Editing 2057: Internal Monologues

{{comic
| number    = 2057
| date      = October 10, 2018
| title     = Internal Monologues
| image     = internal_monologues.png
| titletext = Haha, just kidding, everyone's already been hacked. I wonder if today's the day we find out about it.
}}

==Explanation==

This comic explores some seemingly strange perspectives that academics or professionals might have due to their deeper knowledge and understanding of the fields that they study.

Many seemingly mundane phenomena can actually be quite weird or counterintuitive if you understand how they really work. The five people featured in this comic, all from different disciplines, are all aware of certain facts about reality that seem so strange even they have trouble believing they are true; yet, undeniably, they are.

* [[Megan]], a {{w|botanist}}, is struck by the fact that trees are made in large part from air, as in the carbon dioxide they consume.
* [[Cueball]], a {{w|physicist}}, finds it weird that he can feel the gravity between an object in his hand (his phone) and the Earth. This is [[literally]] just the weight of the phone.
* [[Blondie]], a computer security researcher, knows of the inherent insecurity of computer systems and wonders if today is the day everyone will get hacked, collapsing our society.
* [[Hairy]], a {{w|graphic designer}}, wonders what sequence of events drove a store's decision to use a particular recognizable font for their signage.
* [[Ponytail]], studying medicine, wonders how humans manage to seem so normal on the outside, given that most of their bodies are made up of things usually unmentionable.

Four of the five people are pondering things that they happen to find very interesting but that aren't too concerning to an everyday person, whereas what Blondie is pondering could have widespread or even global effects on our way of life. In the title text, Blondie amends her thought, since she actually knows an even more concerning truth: we've ''already'' all been hacked, and we just don't know it yet.

Below, the people's thoughts are explained in detail.

;Botany
Much of the mass of trees is extracted from the air. An Australian ABC program explains that "[http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/greatmomentsinscience/trees-are-made-from-air/9675642#transcript Trees are made from air]". More precisely: The bulk of the mass of a tree is composed of {{w|cellulose}} and water.

Cellulose is a polysaccharide, a large molecule consisting of many glucose molecules (C<sub>6</sub>H<sub>12</sub>O<sub>6</sub>) bonded together. Plants make those glucose molecules through photosynthesis: they make them by combining water (H<sub>2</sub>O) and carbon dioxide molecules (CO<sub>2</sub>) using the energy from sunlight, releasing oxygen in the process (O<sub>2</sub>). Plants get the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and arguably the water also as it usually comes from rain which is condensed water vapor.

The main photosynthesis balance is given by the formula :
:6 CO<sub>2</sub> + 6 H<sub>2</sub>O -> C<sub>6</sub>H<sub>12</sub>O<sub>6</sub> + 6 O<sub>2</sub>

;Physics
{{w|Gravity}} is the weakest of the four {{w|Fundamental interaction|fundamental forces}} in physics but also to humans the most preeminent one. In everyday experience, most people tend to think of gravity merely as a pervasive downward force, but as a physicist, Cueball is more aware that in fact, all gravitational forces are mutual; any pair of objects will exert a gravitational force on each other, regardless of how big they are. Therefore, he is correct in saying that his phone and the Earth are being "pulled together", and finds it remarkable that he is able to sense this interaction between two objects of such an disparate size even when the gravitational pull of the phone is hard to detect.

;Computer Security
Anyone well versed in computer security understands just how insecure the systems that we depend on actually are.

In the title text it is noted that possibly all our systems are already hacked, and we just haven't found out yet. Since malicious hackers do their work covertly, a successful hack often isn't discovered until days, weeks, or even years later if at all.  By that time they may have successfully hacked many other systems using the same techniques and/or exploiting the same widely unknown or un-patched security flaws.  Some high profile hacks recently discovered at the time of this posting include a [https://securitytoday.com/articles/2018/10/02/facebook-hacked-50-million-users-data-exposed.aspx 50-million user hack of Facebook] and Google+ announcing they are [https://www.blog.google/technology/safety-security/project-strobe/ shutting down the consumer side of Google+], in part due to a security flaw that was discovered and patched months ago.

;Graphic Design
{{w|Graphic designer}}s recognize fonts and design elements, and see how they come together. In this comic, the graphic designer wonders how the ''{{w|Law & Order}}'' font was chosen for a particular storefront's sign. ''Law & Order'' is a police procedural TV series created by Dick Wolf in 1990, which has had various spinoffs. The font used for the title sequence of ''Law & Order'' is called {{w|Friz Quadrata}}, and is also the font used for the signage of the New York Police Department headquarters.

;Medicine
Doctors are well versed in {{w|human anatomy}}, and are likely to think about what is inside of people more than the average person would. And most people would actually like not to think about all the blood and bones we are all carrying around with us. Not to mention the feces (poop) or the contents of our stomach that could be considered vomit, or the urine, etc.

Most people do not think about that the person next to them is actually a skeleton packed in meat and animated by electricity... But Ponytail does, because she is being exposed to this fact all the time through her study of medicine.

==Transcript==

:[Beneath a two line caption are five characters shown, with their thoughts inside thought bubbles. Below them are labels giving their respective fields of science.]
:<big>Internal Monologues</big>
:from various fields

:Botany
:Megan: I can't get over the fact that trees are made of air.

:Physics
:Cueball [looking at a phone in his hand]: It's so weird that I can feel the Earth and my phone being pulled together.

:Computer security
:Blondie: I wonder if today will be the day everyone gets hacked and it all finally collapses.

:Graphic design
:Hairy: I wonder how that store ended up with the Law & Order font for their sign.

:Medicine
:Ponytail: We're all acting normal even though we're full of blood and bones and poop.

==Trivia==
*[[913: Core]] shows what a geologist might have thought about had they been in this comic.
*A similar expression of a mundane phenomenon that's really weird when you think about it can be seen in [[203: Hallucinations]].
*This comic has a similar setup to some other kinds of thoughts between such scientific fields presented in [[435: Purity]].
*On computer security, Randall gave a similar message about voting software security in [[2030: Voting Software]].
*On medicine, Doctor Ponytail offers similar thoughts in this comic and in [[1839: Doctor Visit]].

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Blondie]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Computer security]]
[[Category:Biology]]
[[Category:Medicine]]