1649: Pipelines

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Pipelines

Title text: In the future, every single pipeline will lead to the bowl of a giant blender, and we'll all just show up with a bucket each day to take our share of the resulting smoothie.

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Much more explanation needed including a table with all the items and coments on the size. And what it a typical computer screen resolution? Some of the current paragraphs (at this moment the two last regarding soup and what if) should probably be a comment or trivia entry. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

Follows a similar idea to the what if? Niagara Straw, (from three days before this comic's release), where the entire water flow over Niagara Falls is imagined to flow through a straw (7 mm diameter, and to disastrous results). Here Randall imagines what size pipes are necessary to carry US domestic production/consumption of various fluids if the flow rate were fixed at 4 meters per second. Randall notes that "many pipes would overlap", owing to the fact that consumption of one item as corn syrup would be due to the production of another shown as soda (another example not given in the comic would be gasoline produced by petroleum ).

As usual with xkcd, the absurdity -- and improbability -- of routing the entirety of each fluid through a single pipe at any point is the source of humor. In addition, some "fluids" shown are rather viscous (e.g. peanut butter, Silly Putty, meat), highly adhesive (e.g. maple syrup), thermally impractical (e.g. glass, cheese, ice cream and yogurt), or just plain zany (e.g. saliva a reference to another what if? Saliva Pool).

The title text refers to a possible alternate reality in which all of our daily consumption of fluids is consumed in one bucketful of those blended fluids instead of individually. The smoothie would very likely be deadly to consume.

One omission noted is "soup", which is partly expected due to Beret Guy's use of a "soup outlet" as an entrepreneur in 1293: Job Interview. It is probably a larger pipeline than salsa and possibly even ketchup.

In addition to the What If? article, the relevancy of pipelines, particularly regarding public water, is heightened due to the ongoing public health crisis in Flint, Michigan, caused by recent (mis-)management of their public water system. Studies have shown that temporary use of the Flint River as a water source caused corrosive water to leach lead from old pipes, causing lead poisoning in many residents, particularly children; other ill effects in addition to lead have been noted. The crisis has lead to a public outcry against the state "emergency financial management" team appointed and supervised by the state executive (Gov. Rick Snyder and staff) and an outpouring of support from nearby communities such as Metro Detroit via bottled water donations to Flint residents.

Transcript

[Caption above the first main panel, to the left of a smaller panel to the right.]

The size of the US’s

Pipelines

if each fluid produced or consumed in the US has to be carried by a single pipe

Assuming they all flowed at the same speed of about 4^m/_s

Note: Many pipelines would overlap (eg. soda/corn syrup)

[There is a small panel to the right showing three gray pipes of different sizes leading out over a large hole in the ground. Only a part of the hole can be seen at the bottom left part of the panel, but it curves around indicating it is a large circular hole. The pipes are supported by small legs beneath them and from the end of all three thick liquids are squirting out and down into the hole. The first pipe is by far the largest; the liquid from it is white, but not as white as the background. The second pipe is by far the smallest squirting dark red liquid and the final rightmost pipe is in between and squirts our light brown liquid. Each pipe is labeled. The label on the smallest cannot be read properly, but from the info gained in the next panel it can be inferred for certain what it says (and this is indicated here below):]

[Large pipe (white)]: Mayo

[Small pipe (dark red)]: Nail polish

[Medium pipe (light brown)]: Maple syrup

[Below is a large panel with a caption at the top. And below this there are twenty circles in different sizes and with different color (or even texture). Each circle is labeled, for the five smallest the label is outside, in one case with an arrow indicating where the label belongs. The rest has the label inside. The text is in black except for four of those with text inside, but with red of black color. Here the text is white. The labels are indicated by color and size, going roughly from top left in reading order based on the position and size of circles not of position of the text:]

Actual size (When viewed on a typical computer screen)

[Medium green blue and white spiral]: Toothpaste

[Tiny dark red]: Nail polish

[Big light blue with white specks]: Windshield washer fluid

[Very tiny purple]: Silly putty

[Medium light green]: Shampoo

[Large dark yellow]: Honey

[Very small blood red]: Donated blood

[Tiny black]: Vanilla

[Big red]: Ketchup

[Medium dark red with chunks of in different green and lighter red colors]: Salsa

[Small white]: Sunscreen

[Very small light green]: Personal lubricant

[Very tiny gray]: LCD liquid

[Medium off-white]: Mayo

[Very small black]: Printer ink

[Small light brown]: Maple syrup

[Small light green]: Conditioner

[Medium yellow]: Mustard

[Large light green]: Liquid soap

[Big olive green]: Olive oil

[The panel just described is indicated to fit into a small rectangle at the top left of the next panel below. There are four lines ending at the four corners of this small rectangle, two of these are going to the two bottom corners and the other two ends on the lower part of the panel just above the small rectangle. They are indicated to go under the panel and would hit the two top corners if extrapolated). The 11 largest circles are clearly seen, but most of the other circles can also be noted. The colors are the same but any features in the original circles as well as the labels are gone. The part of the black top frame of the next panel below is faded out to gray in between the section cut off by the two lines going to the bottom corners of the panel above. This rectangle indicated the increasing size compared to the first panel above.]

[Apart from the insert mentioned above the second panel follows the same layout, but with 22 circles with even larger range of sizes. The panel is more than twice as long as the first panel. A Megan-like girl, but with white hair, is drawn at the top of the panel just left of the middle. Her hair close to the top, just below the line going to the right corner above. There are two medium and five smaller circles to her left and one small close to her head and one huge circle to her right. Her feet are less than a third down this panel standing on top of the next row of circles. In the bottom half of the panel there is a giant circle which almost touches the left side of the panel. There are smaller circles above it and down along the right side. One last circle is to the left almost at the bottom. At the very bottom is a slightly curving line to indicate a much much larger blue circle that only graces the panel (no. 23). There is a small green fish in this water to the left of the label. Below the labels are again listed as above. One label has a foot note. But it is written directly beneath the circle in which it is referenced. So it will be written together with the label on the next line.]

[Medium dark gray]: Coffee

[Very tiny gray]: Peanut butter

[Very small gray with black specks]: Ice cream

[Very small yellow with white specks]: Cheese

[Large brown with white fizzing]: Soda

[Tiny White]: Acetone

[Tiny gray]: Liquor

[Huge dark yellow]: Gasoline

[Tiny White with black specks]: Yogurt

[Big white]: Milk (cow)

[Large light blue]: Bottled water

[Small white]: Sugar

[Large light gray with white specks]: Saliva

[Very small light yellow]: Wine

[Very small orange]: HFCS

[Very tiny white]: Milk (human)

[Gigantic dark gray]: Petroleum

[Medium dark red with black texture]: Meat (mostly solid)

[Small white]: Glass*

*Solid at room temperature

[Medium light brown]: Beer

[Small gray brown]: Tea

[Large gray]: Cement

[Gracing bottom of panel light blue]: Public water

Trivia

• Here below is a measurement of diameters/calculation of diameters performed by someone adding it as a special contriubution. This may be incorporated into a possible table?
• Actual size: (Diameters Listed) - Someone check my numbers!
  • Toothpaste: 35mm
  • Nail Polish: 5mm
  • Windsheild washer fluid: 60mm
  • Silly Putty: 2mm
  • Shampoo: 40mm
  • Honey: 50mm
  • Donated Blood: 10mm
  • Vanilla: 5mm
  • Personal Lubricant: 7mm
  • Sunscreen: 14mm
  • Mayo: 45mm
  • Printer Ink: 13mm
  • Maple Syrup: 18mm
  • Ketchup: 55mm
  • Salsa: 36mm
  • LCD Liquid: 3mm
  • Conditioner: 25mm
  • Mustard: 38mm
  • Liquid Soap: 50mm
  • Olive Oil: 62mm
• Not Actual Size: (Scaling of the liquid soap shows 25:1 scaling has been applied to these pipelines)
  • Coffee: 750mm
  • Peanut Butter: 125mm
  • Cheese: 475mm
  • Ice Cream: 250mm
  • Acetone: 300mm
  • Gasoline: 3.00m
  • Liquor: 200mm
  • Soda: 1.03m
  • Yogurt: 225mm
  • Milk (Cow): 1.38m
  • Bottled Water: 900mm
  • Sugar: 513mm
  • Saliva: 1.08m
  • Wine: 250mm
  • HFCS: 263mm
  • MIlk (Human): 150mm
  • Petroleum: 4.05m
  • Meat (mostly solid): 750mm
  • Glass* (*Solid at room temperature): 325mm
  • Beer: 450mm
  • Cement: 1.00m
  • Tea: 525mm
  • Public Water: 83.41m
    • Pipe has a rise of 75mm over span of 5m. Per the formula given here, the diameter should be 83.408m. Rounding to sig figs above gives 83.41m
    • This has not been verified - just me with a taper measure on the computer screen. Additional help would be appreciated. --[Special:Contributions/188.114.106.47|188.114.106.47] 19:59, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

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Discussion

No discussion yet? Strange ...

Anyway, the title text "and we'll all just show up with a bucket each day to take our share of the resulting smoothie" reminds me of this bit near the end of Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx0ME65y72E (Warning: not for the squeamish.) --RenniePet (talk) 16:21, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

This comic came out very late today. Mikemk (talk) 19:16, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

I tried to discuss earlier but did not have permission to "create a page." Now I can comment, I assume because you created the page? Hrmm. Anyway, my comment is that the honey pipe seems so unreasonably large that I'm curious of the source and the math. I found figures for honey production in US, in pounds, did not convert it to volume or look up other values but it's hard to imagine it is correct in relation to ketchup, mustard, and mayo. Grocery stores sell honey in smaller bottles and much less often, than the others. Factory bakers and makers of cereal use a little honey but not much; it's so much more expensive than corn syrup or even sugar. Restaurants use all those other products at much higher volumes. McDonald's has honey at breakfast for biscuits but it's rarely requested, versus how many gallons per day of ketchup they must use per store, just on burgers, let alone packets given away. 108.162.216.62 17:24, 29 February 2016 (UTC)wrybred

Please (once you get permission to do create pages) do not try to create pages like this yourself. There is a bot that will do that when the comic has been out for a short while. And this comic was very late. And when people do it themselves there often goes a lot wrong with the functionality. And contributions may be lost when an admin has to fix this later. --Kynde (talk) 22:00, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

There is so much wrong with "cheese" labeled as a fluid... Flavio from Switzerland 141.101.104.33 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Since there are both glass (not a solid) and meat (mostly solid) and cement, only liquid for a short time, then the question is if cheese (once milk) could not be measured as a liquid without being more strange than other substances in the table? I also think that some (strange to me) people like to eat cheese that is runny ;-p --Kynde (talk) 22:00, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

I find it appropriate and satisfying that tea and sugar are the same size :) 108.162.245.180 18:38, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Glass is a reference to the common misconception that glass is a slow moving liquid. (Spoiler: It's not) 141.101.106.161 19:31, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

I believe he has mentioned this fact in a previous comic... One where he urges us to look at Wikipedias page for common misconceptions before going to a party and telling everyone that glass is a liquid! ;-) --Kynde (talk) 22:00, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

To give an example: Americans drunk just under 900 million gallons of wine in 2014, or just over 4 million cubic metres per year. There are 31557600 seconds in a year, so about America drinks 0.13 m3/s. If the pipe is flowing at 4m/s The pipe must have an area of 0.032m^2 = 320cm^2. The radius of a pipe of area 320cm^2 is 10cm. The wine pipe should have a diameter of 20cm. How about a table of calulated diameters 141.101.70.91 19:38, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Fantastic. I did some recalculations of the numbers posted as a transcript, at the moment moved to a trivia section when I posted a real transcript. There was an error in the scaling which I have now fixed. And right now the number for wine diameter says 20 cm. I did just check the picture and I disagree a little as I come to 11.5 mm on the picture which would then make it 23 cm in diameter, but that would be close enough to fit with this wine calculation withing the uncertainty of both calculations measurement and Randall's accuracy. And yes there should be such a table as you mentions.

Table now added. --Kynde (talk) 22:33, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

But what about the additional wine produced in America? You only took into account the wine consumed. --Effy (talk) 10:15, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Also, I recalculated from the article you linked to and got a figure much closer to 18 cm. Maybe check your calculations? When I take 893M gallons and convert to cubic meters I get about 3.38 million, not just over 4 million. This would perhaps suggest that each pipe in the comic is either matter produced OR consumed, but not both added together. --Effy (talk) 10:33, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Oh yes, US gallons are not UK Gallons......... -- Zeimusu (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

One last comment: I corrected the table per above, I hope that's okay. However, I noticed that if we use wine produced instead of wine consumed, the pipe comes out to 17.9 cm instead of 18.5. Perhaps that was what the pipe was intended for? (I guess the extra wine will need to imported with a transatlantic pipeline.) See: List of wine-producing countries. --Effy (talk) 10:39, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the scale check. It's always nice to know someone else looked at this stuff. BTW - would suggest that you not compare "size" to "calculated size" - but rather multiply these diameters by 4 m/s and output "calculated annual output" v. "Annual Output" - any source that can be found for annual outputs. This would be a bit more elegant as sources can be verified instantaneously. (i.e. using the 23 cm wine for example - "Annual Output" would be 4 million cubic meters, "Calculated Annual Output" would be 5.24 million cubic meters. --188.114.106.47 23:20, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

It's not blonde, it's albino. 173.245.63.144 23:28, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

How are we defining a typical computer screen? How many dots per inch? And where do we get that data from? Are we gonna have to do the math ourselves on one of the pipes to figure out what DPI setting Randal is suggesting? Or has he said somewhere? Trlkly (talk) 23:58, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure the initial size assumptions are very fair. If not-Megan is 5 feet 11, she's in the 99.4% percentile for American women. So perhaps the initial measurement of 9cm should be smaller for an "average computer". Here's a percentile height checker. https://tall.life/height-percentile-calculator-age-country/ Bgaskin (talk) 23:50, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

The Trivia section speaks of Leap Day comics, describing another as being "also like this one on a Friday in 2008". That implies Leap Day yesterday was a Friday. It was not, Leap Day was a Monday this year (as was the release date of this comic). ???? Other phrasing in the Trivia section uses similarly incorrect phrasing, leading me to question the validity of the declaration that the next Leap Day Release Date is in 20 years. (I personally can't check right now). - NiceGuy1 108.162.218.148 06:44, 2 March 2016 (UTC) I finally signed up! This comment is mine. NiceGuy1 (talk) 08:58, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

I note that the Trivia sections of 390: Nightmares and 1023: Late-Night PBS are similarly garbled with the same incorrect information. I also note that UTC timestamps on here are 5:15 ahead of Eastern time where I am. I thought UTC was the middle of the ocean, this is 15 minutes past Greenwich. Even if the number of hours is right, the 15 minutes shouldn't be - NiceGuy1 108.162.218.148 07:51, 2 March 2016 (UTC) So's this! (and I note timestamps are now +4 hours from Eastern. Like I said, middle of the ocean). :) NiceGuy1 (talk) 08:58, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm the guy who added the leap day stuff on this one originally; when I did that, the other two comics' pages didn't mention leap days at all. I most definitely did not say anything about Fridays, or indeed any other days of the week other than the "if MWF schedule continues next one will be 2036" part; I certainly would not have claimed that February 29, 2016 was in some way a Friday. (UTC is basically Greenwich, incidentally. But yes, 15 minutes past Greenwich - maybe 16 or 17 - seems about right for UTC timestamps here. Is it faulty time on the server?) 162.158.180.203 06:30, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Interesting that Randall doesn't include a pipe for air, a fluid consumed in great quantities in the country. 162.158.255.74 11:48, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Checking some numbers - Meat seems consistent with this USDA report (I got 32.1 GL), but Milk Consumption (29.8 GL) was way off - mainly I think because it was based on consumption - not production. Using the numbers listed of "all dairy products" is 86.3 GL, which isn't right either - but closer. Cheese (4.44 GL) was also off. In the small pipes, based upon a report here, Mayo (0.656 GL), Ketchup (0.687 GL) were way off. Mustard (0.106 GL) wasn't that far off. Further investigation is coming as I find the time, but it seems that production numbers were used more than consumption numbers - (consistent with the note of "pipes overlap" - obviously you can't consume something that's been used in something else). --188.114.106.47 18:02, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Ok after review of Saliva Pools 500 mL/day figure (stated within this last month), the population should product 59.9 GL of Saliva. Comparing with the 71.6 GL listed shows that the saliva pipe should have a diameter of 77.8 cm. Applying this scaling to "not-meg" gives a height of 165 cm - which matches with what Google says for Average woman height. I'll rescale everything in the lower panel to match unless I see a disagreement. --188.114.106.47 19:20, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

I would love myself to drink some LCD Liquid right now. 87.bus.rider (talk), 15:39, 17 April 2024 (UTC)