Difference between revisions of "2187: Geologic Time"

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Revision as of 20:46, 9 August 2019

Geologic Time
Ok, well, we'll be sure to pay you sometime soon, geologically speaking.
Title text: Ok, well, we'll be sure to pay you sometime soon, geologically speaking.

Explanation

Ambox notice.png This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by a GEOLOGIST PAST DEADLINE. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.
If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

Analogies to explain the passage of billions of years are often used in popular science explanations, to help compress these huge spans of time into something the human mind can comprehend. The football field analogy is one of these - if you spread billions of years over a football field, each yard is tens of millions of years, and human history, which is only several thousand years old, is a tiny fraction of that.

Megan, a geologist, used such a long story about how little the time of human history compares to the Earths total history. She does this to juxtapose it with normal human time-scales, to imply that her being two weeks late turning in her project is immaterial by the standards of the Earth's tremendous age. She tries to sell this story to Cueball and Hairbun, but Hairbun's response does not seem to bode well for Megan.

Randall states in the caption that this is a trick that geologist always tries to use when being late turning something in.

In the title text we see the reply from Hairbun and Cueball. They use her logic regarding her next payment for her work, which they will also pay out to her soon, that is geologically speaking. So they say that her pay will be delayed, but only a short period of time. That is short by comparison to the Earth's age, but presumably much longer than the geologist wants to wait to get paid (or even has left to live...)

Transcript

[Megan, arms spread out, is delivering a long-winded explanation to Hairbun and Cueball.]
Megan: Imagine Earth's history as a football field, from the planet's formation at one end to today at the other.
Megan: Complex life would be largely limited to the final ten yards. Dinosaurs appear at the five-yard line, the age of mammals happens in the last 1½ yards, and humans arise in the final few millimeters.
Megan: All of written history would fit in a strip narrower than a single hair.
Megan: "Two weeks" would be too small to see even with a powerful microscope.
Hairbun: Mm hmm.
[Caption below the panel:]
Geologists always try this when they're late turning something in.


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Discussion

Football pitches don't have five-yard lines… 141.101.98.148 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

You pitch a baseball, not a football. 172.69.170.88 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
Yes and in the comic it does say Football field. And Randall is known for not knowing anything about sport, so he may project this onto the geologist and not let her know about the five yard line... --Kynde (talk) 20:26, 9 August 2019 (UTC)
And at the risk of being picky, I'm sure Randall is talking about an American football field, which does have five-yard lines. They just don't have a label on the field, which is only the ten-yard lines, but there is a line across the field every five yards. Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 00:05, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
I agree that Randall is definitely referring to NFL-style US Football in this comic. Also, since the US women's 'futbol' team won the world cup, we're officially calling it 'Soccer' until someone wins the championship back from us.  ;S
ProphetZarquon (talk) 11:28, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
Agree it is a American Football field (as we call it abroad, also you do not use your feet much to kick the ball compared to Soccer). Do Woman play football? I believe most people who actually care about football do not care for the Womans futbal :-D By the way I don't care for sport, almost on the same level here as Randall, and also I did not know that there were a 5 yard line on an American Football field, but all the time assumed it was. As far as I know there are no distance lines on a regular real football field (soccer field to you). --Kynde (talk) 10:09, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

Should we have a geology category, like we have Category:Geography and many other science categories? --Kynde (talk) 20:26, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Just realizes I could easily find more than 10 comics that would fit into that category, so I have created it: Category:Geology

This reminds me of The Cosmic Calendar from Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" TV Series. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ln8UwPd1z20 Gpg (talk) 20:29, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

The title text reminds me of a cartoon I once read where these two guys talk to God hidden in the clouds. Guy: God is it true that a million years feel like a minute to you? God: Yes my son. Guy: Is it also true that a million dollars would be like a dime to you? God: Yes my son, that is true! Guy: God, could you spare a dime for me? God: Yes my son, in a minute. :-D --Kynde (talk) 21:10, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

What does anything in this comic mean? Asking for… absolutely everyone in every single country except the USA. Fabian42 (talk) 09:38, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

I think there are a few people outside the USA who understand yards and feet, and even what an American football field is. Catherine (talk) 10:29, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
Sure, but very few outside the USA have an intuitive feel for what the actual relative sizes are except for "a football field is probably pretty big and a microscope can see very small things". So outside the USA it's an analogy that is less useful than just saying the time in years. Fabian42 (talk) 13:22, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
A regular football field and an American football field is almost the same size and a yard is close to a meter. I'm pretty sure than 90% of those coming here did understand the analogy in this comic, and the other 10% was probably from the US ;-D --Kynde (talk) 10:09, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
To be clear, as a North American, I only use and approve of the name "soccer" because it's simpler for differentiating from what we call football, soccer clearly SHOULD be called football, it primarily uses the feet, LOL! Like I just said a few days ago on a Facebook post, the rest of the world should call American Football "soccer", just to complete the confusion, LOL! Anyways, thus I'm using the word soccer vs. football here: I THINK a soccer field is quite a bit bigger than a football field, at least they look MASSIVE when I see televised games (like the World Cup). In less professional situations - like if me and my friends went to play an informal game - yes, we'd use the same field. American Football is 100 yards long (50 per side), Canadian Football is 110 (55 per side). So, mentally divide a soccer field ("football pitch") into 100 parts to get a yard. :) So dinosaurs are 5/100ths of a pitch. NiceGuy1 (talk) 05:20, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Everyone who cares already knows, but I feel obligated to point out that dinosaurs did not go extinct at all, contrary to the article's assertion. Nitpicking (talk) 02:36, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Please use the metric system in your explanation. Randall does not approve of imperial units.

172.68.182.172 14:52, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

He wouldn't touch the imperial system with a 3.048 meter pole Whereisspike (talk) 17:21, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

Seems to make more sense to use imperial about this comic that talks in imperial measurements. Well, a mix. :) "Yards" ARE ubiquitous and thoroughly entwined with football. NiceGuy1 (talk) 05:20, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
Mainly using your hands make it not football. Hands = handball.