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Latest revision as of 07:50, 17 April 2024

Welcome to the explain xkcd wiki!
We have an explanation for all 2937 xkcd comics, and only 8 (0%) are incomplete. Help us finish them!

Latest comic

Go to this comic explanation

Room Code
Sorry to make you memorize this random string of digits. If it helps, it can also double as a mnemonic for remembering your young relatives' birthdays, if they happened to have been born on February 5th, 2018.
Title text: Sorry to make you memorize this random string of digits. If it helps, it can also double as a mnemonic for remembering your young relatives' birthdays, if they happened to have been born on February 5th, 2018.

Explanation

Ambox notice.png This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by a SIX-DIGIT HOTEL ROOM CODE - Please change this comment when editing this page.

Cueball and Megan are on vacation or otherwise traveling, and receive a code for their hotel room. Megan gives a seemingly nonsensical and unhelpful mnemonic by which Cueball can remember it... which, inexplicably, actually helps Cueball to remember the code. Cueball becomes VERY angry on realizing this.

The first three prime numbers are actually 2, 3, and 5. So this technique easily identifies the first two digits "02". "05" is slightly wrong because it's not the second prime number, it's the third. And "18" is more wrong because it's not actually a prime number, it's 2 × 3 × 3.

So the mnemonic itself doesn't really provide the method for remembering the code. Instead, figuring out how to apply the bogus mnemonic will reinforce your memory of the code.

The title text points out that the code is also similar to a date in MMDDYY format, so if you happen to have a relative who was born on February 5, 2018, the memorized code will help you remember this date if using said date format. It is also a valid date in the DDMMYY format but in that case it would be 2nd May, 2018, or in YYMMDD format, in which case it refers to 18th of May, 2002.

Transcript

[Megan is standing next to Cueball, who is holding a phone or a note in his hand. Each one has a suitcase on the out-facing side of them.]
Cueball: Okay, I need to remember that the room code is 020518.
[Closeup on Megan who has her palm raised.]
Megan: Easy -- just memorize it as "the first three prime numbers, if you realized you couldn't remember what came after 2 and started to panic and get them increasingly wrong."
[Beat panel of Megan and Cueball standing with no border.]
[Megan and Cueball still standing.]
Megan: ...Are you mad because that actually works?
Cueball: Why is memory like this?


Is this out of date? Clicking here will fix that.

New here?

Last 7 days (Top 10)

Lots of people contribute to make this wiki a success. Many of the recent contributors, listed above, have just joined. You can do it too! Create your account here.

You can read a brief introduction about this wiki at explain xkcd. Feel free to sign up for an account and contribute to the wiki! We need explanations for comics, characters, themes and everything in between. If it is referenced in an xkcd web comic, it should be here.

  • There are incomplete explanations listed here. Feel free to help out by expanding them!

Rules

Don't be a jerk!

There are a lot of comics that don't have set-in-stone explanations; feel free to put multiple interpretations in the wiki page for each comic.

If you want to talk about a specific comic, use its discussion page.

Please only submit material directly related to (and helping everyone better understand) xkcd... and of course only submit material that can legally be posted (and freely edited). Off-topic or other inappropriate content is subject to removal or modification at admin discretion, and users who repeatedly post such content will be blocked.

If you need assistance from an admin, post a message to the Admin requests board.