explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2986: Every Scientific Field

2024-09-17T19:35:05Z

141.101.105.48: /* This stupid site is malfunctioning. */ new section

My reading of the comic is completely opposite to the current explanation. Rather than the large section being what 'a disproportionate amount of time is spent on', it's the small section, which is why we've heard of that stuff. To me, the large section represents the bulk of what is there to be studied, but is relatively poorly understood, so the point of the comic is emphasising how little we actually know about stuff in relation to what there is to be known. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.160.136|172.70.160.136]] 11:16, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
: I didn't like the word 'disproportionate' either, because to me it sounded like an accusation of too much time being spent in the wrong branch, which is not what Randall is saying. I reworded and fleshed out the description. Better now? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.111.167|172.70.111.167]] 11:38, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
: I disagree with "poorly understood" being the central issue, though, rather the branches the general public finds fascinating are often not the scientificially dominating ones. Wasps laying eggs in other insects isn't "poorly understood" at all. It's just that cute baby elephants or pandas draw huge crowds in zoos, whereas 'icky' wasps don't. And e.g. a gyroscope makes for great YouTube videos, but it's no longer a subject of fundamental physics research. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.238|162.158.154.238]] 13:04, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
: It's not really a matter of understanding, it's whether most of the public has even heard of it and knows that scientists are studying it. Randall's point is that most of what scientists study doesn't get much mention in the mainstream press and lay people don't know about it. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 14:27, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

== This stupid site is malfunctioning. ==

Hi chat. I'm the infamous #FreePalestine "troll". I would go into another rant, but there is a more pressing matter on our hands here. Whenever I try to access this site, I frequently encounter some "technical difficulties" message, claiming that I can't access the database. It occurs both on the school computers and my own device, so it's probably server-side. Can someone get to the bottom of this?

Cheers!

[[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.48|141.101.105.48]] 19:35, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

2956: Number Line Branch

2024-07-08T20:58:12Z

141.101.105.48: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2956
| date = July 8, 2024
| title = Number Line Branch
| image = number_line_branch_2x.png
| imagesize = 469x235px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Attention all passengers: This is an express sequence to infinity. If your stop is not a power of two, please disembark now.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a SECOND BOT TO REDUCE CONGESTION - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic likens the {{w|number line}} to a line of a railroad or subway system. These often have branches where different trains continue on to a different destination, with different stops along the way. In the number line, one branch (presumably the original) contains ordinary numbers, while the newly opened branch consists of some completely different numbers, denoted with different symbols as an analogue to those we use as digits.

Symbols include:
* a rectangle,
* a vertical bar with two perpendicular "prongs" to the right, like a {{w|double turnstile}},
* a vertical bar topped by a circle bisected by it, like some versions of a lowercase phi,
* a spiral,
* and a triangle, like an uppercase delta.
Some of these symbols are already used elsewhere in mathematics.

The sequence ending with a bold mark at Δ (whereas the original number line fades out) suggests that it is the end of this branching sequence. Mathematicians, apparently, could only afford to construct 5 additional numbers, or their research hasn't yet found other numbers.

The title text makes a parallel between a train stopping at a station and a numerical sequence "stopping" at a number – that is, taking it as a value. It's a spoof of announcements that are typically made on trains, so that riders can confirm that they're on a train that goes to their desired station; an "express train" typically makes fewer stops so it can reach its final destination sooner. In this case, the express train only stops at powers of 2; presumably the "local" stops at every integer, so the travel time will be exponentially longer. Either way, the number line extends to infinity, so it will take forever to get to the final destination.

A fictional number was previously shown in [[899: Number Line]] ("gird"), and fictional ''numerals'' were shown in [[2206: Mavis Beacon]]. And similar treatment of mathematics as public infrastructure was seen in [[2735: Coordinate Plane Closure]].

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[The number line for natural numbers, going from 0 to 10 and trailing off, with a marker at 0 to indicate that it is the start of the sequence. At about 3.125, the line branches off into a second line, which contains five odd-looking symbols, and stops at the fifth one.]
:Caption: Good news! After thousands of years, mathematicians have finally opened a second branch on the number line to reduce congestion.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Math]]

2954: Bracket Symbols

2024-07-04T13:00:22Z

141.101.105.48: /* Explanation */ translation convention for angle brackets

{{comic
| number = 2954
| date = July 3, 2024
| title = Bracket Symbols
| image = bracket_symbols_2x.png
| imagesize = 592x569px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = ’"‘”’" means "I edited this text on both my phone and my laptop before sending it"
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a ([{《"complicated function"》}]) - Please~~ change this comment when editing this page. Do *NOT* delete this tag too soon.}} WAKE UP, NERDS! Come explain to me why this is funny!

'The preliminary nerd has arrived and did his best to fix the article.' (Even though I'm not British, I thought it might be funny to reference the comic. {See what I did there?} )

Bracket symbols are meant to put around a text. This comic shows a variety of bracket symbols and Randall's description.
Here is a list of what these symbols may mean as a preliminary to a full proper explanation: (feel free to update or completely replace this)

{| class="wikitable"
|+Descriptions
|-
! Symbols
! Comic text
! Real use
! Explanation of the joke
|-
|()
|Regular parentheses for setting stuff aside
|Used to mark side remarks (like explanations) in regular text. Also used in mathematical expressions and programming languages to show the sequence of operations or separate other things like function arguments.
|Normal parentheses. No joke here.
|-
|[]
|Square brackets (more secure)
|Used in regular text to mark still less important remarks, like glosses, omissions, translator and editorial notes etc. In mathematics, often used for {{w|Matrix (mathematics)|matrices}} or {{w|Interval (mathematics)|closed intervals}}. Sometimes used as outer parentheses for easier visual matching in complicated expressions. In programming languages used to mark specific syntactic elements, like array indexes, lists etc.
|The sharper edges and corners may suggest these brackets hold things in more securely, so the contents is less likely to fall out. They resemble staples used to hold things in place securely.
|-
|{}
|This stuff is expensive so be careful with it
|Rarely used in normal text, although may be used in expanded form to 'enclose' multiple optional lines following/preceding a single element of common purpose (similar to the 'split and recombined tracks' of [[2243: Star Wars Spoiler Generator]]). In mathematics, usually used to denote {{w|Set (mathematics)|sets}}, but other usage is possible. In programming languages most often used to denote begin and end of a separate block of code, but other uses are also extant.
|All that graphical detail in the bracket, if manufactured as a physical object, would increase the production cost making it more expensive than "regular" brackets. Their relative rarity compared to "regular" or square brackets might also increase the monetary value. They may also look 'fancy', like gates with ornate ironwork.
|-
|Inward-sloping double-quotes ("" with reflective slants, or “”)
|Someone is talking
|Used to denote speech or citations in normal text. The first version is commonly used in programming languages to denote text that is not a program, such as messages displayed to the user.
|Normal quotation marks. Some languages or communities use different typographical conventions such as „German quotation marks“. See also below for British and French.
|-
|Inward-sloping single-quotes (based upon <nowiki>''</nowiki> or ‘’)
|Someone British is talking
|British quotation marks. Some programming languages use the first version to denote non-program text. In the Pascal family of languages, for example, <nowiki>''</nowiki>s indicate character-class data, with ""s being string-class data. Within
|Some British media use these to note when people are talking, though in modern usage the double quotes above are more common, while single quotes are more often used as '{{w|scare quotes}}'.
|-
|‹› or <>
|An Animorph is talking
|{{w|Bracket#Angle_brackets|Angle brackets}}. Aside from telepathic speech in prose, it's often used in comics to indicate that a character is speaking a foreign language that has been translated for the reader's benefit – at least notionally.
|Books like the series {{w|Animorphs}} or science fiction novels use these when a character is communicating nonverbally, for example via telepathy.
|-
|«»
|A French Animorph is talking
|French quotation marks. Used for quotes within quotes in some languages. For quoting conventions in different languages, see [https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/formex/physical-specifications/character-encoding/use-of-quotation-marks-in-the-different-languages this document].
|These symbols are literally called French quotation marks and are used in French texts as the first-level quotes. Here Randall is mixing the SF convention described above with actual French use.
|-
|<nowiki>|</nowiki>|
|I'm scared of negative numbers but these sigils will protect me
|Vertical bars in mathematics are used for the Absolute Value function.
|The absolute value of a number is its value with all negative and positive signs stripped off; in practical terms this is used to ensure a given value is positive (ex. <nowiki>|-69| = 69</nowiki>). If for whatever reason you need to "protect" your equations from negative numbers (which does come up in programming from time to time) the absolute value function has you covered — though it may not always be denoted with vertical bars. {{w|Sigil}}s are symbols used in magic, and some kinds of magic are thought to protect people from evil.
|-
|**, __, //
|I have a favorite monospaced font
|In the past, these symbols were conventionally used in purely text-based computer communications (such as emails, chats, Usenet News articles) to denote *bold*, _underlined_, or /italic/ font; some client programs even interpreted them and displayed actual bold text etc.
|{{w|Monospace font}} is a font (set of shapes used for letters, numbers and symbols) in which every character has the same width, unlike {{w|Typeface#Proportional_font|variable-width (proportional) font}}, in which the letter I is much narrower than W. While proportional font is more pleasant to read, monospace is easier to represent in simple mechanical or electronic devices, and has been used almost exclusively in the advent of computer technology, specifically in text-only environments such as {{w|computer terminals}}; these most often had only one factory installed font. Today, a person still using these symbols is probably using a {{w|terminal emulator}}, which allows to select a (preferably monospace) font from a wide set of fonts installed in the operating system.
|-
|~~
|I'm being sarcastic and I had a Tumblr account in 2014
|
|Strikethrough markup commonly used on sites like Tumblr to indicate that you don't really mean something you said. This is a somewhat archaic trend, but I still use it...
|-
|[([{()}],)]
|These Python functions are not getting along
|The square brackets denote a mutable [https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/introduction.html#lists list], the round brackets an immutable [https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/datastructures.html#tuples-and-sequences tuple] , and the curly brackets a [https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/datastructures.html#sets set]. It is valid to have nested them like this. [] could also be a slice (a bit of a list or tuple) and {} could be a [https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/datastructures.html#dictionaries dictionary], but the syntax is wrong for these.
|Random parentheses - Spaghetti code (badly maintained or written) in programming languages including Python will often be badly organized creating a mess of indentations and brackets used to create functions or loops etc.
|-
|⌊⌋
|Help, I'm a mathematician trying to work with actual numbers and they're scary
|Mathematical symbols meaning "floor" (i.e. round down to the nearest lower integer).
|By "actual numbers" Randall means {{w|real number}}s. Unlike {{w|natural number}}s, they are somewhat difficult to understand to a person learning basic mathematics and thus "scary". The "floor" operation makes a (positive) real number a natural number, thus not "scary".
|-
|∫ <span style="display:inline-block; transform:scaleX(-1);">∫</span>
|Why are you trying to read my violin?
|There is currently no such type of bracketing used in typography. See Explanation.
∫ looks like the {{w|Integral symbol}} which itself is derived from a {{w|Long s}}. In mathematics it is usually paired with the differential of the variable of integration (e.g., dx). A reverse integral symbol is usually not used in mathematics.
The symbols could also be a lowercase {{w|Esh (letter)}} and its reversed symbol.
|Violins are known for their characteristic {{w|F-hole}}s.
|-
|<nowiki>|⟩</nowiki>
|Don't stop here–this is quantum country
|This {{w|Bra–ket notation|notation is used in quantum mechanics}} to notate a vector. This is called a ket, and the mirrored sign <nowiki>⟨|</nowiki> is called a bra. Combining them as bra-ket gives the inner product <nowiki>⟨|⟩</nowiki>.
| This is paraphrasing "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" where Johnny Depp says: "We can't stop here, this is bat country!" while wasted on drugs, though not as wasted as later in the movie.
|}


==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Bracket Symbols

and what they mean

( ) Regular parentheses for setting stuff aside

[ ] Square brackets (more secure)

{ } This stuff is expensive so be careful with it

" " Someone is talking

' ' Someone British is talking

‹ › An Animorph is talking

« » A French Animorph is talking

| | I'm scared of negative numbers but these sigils will protect me

<nowiki>*</nowiki> * _ _ / / I have a favorite monospaced font

~ ~ I'm being sarcastic and I had a Tumblr account in 2014

[ ( [ { ( ) } ] , ) ] These Python functions are '''''not''''' getting along

⌊ ⌋ Help, I'm a mathematician trying to work with actual numbers and they're scary

ʃ ʅ Why are you trying to read my violin?

| ⟩ Don't stop here--this is quantum country

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Programming]]

Talk:1788: Barge

2017-01-23T08:52:55Z

141.101.105.48:

Any reason why the background is black in this one? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.234.34|162.158.234.34]] 16:35, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
:Black background...huh? [[User:GoonPontoon|GoonPontoon]] ([[User talk:GoonPontoon|talk]]) 18:27, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
::The xkcd Browser Android app, at least, uses black outside the rectangular comic image for this one instead of the usual white. It usually does that for dark-background comics like [[312]]. I don’t know if it gets the color from the site somehow or uses its own heuristics, but either way this isn’t the first time it’s made the “wrong” choice. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.78.148|162.158.78.148]] 18:40, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

When did the fine print at the bottom of the xkcd homepage change? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.122.102|162.158.122.102]] 18:08, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
:A few weeks ago, exactly when I'm not sure.
:Actually, [[footnote|for quite a while]] [[User:Jacky720|That's right, Jacky720 just signed this]] ([[User talk:Jacky720|talk]] | [[Special:Contributions/Jacky720|contribs]]) 21:22, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
::Where do we put this kind of information on this wiki? Very funny but not so great as the one about the humour --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 23:16, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

What exactly would cause a rocket to explode when it lands on this trick-barge (and into water)?
[[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.48|141.101.105.48]] 08:52, 23 January 2017 (UTC)