Editing 1604: Snakes

{{comic
| number    = 1604
| date      = November 16, 2015
| title     = Snakes
| image     = snakes.png
| titletext = The last band of color indicates the snake's tolerance for being held before biting.
}}

==Explanation==
In the comic, [[Megan]] confuses a popular method of identification of the dangerous North American {{w|coral snake}} by its red, yellow, and black stripes with the {{w|Electronic color code|color-coding system}} used to indicate the resistance of electrical resistors.

The coral snake has red bands adjacent to its yellow bands. However, coral snakes are {{w|mimicry|mimicked}} by nonvenomous species with similar coloring, such as the {{w|milk snake}}, whose red bands are not adjacent to its yellow bands. Because these two species of snakes are common in the eastern United States, a variety of rhyming {{w|mnemonic}}s developed in that region, such as “Red touches yellow, kill a fellow; red touches black, friend of Jack.” Note that such mnemonics may be dangerously misleading in other regions, where different snake species proliferate. Because Megan is describing a red band being adjacent to a yellow band, she is most likely holding a coral snake, which contains the most potent venom of any snake in North America.

Instead of realizing the danger, Megan equates the color bands to having the same function as those printed on electrical {{w|resistor}}s. Resistors have at least three bands to identify their resistance value in {{w|ohm}}s, followed by an optional fourth band showing the {{w|engineering tolerance|tolerance}} as within the bounds of a certain percentage of the aforementioned resistance value. A red band followed by a yellow and a black one identifies a 24 ohm resistor (the omega symbol, “Ω”, stands for ohms). Eastern coral snakes (''Micrurus fulvius''), Texas coral snakes (''Micrurus tener''), and Arizona coral snakes (''Micruroides euryxanthus'', also called Sonoran or western coral snakes) typically have stripes in the pattern red, yellow, black, yellow. Yellow corresponds to a tolerance of &plusmn;5%, so the actual resistance will be between 22.8Ω and 25.2Ω. Resistor color codes were also mentioned in [[227: Color Codes]].

The title text refers to the fourth band specifying the tolerance but interprets it as the snake's tolerance for being held before biting, instead of the measure of the imprecision of the 24 ohms. In the case of yellow, this would refer to a tolerance value of 5%. How tolerance to being held is measured left ambiguous. If the value represents the probability of being bitten over a given period of time, then larger numbers would mean a less tolerant snake.  If it instead represents the position on some per-determined "tolerance scale" between 0 and 1, then larger values would represent a 'more' tolerant snake.

==Transcript==
:[Megan and Cueball are standing in some grass. Megan is holding a snake with red, yellow, and black stripes.]

:Megan: Red touches yellow, which I think means this is a 24Ω snake.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Animals]]