Talk:2632: Greatest Scientist

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Revision as of 13:23, 14 June 2022 by Kynde (talk | contribs)
Jump to: navigation, search

If anyone knows how to get this to work with the bar at the top, please do it! SqueakSquawk4 (talk) 18:32, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

User:SqueakSquawk4 for everything to display correctly I think you need to follow the steps here: User:DgbrtBOT#When_the_BOT_fails... Ahiijny (talk) 18:43, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
A) Following them now. B) Bookmarked. SqueakSquawk4 (talk) 18:45, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
Should be fixed now. Natg19 (talk) 18:49, 13 June 2022 (UTC)


Saying Viviani already proved that the acceleration due to gravity on an object is independent of mass runs into a snag: Viviani suggest that it was Galileo who showed him that. So whether Galileo actually dropped any balls from the Tower of Pisa or was even the first to assert the principle in writing, he seems to be the driving force behind Vivian's proofs of it. Dismissing Galileo here is wrong. 172.69.70.159 21:53, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Thunderbolts and lightning, very, very frightening me. Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Figaro.... 162.158.159.41 23:22, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

He did this before in 1531, where he combines several principles into a single comic. 108.162.245.31 23:39, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Pavlov was inhumane

Pavlov did a lot more than just ring some bells. For example (Trigger warning for dog lovers), he drained them of stomach acid until they were dead for profit alone, and sewed dogs heads onto each other. I think this should be acknowledges. I have put this in the main article, but it has been removes. I've tried re-phrasing, and want to know how well that will stick.

What do you think should happen. I think it is important to acknowledge, but at the same time it is not directly relevant to the comic. Please discuss. SqueakSquawk4 (talk) 23:16, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
It was I who removed the first phrasing, and as it is written now I think it's good. Perhaps a trivia section would be appropriate for it, as someone else mentioned, and I saw no problem with having a link in the previous version. While False (speak) 09:19, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Seems most appropriate for a Trivia section and not the main article. 172.70.211.52
Two Petri dishes

The title text says that "One of the petri dishes" fell (emphasis added). Is that an obscure reference to the Twin paradox?

Proposed new text:
(Title text) One of the petri dishes fell and one did not The Twin paradox thought experiment: ... See Template:1432 Albert Einstein
No I think that is very far fetched. --Kynde (talk) 13:21, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
I have added it, with a "Possible" note next to it. (Or will have in a min)
Also, I assume you meant 1584: Moments of Inspiration, not 1432: The Sake of Argument.
Also Also, two Square brackets [ ] around an internal link, not two fancy/curly brackets {} SqueakSquawk4 (talk) 11:23, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Height shadow

I'm not sure which scientist (or probably ancient philosophy) it might be referencing, but I get the direct impression that the first shadow in the spiel (which KarlMann just removed the row for, and I agree that that it was redundant to the latter shadow, insofar as it was written) is directly referencing the principle of using a shadow to calculate height, as indicated by the illustration, as opposed to the 'shadow to calculate radius' of the latter one. 172.70.90.227 10:19, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

I think you're right, and I may have been a bit hasty. But also, I don't know of any association of that shadow measurement with Eratosthenes. I'd guess that it well pre-dates him (pun not intended). But I have no idea who might have done it first, or whether their name may have been lost to the mists of history, much less any citation to back myself up on this. -- KarMann (talk) 10:23, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
No, not hasty, as Erato's involvement was clearly less useful in that bit (and I take it that the h2 local-horizontal to the dog is a typical Randall-joke comparison to the h1 local-height to the tower-top), and it would just invite reversion to have merely cleared out the existing 'explanation' without something convincing to replace it. And I've nothing convincing (or based upon a definite named historic figure, or even an alleged/fabled one) in my mind, because I imagine the principle is Older Than The Pyramids, possibly back to Babylon/Ur/whatever if not even a hunter-gatherer rule-of-thumb.
(Literally? Making an L with thumb and fingers and touching the thumb of the nose and sighting the tips of the upheld tips of fingers to a tree you're cutting down is also a pretty decent indicator (a couple of extra strides backwards might be reasonable!) of how far back is a safe distance when felling it. If you don't have that stick often mentioned in the arms'-length method. For some reason... despite being tolerably near at least one tree and having a handy axe available to you... ;) ) 172.70.85.177 13:23, 14 June 2022 (UTC)