Editing 2705: Spacetime Soccer

{{comic
| number    = 2705
| date      = November 30, 2022
| title     = Spacetime Soccer
| image     = spacetime_soccer_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x280px
| noexpand  = true
| titletext = Spacetime Soccer, known outside the United States as '4D Football' is a now-defunct sport. Infamous for referee decisions hinging on inconsistent definitions of simultaneity, it is also known for the disappearance of many top players during... [more]
}}

==Explanation==

This comic proposes Spacetime Soccer, a sport consisting of a "regular" soccer field with a gravitational well in the center of it. This comic was likely published in relation to the {{w|2022 FIFA World Cup}} which, due to numerous controversies surrounding policies and conditions in the host country, {{w|Qatar}}, was prevalent in the 2022 news cycle for weeks.

Judging by the size of the blackest part of the indentation, presuming that indicates the event horizon of the {{w|black hole}}, the radius of the {{w|event horizon}} would be approximately 9.6 meters and the singularity's mass 6.5×10<sup>27</sup> kilograms, or more than 1082 times the mass of the Earth [[https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/schwarzschild-radius]].

Not only would it be impossible for human players to travel through more than three spatial dimensions at will, it would also be very difficult to keep track of score and rules such as offsides.

{{w|Offside (association football)|Offside}} is a rule in soccer that applies to players who are in certain positions relative to the boundaries of the {{w|Football_pitch|pitch}}, the ball, and the second-last opponent on the opposing team. Players in such positions are eligible for being judged guilty of an offside offence if they become involved in the ongoing play before rectifying their status. It is of special importance to know the different players' positions at the exact moment the ball gets passed, rather than when the passed ball may be received or the offside player is otherwise considered active. But in relativistic spacetime there is no universal definition of an exact moment, beyond a single point, as time may run at different speeds for multiple observers in varying situations (where they are moving relative to each other, are influenced by differing local gravity or – as seems very likely in this example – both). An additional joke is that even in regular soccer, the offside rule is notoriously difficult to fully understand (or explain to someone).

The title text is written in the style of the beginning to a Wikipedia article on the topic. It alludes to the fact that most countries in the world refer to the sport with that particular obscure offside rule as football (or some translation thereof, like fútbol or Fußball) while the USA, Canada, Ireland, Japan and Australia tend to call it soccer, which comes from the British shortening of "association football", because they already used the name "football" for gridiron football, Gaelic football, or Australian football (which share a common ancestry with the other sport, along with "rugby football", hence the name).

==Transcript==
:[On a gray "rubber sheet" visualization of a gravity well is drawn some of the lines of a standard Association Football (Soccer) pitch. Visible features of the standard pitch are the outside borders, the goals and the small and large boxes around each goal. Absent are the corner quarter circles, the penalty spots and associated D, and the center line. The central circle is lost/concealed by the curvature of the gravity well. There are a number of other lines encircling and radial to the gravity well, they are visually identical to the familiar pitch markings so it is unclear whether these are intended to be drawn on the pitch or merely indications of the shape of the surface, or both. Drawn in the game to help players avoid the well. The lengthwise field boundary line on the visible far side partly follows/is partly followed by a suitable radial line before splitting off and conspicuously curving within the respective lip of the well to rejoin the radial line emerging at the complimentary angle in the opposing half of the field. A total of twenty figures can be seen on the pitch. Two are standing near the goal mouths, the rest are distributed fairly evenly around the field. As they are all white stick figures on the gray surface it is impossible to say which are on each team or if one is the referee. The ones most within the well (but still visible) are distorted or tilted by the increased slope of the surface. There are ten players on each side of the middle. Five are within the inner circle around the well. A ball with motion lines is landing by the feet of one player who is running up one wing near, but left, of the central part of the field. This player is close to but not within the deeper part of the well. The players seems to be both women and men, as there are several that looks like Cueball and some like Hairy, and also many looking like Megan and some like Ponytail. The color of the field gets darker the deeper it goes into the well in six step from the normal gray color the field has at the farthest end from the well and until about half way from the goal to the center of the field. From there it gets marginally darker each step until it is almost black at the deepest part of the well that is just visible over the rim of the near part of the field.]

:[Caption below the panel:] 
:Spacetime Soccer got a lot of criticism for how many players fell into the gravity well, but what ultimately doomed it was the advanced mathematics required to figure out the offsides rule.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Soccer]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]