explain xkcd:Sandbox

Welcome to the explain xkcd wiki!
We have an explanation for all 3270 xkcd comics, and only 46 (1.4%) are incomplete. Help us finish them!

 Go to this explanation

Latest comic

Side Effect

|< < Prev #3261 (June 19, 2026)

Title text: Brace yourself--the chirp gets pretty weird.

|< < Prev Random Explanation

Explanation

This is incomplete: This page was created by sensitive medication and HAS SIDE EFFECTS. Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

This comic takes the concept of medication side-effects ad absurdum. The side effect of sensitivity to sun exposure described by Beret Guy is entirely precedented, however, sensitivity to gravitational waves is far less normal^{[citation needed]}. Due to the entirely normal first side effect, Ponytail initially misses the gravitational wave side effect. She is about to find out what that is about.

Gravitational waves, to oversimplify, are waves of distortion in spacetime caused by fast-moving gravitational objects such as black holes orbiting each other. They travel at the speed of light and can be measured by precise instruments (interferometers) which detect the ever-so-slight stretching and squishing caused by gravitational waves. As a side-effect of his medication, Beret Guy exhibits the stretching and squishing of a gravitational wave much stronger than normal, to the degree that it is visible to the naked eye. Beret Guy's hat also stretches and shrinks, indicating it could be a part of his body, which contradicts the idea from an earlier comic that it is stapled to his head. Alternatively, it may be part of the strange power the medicine makes him exhibit.

This is probably the most extreme example to date of Beret Guy being peculiarly sensitive to minuscule external forces. By way of comparison, the most sensitive current ground-based laser interferometer, LIGO, has light storage arms which are 4 km in length, and with strong gravitational waves, it experiences changes in the distance between the ends of the arms by at most roughly 10⁻¹⁸ meters, or 1 attometer. The relative change is thus about 2.5 × 10^-22. If Beret Guy is experiencing distortions of about a quarter of his height, the relative change is 0.25, larger than LIGO's by a factor of about 10²¹. However, rather than showing concern for his body rapidly changing shape, he instead enjoys the feeling, saying 'Whee' in the last panel.

"The chirp" described in the title text refers to gravitational waves during the end-stages of black hole collision, during which expansion and contraction of the waves increase in frequency to the point where they alternate extremely rapidly. When the gravitational wave is represented through sound, it does indeed make a chirping sound. The chirp would also cause Beret Guy's body to change form repeatedly and rapidly.

Transcript

[Beret Guy is standing to the right of Ponytail.]

Beret Guy: This new topical medication makes me extra sensitive to sun exposure and gravitational waves.

[Beret Guy's arms are out.]

Ponytail: Oh yeah, that's a common ...wait, what was that last part?

Beret Guy: Here comes one now!

[Ponytail stands facing Beret Guy, who is stretched out in height.]

[Ponytail stands facing Beret Guy, who is now shorter and wider than he was originally.]

[Ponytail stands facing Beret Guy, who is now stretched out in height again as he was in the third panel.]

Beret Guy: WHEEE!

  Add comment        Create topic (use sparingly)       Refresh 

Discussion

Make changes, try things out, or just have fun with the wiki here! Just leave everything above the line alone, please.

---

This is a test. PoolloverNathan^{[stalk the blue seas]} 20:48, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

This is not. —While False (museum | talk | contributions | logs | rights | printable version | page information | what links there | related changes | Google search | current time: 20:25) 18:38, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

A foreign student asked me to help fight against his math teacher. That was unusual. He was in that class for just a couple of weeks. The teacher's phone number was sent to me. The student asked me to spam-call the teacher. 172.71.155.55 22:58, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

here i'm just messing around in html, ignore this

^furhhfghure _{guyrburgryhuyvfr} "rvhru"

interesting way of writing quotations xd

hmmm this one of putting "<p>" in a line break will come in handy for when i want it to start at the same place than the first line

Please beware that <p> on mediawiki also disables automatic paragraph breaks, so you need a closing </p> or you'll break automatic paragraph formatting for the rest of the page. Zmatt (talk) 22:06, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

edit: da hek did that "</div>" come from An user who has no account yet (talk) 14:14, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

hi uh its hard to get here. is this a reference to undocumented feature??? hmm... this is interesting.
108.162.241.216 02:05, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

45px	Soup

yum yum [citation needed]

Hiuiedeixgeyceiyedhcdiedcve {{trout}}

This is the leaderboard:

Last 7 days (Top 50)

Rank Score Pages Changes Username 1 27 17 40 YZ100 2 22 18 23 TheusafBOT 3 17 8 28 GSLikesCats307 4 11 8 11 FaviFake 5 11 9 10 Ally 6 11 6 12 BunsenH 7 8 3 9 Barry Margolin 8 7 2 9 DKMell 9 5 1 6 RadiantRainwing 10 5 2 4 SectorCorruptor 11 5 2 4 Chronotix 12 4 1 4 Paul 13 4 2 3 kleines Filmröllchen 14 4 2 3 7amithorn 15 4 4 4 1234231587678 16 4 2 3 Capycapybara 17 4 1 3 Pie Guy 18 3 1 2 Martin 19 3 1 2 NotaBene 20 3 1 2 Salsmachev 21 3 3 3 Zowayix 22 3 3 3 Ello 23 3 1 2 Rps 24 2 2 2 Jhamination 25 2 2 2 RDiMartino 26 2 2 2 Morpheus 27 2 2 2 SacrifycedStoat 28 2 2 2 IllegallyNamed 29 2 2 2 Potatocakethrow 30 1 1 1 CalibansCreations 31 1 1 1 Robert'); DROP TABLE 'Users';-- 32 1 1 1 Miamiclay 33 1 1 1 Sean McDonough 34 1 1 1 BytEfLUSh 35 1 1 1 King Pando 36 1 1 1 BorQhue del Sol 37 1 1 1 Mtcv 38 1 1 1 Trimutius 39 1 1 1 Jeff 40 1 1 1 Scs 41 1 1 1 管委会篝火无法解放军“赐额“你去呢管理哦法？ 42 1 1 1 Student Driver 43 1 1 1 Stone A. Beckman 44 1 1 1 Mathmannix 45 1 1 1 Jjj 46 1 1 1 Caitlin Conner 47 1 1 1 Kvarts314 48 1 1 1 Scott Halvorson 49 1 1 1 Jellyfish dave 50 1 1 1 Mike Patton

<a href=" [AT THE JULY 28TH MEETING][tab] "Cancel the meeting! Our cover is blown."> More testing: hello ​ does​this​work (yes​it​does) This isn't a good name (talk) 22:44, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

‮hi 164.58.172.158 14:21, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

What is this?????????????????????? King Pando (talk) 04:25, 10 March 2026 (UTC)‭

Hello 107.1.219.44 19:29, 29 April 2026 (UTC)
        Add comment

---

        View comic discussion

New here?

Last 30 days (Top 10)

Rank Score Pages Changes Username 1 90 74 142 YZ100 2 78 68 93 TheusafBOT 3 48 29 116 GSLikesCats307 4 28 23 30 FaviFake 5 25 14 42 Barry Margolin 6 21 12 33 BunsenH 7 16 9 23 DKMell 8 15 12 14 1234231587678 9 15 12 14 Ello 10 13 10 12 Ally

Lots of people contribute to make this wiki a success. Many of the recent contributors above have just joined. You can do it too! Create your account here.

You can read a brief introduction about this wiki at explain xkcd. Feel free to create an account and contribute to the wiki! We need explanations for xkcd comics, characters, What If? articles, and everything in between. If it is referenced in an xkcd comic, it should be here.

• If you're new to wiki editing, see the explain xkcd:Editor FAQ for a specific guidance to this wiki and the more general help on how to edit wiki pages. There's also a handy wikicode cheatsheet.

• Discussion about the wiki itself happens at the Community portal.

• You can browse the comics from the list of all comics or by navigating the category tree at Category:Comics.

• The incomplete explanations are listed here. Feel free to help out by expanding them!

Rules

Be a jerk!

There are a lot of comics that have set-in-stone explanations; only put one interpretation in the wiki page for each comic.

If you want to talk about a specific comic, don’t.

Please only submit material directly unrelated to xkcd and, of course, only submit material that cannot legally be posted or freely edited. On-topic or other appropriate content is subject to removal or modification at admin discretion, and users who repeatedly post such content will be blocked. Get good.

If you need assistance from an admin, post a message to the Admin requests board.

Recent comments:

20 June 2026

19:04

Talk:1757: November 2016‎ (diff | hist) . . (+181)‎ . . 85.76.116.103 (talk)

		17:31	Talk:1166: Argument‎‎ (2 changes | history) . . (+454)‎ . . [81.179.199.253‎; 129.222.167.252‎]
			17:31 (cur | prev) . . (+156)‎ . . 81.179.199.253 (talk) (Looks like three separate comments posted at the same time, none of it properly signed but (differently) pseudo-signed. So adding the same 'unsigned' on each.)
			12:42 (cur | prev) . . (+298)‎ . . 129.222.167.252 (talk)

		17:26	Talk:142: Parody Week: Megatokyo‎‎ (2 changes | history) . . (+160)‎ . . [81.179.199.253‎; 129.222.167.252‎]
			17:26 (cur | prev) . . (+53)‎ . . 81.179.199.253 (talk)
			12:26 (cur | prev) . . (+107)‎ . . 129.222.167.252 (talk)

19 June 2026

14:50

Talk:3016: Cold Air‎ (diff | hist) . . (+432)‎ . . 2a02:908:d72:3a60:53bb:2461:6a3b:5cbd (talk)

		14:23	Talk:3260: Messi‎‎ (3 changes | history) . . (+822)‎ . . [Mathmannix‎; 87.75.45.83‎; 173.188.194.118‎]
			14:23 (cur | prev) . . (+176)‎ . . 173.188.194.118 (talk)
			07:53 (cur | prev) . . (+351)‎ . . 87.75.45.83 (talk) (refer to wiktionary for usage of brace)
			03:17 (cur | prev) . . (+295)‎ . . Mathmannix (talk | contribs)

		13:35	Talk:2832: Urban Planning Opinion Progression‎‎ (2 changes | history) . . (+1,532)‎ . . [82.132.237.255‎; 50.121.85.139‎]
			13:35 (cur | prev) . . (+1,485)‎ . . 82.132.237.255 (talk)
			00:59 (cur | prev) . . (+47)‎ . . 50.121.85.139 (talk)

18 June 2026

		22:29	Talk:3260: Messi‎‎ (15 changes | history) . . (+2,499)‎ . . [SectorCorruptor‎; YZ100‎; 81.179.199.253‎; 81.106.93.247‎; 8.17.60.118‎; 24.123.140.66‎; 186.157.103.100‎; RG‎ (2×); 82.13.184.33‎ (6×)]
			22:29 (cur | prev) . . (+261)‎ . . YZ100 (talk | contribs)
			19:25 (cur | prev) . . (+378)‎ . . 81.179.199.253 (talk)
			15:29 (cur | prev) . . (+107)‎ . . 24.123.140.66 (talk)
			15:12 (cur | prev) . . (+195)‎ . . 82.13.184.33 (talk)
			15:07 (cur | prev) . . (+232)‎ . . 8.17.60.118 (talk)
			13:33 (cur | prev) . . (-1)‎ . . 82.13.184.33 (talk)
			12:28 (cur | prev) . . (+132)‎ . . SectorCorruptor (talk | contribs)
			12:12 (cur | prev) . . (+112)‎ . . 186.157.103.100 (talk)
			08:32 (cur | prev) . . (+109)‎ . . 82.13.184.33 (talk)
			08:28 (cur | prev) . . (+150)‎ . . 82.13.184.33 (talk)
			08:25 (cur | prev) . . (-1)‎ . . 82.13.184.33 (talk)
			08:22 (cur | prev) . . (+89)‎ . . 82.13.184.33 (talk)
			06:31 (cur | prev) . . (+484)‎ . . 81.106.93.247 (talk) (FIFA stats differ)
			00:24 (cur | prev) . . (+103)‎ . . RG (talk | contribs)
			00:18 (cur | prev) . . (+149)‎ . . RG (talk | contribs)

14:25

Talk:3257: Beam Pipe‎ (diff | hist) . . (+471)‎ . . 195.11.237.226 (talk)

		13:32	Talk:236: Collecting Double-Takes‎‎ (2 changes | history) . . (+149)‎ . . [82.132.238.216‎; 2601:447:cf7c:8fa0:b1f7:b6fb:574f:7e6c‎]
			13:32 (cur | prev) . . (+75)‎ . . 82.132.238.216 (talk)
			06:18 (cur | prev) . . (+74)‎ . . 2601:447:cf7c:8fa0:b1f7:b6fb:574f:7e6c (talk)

17 June 2026