gear, including a visor with an antenna rising from it, a backpack-like appliance of some kind, and a futuristic pointer. The audience is not pictured. The presenter is floating rather than standing. The presentation is projected from a small device near the bottom of the frame, and the appearance of the presentation suggests it is a hologram. The content of the slide shows the names of the first four letters of the Greek alphabet:]
:Alpha
:Beta
:Gamma
:Delta

:Presenter: We all know the '''''Nightmare Code''''', used to assign neutral names to scary ongoing lists, such as hurricanes, virus variants, and nanobot swarms.
:Presenter: But did you know it actually originated as the letters of an ancient Earth language?

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:COVID-19]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Artificial Intelligence]]
[[Category:Hurricanes]]
[[Category:Biology]]

2476: Base Rate

2021-06-18T23:43:00Z

Linkhyrule5:

{{comic
| number = 2476
| date = June 14, 2021
| title = Base Rate
| image = base_rate.png
| titletext = Sure, you can talk about per-capita adjustment, but if you want to solve the problem, it's obvious that this is the group you need to focus on.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a LEFTY. Seems like the entire first paragraph has very little to do with this comic. And there is not enough explanation of why Cueball's statement is a base rate error. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The "{{w|base rate}}" is a type of base probability, which a statistical probability can be based on. The {{w|base rate fallacy}} is a type of error in which people are presented with the rate at which something occurs throughout an entire population along with more specific information about a subset of that population, and tend to ignore the whole-population information in favor of the specific information.

In this case, the joke is that 90% of people are right-handed, so if there is no connection between handedness and making base rate errors, then 90% of these errors would be made by right handers. Thus while [[Cueball|Cueball's]] claim that right-handers commit 90% of base-rate errors is technically true, taking that as reason to believe that "making base-rate errors" is somehow specially associated with right-handed-ness -- as would be implied by an intervention effort specific to right-handed-people -- is itself a base-rate error.

Cueball may be holding the pointer in his right hand, suggesting he might be right-handed (as 90% of stick figures are{{fact}}). Since Cueball has no facial features it is impossible to tell if he faces the audience, or looking at his graph. However, it seems most likely that he is looking at his audience while delivering the take home message and thus points at the graph behind him. Thus he likely belongs to the 90% that makes 90% of the base-rate errors, one of those he is just committing.

In the title text, Cueball dismisses the idea of adjusting his graph to account for the difference in numbers of left-handed versus right-handed members of the population. He suggests focusing efforts on the right-handed majority to resolve that 90% of base rate errors. This is a somewhat common counterargument to statistical arguments of this stripe (often as justification for racial profiling, for example); it fails because if the target group is not in fact somehow special with regard to the issue at hand, there is generally "nothing to fix" and no special approach to discover that cannot be just as easily applied to the population of the whole.

Something similar occurs in [[1138: Heatmap]], where Cueball makes inferences simply based on a population map of the US, instead of statistical evidence.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is standing in front of a screen that shows a bar graph with 2 bars with labels beneath. The right bar is significantly higher than the left. Cueball is holding a pointer which he points at the label of the highest bar, which has been encircled.]
:Cueball: Remember, right-handed people commit 90% of all base rate errors.
:Label: L R

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Bar charts]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Statistics]]

2420: Appliances

2021-02-04T07:31:57Z

Linkhyrule5:

{{comic
| number = 2420
| date = February 3, 2021
| title = Appliances
| image = appliances.png
| titletext = If you had an oven bag and a dryer that runs unusually hot, I guess you could in theory make tumbled eggs.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an OVERCOOKED T-SHIRT. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic shows what would happen if various household appliances were used to do different household tasks. Green indicates an excellent performance, yellow, poor, and red, dismal. The diagonal is green as it shows the tasks done by the machines they are supposed to be performed by. Salmon can be easily {{w|Dishwasher salmon|cooked in a dishwasher}}, so it's marked "cooked".

The title text mentions that it would be theoretically possible to cook eggs in a dryer, but it is not a common use for a dryer {{Citation needed}}.

{| class="wikitable"
!
! scope="col"| {{w|Toaster}}
! scope="col"| {{w|Dishwasher}}
! scope="col"| {{w|Microwave oven|Microwave}}
! scope="col"| {{w|Washing machine}}
! scope="col"| Stove/oven
! scope="col"| {{w|Clothes dryer|Dryer}}
|-
! scope="row"| Make toast
| Yes, a toaster's function is to make toast from bread.
| No. A dishwasher would likely turn bread into mush, and is unlikely to be edible.
| No. A microwave could heat up bread, but would not brown the bread and make it crunchy. In this image, it appears that the bread is getting unevenly burnt.
| No. A washing machine would break the bread into several pieces, and is unlikely to be edible.
| Yes, toast can be made using a stove or an oven.
| No. A dryer would burn the bread due to its heat, and would break it up into crumbs due to its tumbling.
|-
! scope="row"| Wash dishes
| No. A toaster would not be able to wash dishes, and is likely to do nothing to make them clean.
| Yes, a dishwasher's function is to wash dishes.
| No. A microwave could heat up the dishes, but this would not serve any function in getting them clean, and could cause food to get even more stuck on the dishes.
| No. A washing machine would break the dishes.
| Maybe, a stove or an oven could theoretically sterilize dishes with high heat (but this would not clean off any stains or stuck food particles).
| No. Worse than the washing machine, the tumbling of a dryer would thoroughly pulverize porcelain dishes and then possibly melt the grains together due to high heat.
|-
! scope="row"| Cook a {{w|TV dinner|frozen dinner}}
| No. A traditional toaster would not be able to cook a frozen dinner. A {{w|toaster oven}} combination would be able to do so (see stove/oven).
| Maybe. Theoretically fish could be cooked in a dishwasher, but this is not a typical use of a dishwasher.
| Yes, a microwave is normally used to cook a frozen dinner.
| No. A washing machine would make the dinner soggy and inedible.
| Yes, a stove or an oven could also be used to cook a frozen dinner. The image shows the dinner being removed from its packaging and placed in a baking pan.
| No. A dryer would make the frozen dinner inedible due to its tumbling and heat.
|-
! scope="row"| Wash clothes
| No. A toaster would not be able to wash clothes and would instead leave burn marks.
| Maybe. A dishwasher would be able to get the clothes wet but the washing may be uneven.
| No. A microwave would just burn the clothes and not do any washing.
| Yes, a washing machine's function is to wash clothes.
| No, a stove or an oven would burn the clothes and not do any cleaning.
| Maybe. A dryer would heat the clothes and kill germs, but not get any stains out.
|-
! scope="row"| Cook eggs
| No. A toaster would not be able to cook eggs. This image seems to show someone cracking eggs into the toaster, which causes a large plume of smoke.
| No. A dishwasher generally cannot cook eggs. However, it does seem that [https://spoonuniversity.com/how-to/5-foods-cook-dishwasher this is plausible to do].
| Yes. A microwave could be used to cook eggs, {{w|poached egg|poached style}} as shown in the image.
| No, a washing machine's would destroy the eggs.
| Yes, a stove or an oven is typically used to cook eggs (and other foods).
| No. A dryer would overheat the eggs and tumble them to shreds.
|-
! scope="row"| Dry clothes
| No. A toaster would not be able to dry clothes and would instead leave burn marks.
| No. A dishwasher would be able to get the clothes wet but would not do any drying.
| Maybe. A microwave could (unevenly) get clothes dry.
| No, a washing machine's function is to wash clothes and would just get the clothes wet.
| Maybe, a stove or an oven could be used to get clothes dry.
| Yes, a dryer's function is to dry clothes after they are washed.
|}

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

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Food]]

2240: Timeline of the Universe

2019-12-12T02:04:19Z

Linkhyrule5: Running gag enforcement

{{comic
| number = 2240
| date = December 11, 2019
| title = Timeline of the Universe
| image = timeline_of_the_universe.png
| titletext = Not actual size, except technically at one spot near the left.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by the BIG BANG. Should include a list of the events, their times, and if they're real, explain what they are, and if they're jokes, explain what they are. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic is about the size of the universe, presented as a timeline. Some events on it are real, but others are jokes. The size history of the universe is also embellished for the sake of jokes; the actual size history of the universe has one period of inflation shortly after the Big Bang, followed by comparatively gentle but accelerating expansion. This is artistically depicted in [https://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/media/060915/060915_CMB_Timeline150.jpg this image from NASA].

The title text is a mathematical joke, based on the Intermediate Value Theorem (IVT). Note that the actual size (A) of the universe is zero at the Big Bang (time t = 0), while the corresponding size of the comic (C) is positive (the shape there has a small but nonzero thickness). Thus, A(0) - C(0) < 0. Also, the actual size of the universe at the present day is larger {{Citation needed}} than the corresponding size of the comic. So we have A(present) - C(present) > 0. Assuming the sizes of the universe and the comic are continuous {{Citation needed}}, by the IVT, there exists a time u in the interval (0, present) such that A(u) - C(u) = 0. Noting such a time u is likely reached very quickly after the Big Bang, it is represented close to the left of the comic. Hence, technically, Randall is correct.

The events presented in the timeline are:

* '''??''' (more than 13.8 billion years ago ({{w|Billion years|Gya}})): the unknown state of the universe prior to the Big Bang, if such a statement is even sensible (is it possible to be "south of the South Pole"?).
* '''{{w|Big Bang}}''' (13.8 Gya): The model of the origin of the universe which has achieved consensus among astronomers. We have observed that all galaxies are receding away from Earth at rates that are roughly proportional to their distance, and the simplest explanation for this is that the universe is expanding. If the universe is expanding, then (unless new physics are discovered) it must have at one time been very, very small and dense; that moment in time is called the Big Bang.
* '''{{w|Timeline_of_epochs_in_cosmology#Planck_epoch|Planck Epoch}}''': The time period starting with the Big Bang.
* '''Medium Bang''' (a joke): If there's a Big Bang, why not have medium one? There should probably also be a Little Bang, but maybe it's just too little to be featured on this chart.
* '''{{w|Inflation (cosmology)|Inflation}}''' (10^-36 to 10^-32 seconds after the Big Bang): A theory developed to explain the large-scale structure of the universe that postulates a period when the universe expanded faster than the speed of light
* '''{{w|Timeline_of_epochs_in_cosmology#Quarks_epoch|Quark Epoch}}''' (10^-12 seconds after the Big Bang): The universe is a quark-gluon plasma, up until 10^-6 seconds when it cools enough to coalesce into hadrons, including protons and neutrons.
* '''{{w|Timeline_of_epochs_in_cosmology#Lepton_epoch|Lepton Epoch}}''' (1 second after the Big Bang): Leptons, including electrons, and their associated neutrinos dominate.
* '''{{w|Timeline_of_epochs_in_cosmology#Photon_epoch|Photon Epoch}}''' (10 seconds after the Big Bang): The universe is dominated by photons.
* '''Cool Bug Epoch''' (possibly a joke): There was a period around 10-17 million years after the Big Bang in which the cosmic background radiation was between 273 and 373 K, the temperature range for liquid water. Cosmologists {{w|Avi_Loeb#Early_Universe|have speculated}} that primitive life could have arisen during this period and dubbed it the 'Habitable Epoch of the Early Universe'.
* '''Molded grip''' (a joke): Some tools (e.g. knives) have molded finger-wells so that the user's hand settles easily and securely into a comfortable position. This epoch of the universe features repeated expansions and contractions so that this part of the timeline resembles a molded grip, at least in profile (it would be much too large to be held by any known animal's hands){{Citation needed}}.
* '''{{w|Timeline_of_epochs_in_cosmology#Cosmic_Dark_Age|Stars form}}''' (100 million years after the Big Bang): The universe cools enough to allow ordinary matter particles to group into stars.
* '''{{w|Stagflation}}''' (a joke): In addition to ''cosmic'' inflation, inflation can also refer to the economic phenomenon in which prices increase over time. Stagflation is combination of the terms "stagnation" and "inflation", and refers to a situation in which monetary inflation is high, economic growth is slow, and job creation is low. This epoch of the universe shows the universe beginning to contract in size, much as economists would talk about an economy contracting.
* '''Settling''' (a joke): Perhaps the universe has been very busy, and needs a rest.
* '''Rebound''' (a joke): Rest time is finished.
* '''Someone tripped and accidentally hit the "Inflation" switch again''' (a joke)
* '''Emergency Stop triggered''' (a joke)
* '''{{w|Timeline_of_epochs_in_cosmology#Galaxy_epoch|Galaxies form}}''' (12.8 Gya)
* '''{{w|Formation_and_evolution_of_the_Solar_System#Formation_of_the_planets|Earth forms}}''' (4.5 Gya)
* '''Present day'''
* '''Future cosmological development handed over to {{w|J.J. Abrams}}, outcome unknown''' (a joke): J.J. Abrams is a science-fiction writer and filmmaker. If he were in charge of the future development of the cosmos, he might decide to subject all of us to some strange plot twist. Among many other movies, he has directed the 2009 reboot of ''{{w|Star Trek (film)|Star Trek}}'', in which the "future history" of ''Star Trek'' is altered from the timeline of the original series by Nero and Spock traveling backwards in time.

The dashed lines coming off the end of the timeline represent the possible fates of the universe:

* The universe could stop expanding and begin contracting, resulting in the {{w|Big Crunch}}. In our universe, cosmological measurements have shown that that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, so the Big Crunch is considered to be the least likely fate.
* The universe could eventually settle into thermal equilibrium, which would leave no energy available for any interesting phenomena to occur. This is called the {{w|heat death of the universe}} or "Big Freeze".
* The universe's expansion could continue accelerating to the point that the accelerating expansion overcomes all forces between particles, turning the universe into a collection of particles isolated from each other by rapidly-expanding space. This is called the {{w|Big Rip}}.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:'''Timeline of the Universe'''

:??

:Big Bang
:[The Universe comes in as a circle with action lines around it. It stays the same size for a while.]

:Planck Epoch

:Medium Bang
:[The Universe starts inflating very slowly]

:Inflation
:[The Universe briefly inflates very rapidly, and returns to its normal rate of expansion.]

:Quark Epoch

:Lepton Epoch

:Photon Epoch

:Cool Bug Epoch

:[The Universe starts inflating and deflating rapidly, as if to form a grip.]
:Molded grip

:[Stars appear in the timeline. The Universe starts inflating slightly faster than before.]
:Stars form

:Stagflation
:[The Universe starts deflating slowly.]

:Settling

:Rebound
:[The Universe starts inflating slowly again.]

:Someone tripped and accidentally hit the "Inflation" switch again
:[The Universe starts inflating at the same rate as the Inflation section.]

:Emergency Stop triggered
:[The Universe abruptly stops inflating, and stays level.]

:[Galaxies appear in the timeline. The Universe starts inflating at a medium pace.]
:Galaxies form

:Earth forms

:Present day
:[We see the edge of the Universe, with a rounded shape. Various dotted line predictions are on the edges.]
:Future Cosmological development handed over to J.J. Abrams, outcome unknown
{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Space]]
[[Category:Star Wars]]
[[Category:Timelines]]
[[Category:Charts]]

2240: Timeline of the Universe

2019-12-12T02:03:34Z

Linkhyrule5:

{{comic
| number = 2240
| date = December 11, 2019
| title = Timeline of the Universe
| image = timeline_of_the_universe.png
| titletext = Not actual size, except technically at one spot near the left.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by the BIG BANG. Should include a list of the events, their times, and if they're real, explain what they are, and if they're jokes, explain what they are. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic is about the size of the universe, presented as a timeline. Some events on it are real, but others are jokes. The size history of the universe is also embellished for the sake of jokes; the actual size history of the universe has one period of inflation shortly after the Big Bang, followed by comparatively gentle but accelerating expansion. This is artistically depicted in [https://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/media/060915/060915_CMB_Timeline150.jpg this image from NASA].

The title text is a mathematical joke, based on the Intermediate Value Theorem (IVT). Note that the actual size (A) of the universe is zero at the Big Bang (time t = 0), while the corresponding size of the comic (C) is positive (the shape there has a small but nonzero thickness). Thus, A(0) - C(0) < 0. Also, the actual size of the universe at the present day is larger {{Citation needed}} than the corresponding size of the comic. So we have A(present) - C(present) > 0. Assuming the sizes of the universe and the comic are continuous {{Citation needed}}, by the IVT, there exists a time u in the interval (0, present) such that A(u) - C(u) = 0. Noting such a time u is likely reached very quickly after the Big Bang, it is represented close to the left of the comic. Hence, technically, Randall is correct.

The events presented in the timeline are:

* '''??''' (more than 13.8 billion years ago ({{w|Billion years|Gya}})): the unknown state of the universe prior to the Big Bang, if such a statement is even sensible (is it possible to be "south of the South Pole"?).
* '''{{w|Big Bang}}''' (13.8 Gya): The model of the origin of the universe which has achieved consensus among astronomers. We have observed that all galaxies are receding away from Earth at rates that are roughly proportional to their distance, and the simplest explanation for this is that the universe is expanding. If the universe is expanding, then (unless new physics are discovered) it must have at one time been very, very small and dense; that moment in time is called the Big Bang.
* '''{{w|Timeline_of_epochs_in_cosmology#Planck_epoch|Planck Epoch}}''': The time period starting with the Big Bang.
* '''Medium Bang''' (a joke): If there's a Big Bang, why not have medium one? There should probably also be a Little Bang, but maybe it's just too little to be featured on this chart.
* '''{{w|Inflation (cosmology)|Inflation}}''' (10^-36 to 10^-32 seconds after the Big Bang): A theory developed to explain the large-scale structure of the universe that postulates a period when the universe expanded faster than the speed of light
* '''{{w|Timeline_of_epochs_in_cosmology#Quarks_epoch|Quark Epoch}}''' (10^-12 seconds after the Big Bang): The universe is a quark-gluon plasma, up until 10^-6 seconds when it cools enough to coalesce into hadrons, including protons and neutrons.
* '''{{w|Timeline_of_epochs_in_cosmology#Lepton_epoch|Lepton Epoch}}''' (1 second after the Big Bang): Leptons, including electrons, and their associated neutrinos dominate.
* '''{{w|Timeline_of_epochs_in_cosmology#Photon_epoch|Photon Epoch}}''' (10 seconds after the Big Bang): The universe is dominated by photons.
* '''Cool Bug Epoch''' (possibly a joke): There was a period around 10-17 million years after the Big Bang in which the cosmic background radiation was between 273 and 373 K, the temperature range for liquid water. Cosmologists {{w|Avi_Loeb#Early_Universe|have speculated}} that primitive life could have arisen during this period and dubbed it the 'Habitable Epoch of the Early Universe'.
* '''Molded grip''' (a joke): Some tools (e.g. knives) have molded finger-wells so that the user's hand settles easily and securely into a comfortable position. This epoch of the universe features repeated expansions and contractions so that this part of the timeline resembles a molded grip, at least in profile (it would be much too large to be held by any known animal's hands){{Citation Needed}}.
* '''{{w|Timeline_of_epochs_in_cosmology#Cosmic_Dark_Age|Stars form}}''' (100 million years after the Big Bang): The universe cools enough to allow ordinary matter particles to group into stars.
* '''{{w|Stagflation}}''' (a joke): In addition to ''cosmic'' inflation, inflation can also refer to the economic phenomenon in which prices increase over time. Stagflation is combination of the terms "stagnation" and "inflation", and refers to a situation in which monetary inflation is high, economic growth is slow, and job creation is low. This epoch of the universe shows the universe beginning to contract in size, much as economists would talk about an economy contracting.
* '''Settling''' (a joke): Perhaps the universe has been very busy, and needs a rest.
* '''Rebound''' (a joke): Rest time is finished.
* '''Someone tripped and accidentally hit the "Inflation" switch again''' (a joke)
* '''Emergency Stop triggered''' (a joke)
* '''{{w|Timeline_of_epochs_in_cosmology#Galaxy_epoch|Galaxies form}}''' (12.8 Gya)
* '''{{w|Formation_and_evolution_of_the_Solar_System#Formation_of_the_planets|Earth forms}}''' (4.5 Gya)
* '''Present day'''
* '''Future cosmological development handed over to {{w|J.J. Abrams}}, outcome unknown''' (a joke): J.J. Abrams is a science-fiction writer and filmmaker. If he were in charge of the future development of the cosmos, he might decide to subject all of us to some strange plot twist. Among many other movies, he has directed the 2009 reboot of ''{{w|Star Trek (film)|Star Trek}}'', in which the "future history" of ''Star Trek'' is altered from the timeline of the original series by Nero and Spock traveling backwards in time.

The dashed lines coming off the end of the timeline represent the possible fates of the universe:

* The universe could stop expanding and begin contracting, resulting in the {{w|Big Crunch}}. In our universe, cosmological measurements have shown that that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, so the Big Crunch is considered to be the least likely fate.
* The universe could eventually settle into thermal equilibrium, which would leave no energy available for any interesting phenomena to occur. This is called the {{w|heat death of the universe}} or "Big Freeze".
* The universe's expansion could continue accelerating to the point that the accelerating expansion overcomes all forces between particles, turning the universe into a collection of particles isolated from each other by rapidly-expanding space. This is called the {{w|Big Rip}}.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:'''Timeline of the Universe'''

:??

:Big Bang
:[The Universe comes in as a circle with action lines around it. It stays the same size for a while.]

:Planck Epoch

:Medium Bang
:[The Universe starts inflating very slowly]

:Inflation
:[The Universe briefly inflates very rapidly, and returns to its normal rate of expansion.]

:Quark Epoch

:Lepton Epoch

:Photon Epoch

:Cool Bug Epoch

:[The Universe starts inflating and deflating rapidly, as if to form a grip.]
:Molded grip

:[Stars appear in the timeline. The Universe starts inflating slightly faster than before.]
:Stars form

:Stagflation
:[The Universe starts deflating slowly.]

:Settling

:Rebound
:[The Universe starts inflating slowly again.]

:Someone tripped and accidentally hit the "Inflation" switch again
:[The Universe starts inflating at the same rate as the Inflation section.]

:Emergency Stop triggered
:[The Universe abruptly stops inflating, and stays level.]

:[Galaxies appear in the timeline. The Universe starts inflating at a medium pace.]
:Galaxies form

:Earth forms

:Present day
:[We see the edge of the Universe, with a rounded shape. Various dotted line predictions are on the edges.]
:Future Cosmological development handed over to J.J. Abrams, outcome unknown
{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Space]]
[[Category:Star Wars]]
[[Category:Timelines]]
[[Category:Charts]]