explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1206: Einstein

2015-01-30T05:40:52Z

108.162.254.105: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1206
| date = May 1, 2013
| title = Einstein
| image = einstein.png
| titletext = Einstein was WRONG when he said that provisional patent #39561 represented a novel gravel-sorting technique and should be approved by the Patent Office.
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic [[Randall]] is playing with the notion that since Einstein contributed so much to society, and many of his works have withstood testing, disproving Einstein must be a difficult task. This is proven false by taking a mundane declaration by Einstein and proving it false with a simple task.

Nobel laureate and ''Time'' Person of the Century {{w|Albert Einstein}} is often considered one of the smartest and most influential men in world history. His theories have revolutionized our understanding of the Universe and inspired generations of scientists. In this comic, [[Cueball]] indicates to a friend that he is working on an experiment that may disprove Einstein. The implication is that Cueball is conducting a serious scientific experiment which may disprove one of Einstein's scientific theories. The second frame, however, implies that the Einsteinian "theory" Cueball's experiment may disprove is an offhand (and subjective) remark by Einstein about the availability of good sandwiches.

In [[947: Investing]], Randall comments on how people put too much credence in a joke Einstein made in passing, and in [[799|comic 799]] we see {{w|Stephen Hawking}} in a similar predicament, every word he says taken as a major declaration.

The title text demonstrates the ability to "disprove" Einstein while not challenging his scientific work but rather one of his decisions in his capacity as a patent clerk at the Swiss Patent Office at the time he published his first major papers (previously alluded to in [[1067: Pressures]]). According to [https://www.ige.ch/en/about-us/einstein/frequently-asked-questions.html the Einstein FAQ] on the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property's website, patent #39561 is one of several patents that "we can assume ... were personally examined by Einstein". A PDF of the patent, which was indeed a gravel sorter ({{w|trommel}}), can be found [https://www.ige.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/Institut/d/i109401.pdf here] in German.

Another part of the joke involves tenses: when Cueball says "I'm currently conducting an experiment," his friend assumes that Cueball is involved in an ongoing research project; but he actually means that he is conducting an experiment at that very moment, by eating a sandwich.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and friend eating at a table.]
:Cueball: I'm currently conducting an experiment which may prove Einstein wrong!
:Friend: Ooh, exciting!

:1947:
:[Einstein and Cueball walking.]
:Einstein: It's ''impossible'' to find a good sandwich in this town.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]

Talk:1338: Land Mammals

2014-03-09T18:29:38Z

108.162.254.105: mass vs weight

Is it mass or weight? --[[Special:Contributions/173.245.53.119|173.245.53.119]] 06:38, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

:It says weight. Since most land animals live on the... land, there is not much difference. I suppose if a lot of aninimals lived near a [https://xkcd.com/852/ prime pole vaulting location] it could skew the results. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.117|108.162.246.117]] 06:40, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
::Ton is a unit of the quantity mass, not weight. Weight is a force and forces would be measured in newtons. Hence the comic is making a mistake. One that 99% of the people do. Mass would be correct since it is a more fundamental quantity and is usually what is meant when people talk about weight. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.254.105|108.162.254.105]] 18:29, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm really curious, what are the other, unlabeled groupings? [http://vaclavsmil.com/the-earths-biosphere-evolution-dynamics-and-change/ Author's website] {{unsigned ip|108.162.215.46}}

<pre>
On page 186 of Smil's referenced book, there is a bar chart with the following values in millions of tons (*=not used in Randall's graphic):
elephants 0.8
horses 40
pigs 100
cattle 450
people 280
*whales 80
*all wild vertebrates 30
*all domesticated vertebrates 650
</pre> {{unsigned ip|108.162.215.46}}

I think that this graph is actually more illustrative of how much support humans need to maintain themselves (the amount of cattle is astonishing). [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 07:58, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

:''need''? I don't think we ''need'' so much cattle. It's just that most people prefer hamburgers and steaks to beans. So, how much we ''use'' to maintain ourselves would be better. (BTW, you don't count yourself as human?) -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 10:39, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

:According to [http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/canine-corner/201209/how-many-dogs-are-there-in-the-world] there are 525 million dogs, assuming 20 kg as average weight, this should give 10 squares in the diagram. I can't find reliable numbers for cats, but there are more cats than dogs, but they don't weigh as much, so their total weight could be similar to that of the dogs. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.254.160|108.162.254.160]] 08:42, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

The blob of 13 under the word Livestock may very well represent both dogs and cats. {{unsigned ip|108.162.215.46}}

===Layout of the blocks===
Does anybody see a reason for the particular layout of the blocks? My first impression was a globe but obviously it doesn't correspond to any continents, etc. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.254.66|108.162.254.66]] 08:44, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
: I've been wondering myself... I do think it is a picture of something. My ideas so far: an eye, a fried egg, a cell. --[[User:Divad27182|Divad27182]] ([[User talk:Divad27182|talk]]) 09:29, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

::It may simply be something-like-a-circle of humans with the rest surrounding it. But it DOES look like a cell. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 10:39, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

:: Could it be a sort of relationship diagram? It looks like we're in the centre, with the animals we have the closest relationships with — our pets and our food — nearest, and those we're less concerned with further away. [[User:Gidds|Gidds]] ([[User talk:Gidds|talk]]) 11:34, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

:::Yes, the overall layout is human-centric, but that doesn't explain the intentionally lumpy and asymmetric regions. It would have been easier to place the blocks in regular shapes (circular, rectangular or otherwise) but Randall chose to do it this way. Cell with a nucleus is a reasonable guess. - [[User:Frankie|Frankie]] ([[User talk:Frankie|talk]]) 14:00, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
::::I think it resembles a (low resolution) globe, with humanity representing the major continent [[User:Boxy|Boxy]] ([[User talk:Boxy|talk]]) 14:19, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

::::I think it shows the relationship of the title text (assuming we are part of land mammals): there are about 1.2K squares in total representing a factor of 1K:1 overall. Thus the shape (resembling bacterium) is explained, the incorporation of all mammals into the shape, and the potential central location of humans (assuming most bacteria lives in our gut). [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.31|108.162.219.31]] 16:09, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

:::::I'm thinking the data points are placed using a polar coordinate system (although what the axis are I don't know, other than that being human gets you close to the center) combined with a mapping onto an x-y grid. Does that make any sense? --[[User:RenniePet|RenniePet]] ([[User talk:RenniePet|talk]]) 20:56, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

:::::: I think the layout is intended to show two legged mammals in the middle and four legged surrounding it. There are not sufficient six legged mammals to make yet another circle outside the four legged circle. [[User:Spongebog|Spongebog]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]]) 16:47, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

::::::: You know of ANY six legged mammal? Any six-appendages {{w|vertebrate}} I know of is mythological creature (like {{w|pegasus}} or some {{w|dragon}}s) or non-earth origin (like {{w|List_of_alien_species_in_the_Honorverse#treecats|tree cats}} or {{w|Pandoran_biosphere|Pandora-native}}). -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 10:58, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

===Identifying the groups===
I would love to identify specific groups. The unlabelled animals come in groups, even the wild animals, even though only *one* of those groups (elephants for some reason) has been labelled. —[[User:TobyBartels|TobyBartels]] ([[User talk:TobyBartels|talk]]) 13:05, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
:Reason for elephant label == "This is how much/little the whole population of the largest land mammals amass to."? (Actually, given the scarcity of elephants, I'm surprised it's a full block. I suspect something else that could have been labelledsuch as "rats" would be far more.) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.7|141.101.99.7]] 14:07, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Per the wikipeda page[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel#Distribution_and_numbers] on camels I expect that they are the blob of 3 gray squares. [[User:Mwiser|Mwiser]] ([[User talk:Mwiser|talk]]) Update: I hadn't seen the 1 billion kg == 1 million tons notation which has since appeared. I therefore added camels (and also donkeys) to the table below. [[User:Mwiser|Mwiser]] ([[User talk:Mwiser|talk]])

Non [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_SI_definitions SI] units should just die [http://xkcd.com/526/ already]. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.8|108.162.241.8]] 20:39, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

:Is Randall's ton the metric {{w|tonne}} or the US {{w|short ton}}? -- [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.65|108.162.219.65]] 22:06, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
::Considering that Randall is very aware of the SI confusion, I'm sure he would have made it clear if he where NOT using metric tonne - so I would say his tonne is 1,000 kg! [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:53, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

===Stab at the numbers===
{| class="wikitable sortable" style="width: auto; text-align: center; font-size: 95%; table-layout: fixed; line-height:1.25"
|-
! Land Mammal
! population in Billions
! Average Kilograms
! Total Kilograms in Billions
! xkcd value
! Notes
|-
! Humans
| 7.2
| 70
| {{sort|00504|504}}
| 556
| as of 2013
|-
! Cattle
| 1
| 1740
| {{sort|01740|1740}}
| 1918
| as of 2012
|-
! Pigs
| 1
| 350
| {{sort|00350|350}}
| 386
|
|-
! Chickens
| 19
| 1
| {{sort|00019|19}}
| 21
| not mammals
|-
! Goats
| 0.865
| 46
| {{sort|00039.7|39.7}}
|
| as of 2008... [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goat#Worldwide_goat_population_statistics src]
|-
! Sheep
| 1
| 80
| {{sort|00080|80}}
| 88
|
|-
! Elephants
| 0.000105670
| 5000
| {{sort|00000.5|0.5}}
|
| as of 2012 [http://www.elephantdatabase.org/preview_report/2013_africa/Loxodonta_africana/2012/Africa src]
|-
! Horses
| 0.058372106
| 500
| {{sort|00029|29}}
|
| as of 2006 [http://horsetalk.co.nz/2007/09/12/world-horse-population-58m/#axzz2v7dtQwJK src]
|-
! Rats
| 10
| 0.35
| {{sort|00003.5|3.5}}
| 4
| 10B is a guess
|-
! Cats
| 0.6
| 5
| {{sort|00003|3}}
| 3
|
|-
! Dogs
| 0.4
| 40
| {{sort|00016|16}}
|
|
|-
! Seal
| 0.022
| 200
| {{sort|00004.4|4.4}}
| 5
| not a land mammal
|-
! Mole
| 6×1014
| 0.075
| 4.5×1013
|
| Numbers are slightly exaggerated, but [http://what-if.xkcd.com/4 it would be nice] to have those quantities
|-
! Krill
| ?
| ?
| {{sort|00300|175-725}}
|
| Wild species with largest biomass (not a land mammal)[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_krill#Biomass_and_production src]
|-
! Camel
| 0.014
| 465
| 6.51
|
| As of 2010 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel src]
|-
! Donkey
| 0.04
| 160
| 6.4
|
| As of 206 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donkey src] [http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CDkQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ed.ac.uk%2Fpolopoly_fs%2F1.21412!%2FfileManager%2Fdonkey%2520fact%2520sheet.pdf&ei=HO4XU6mlD4WbygGMlICoCg&usg=AFQjCNH4aPhQCgltmd0nkgxB6Zb4QU_qLw&bvm=bv.62577051,d.aWc&cad=rja mass src]
|-

|}
* 1 billion kg == 1 million tons [https://www.google.ca/search?q=convert:+1+kg+to+metric+tons src]
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_heaviest_land_mammals
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_mammals_by_population
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.8|108.162.241.8]] 16:19, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

===Talk about the table===
uhh.... chickens aren't... mammals? (?) [[User:Brettpeirce|Brettpeirce]] ([[User talk:Brettpeirce|talk]]) 17:22, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

:Apparently not. http://www.ask.com/question/are-chickens-mammals
:--[[User:RenniePet|RenniePet]] ([[User talk:RenniePet|talk]]) 03:23, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

:Where does these XKCD numbers come from? Cattle 1740? Humans 556? According to the comic there are 520 Cattle and 358 Humans (million ton). This table makes no sence in the XKCD number department. Appart from that it would be a great table to include in the comic... [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:52, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

:Where does the average weight come from? As the human race is very young (26% below 15 years) and the cattle population has is changed very rapidly - thus there will also be many calves all the time - reducing the average weight far below that of an average adult animal ready to made in to beef... [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 09:55, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

:Maybe the seal is considered a land mammal by Randal? Only wales are really not land mamals. The link to elephant population seems only to cover African elephants not Asian... [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:01, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

:Does Randall consider cattle to be all the genus Bos? Waterbuffalo for example weigh about 400kg and wikipedia claims a world population of 130M. That would be 52 blocks. So, I'd assume that since there aren't any free blocks that large, that they are considered cattle. So, then Yaks and Wildebeests should be considered cattle as well, no? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.36|108.162.215.36]] 22:06, 7 March 2014 (UTC)rbnm
::sorry I meant Tribe Bovini not genus Bos [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.36|108.162.215.36]]rbnm

Rodentia? If the average rodent weighs something like 0.67kg, then 15B rodents would make up 13 squares. 0.67kg comes from the log average of the smallest and largest. If this includes rats (4B per the WHO) - is it reasonable that the rest of Rodentia includes 11B, 1-2 rodents per person on the Earth? That would include: squirrels, porcupines, beavers, guinea pigs, and hamsters; although guinea pigs might be considered pet/livestock (mmm... cuye!). [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.36|108.162.215.36]] 23:56, 7 March 2014 (UTC)rbnm

===Title Text===
The title text mentions that bacteria outweigh humans by thousands (plural) to one. The notation 1000:1 used in the explanation is therefore not correct.
:True - I did not spot that. I have corrected it to the same version as the title text[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 19:15, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Talk:1325: Rejection

2014-02-03T08:44:08Z

108.162.254.105:

How do we know which one is Cueball and which one is “guy”?

[[Special:Contributions/108.162.254.119|108.162.254.119]] 08:18, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

First of all we dont know that the first guy has been recently rejected, that is actually an assumption made by the second guy. Also, the "they choose jerks over nice guys" argument is wrong not because it lacks judgement and self awareness, it is wrong because it belittles the woman's judgement and self-awareness. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.254.105|108.162.254.105]] 08:44, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Talk:1052: Every Major's Terrible

2014-02-01T03:51:13Z

108.162.254.105:

Panel 1's cueball is in the same pose as Rodin's "The Thinker"

Panel 4 background is the periodic table of elements.

Panel 5, Fowler's Toad emits a noxious secretion that irritates skin and mucous membranes (it was previously thought to cause warts)

Panel 6, Psychology = a serial killer with a chainsaw, Sociology = hobo; Social Psych = hobo serial killer with chainsaw.

Panel 15, LISP, Scheme, and other computer languages with an excess of parentheses.

Panel 16, biohazard symbol

Panel 19, bongos were played by Richard Feynman

Panel 27, fear of snakes, study of reptiles

Panel 28, a picture of a stomach, pun on "stomach" being slang for "tolerate"

Panel 30, words in all lowercase like e.e.cummings

-- [[Special:Contributions/75.103.23.206| 75.103.23.206 ]] 22:04, 7 December 2012‎
:Hobo serial killer with chainsaw? Social psych sounds awesome!
:[[Special:Contributions/24.2.217.188|24.2.217.188]] 22:42, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
----
In panel 22 (History), what's the theme connecting the years 1935, 1969, and 1991?
[[User:Wwoods|Wwoods]] ([[User talk:Wwoods|talk]]) 15:40, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

----
This explanation is very small for that big comic. I am starting to add the transcript and after that I will do more investigations to that opera. This should be the key to explain all the panels.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:13, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

:The answer won't lie in the song, trust me. Pirates of Penzance is probably my favorite comic opera out there. Plus Randall gives that the lie in saying you can use the tune from the elements song (a well-known parody) or even Marry Poppins (similar tune, but not exactly the same). I think each panel is just a reference to the words, I don't think that Randall is actually involving The Pirates of Penzance in any way other than the tune. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.211|173.245.52.211]] 20:53, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
----
Feynman was also known for being a ladies' man, so the two girls in panel 19 are significant IMHO.
--[[Special:Contributions/141.101.80.117|141.101.80.117]] 13:51, 25 December 2013 (UTC)
----
Needs explanation what does it mean to '''choose a major''', and what '''major''' is in this context. Note every reader is from U.S.A.; different countries have different higher education systems. --[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 10:56, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
:True that. 'Graduation' in Brazil means 'Undergraduation' in the US. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.254.105|108.162.254.105]] 03:51, 1 February 2014 (UTC)