Talk:3085: About 20 Pounds

Wow - first here! I can't help thinking 'about 20 pounds' could be exactly 10 kg! 0r even one Newton?! 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. --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. RIIW - Ponder it (talk) 11:41, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

20 pounds are approximately 9.072 kg, so not exactly 10 kg (in fact, it rounds to 9). 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.) 141.101.98.82 11:46, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

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 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. 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. 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. 172.70.111.115 08:57, 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. 172.68.151.93 09:17, 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? 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^–35 m, so above 7 rm, this particle would not collapse into a black hole). 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?" 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". 172.68.245.81 10:23, 6 May 2025 (UTC)