explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1704: Gnome Ann

2016-07-09T11:38:44Z

141.101.81.74: /* Table of quotes */

{{comic
| number = 1704
| date = July 8, 2016
| title = Gnome Ann
| image = gnome_ann.png
| titletext = In the words of Andrew Johnson, if I am to be shot at, I want Gnome Ann to be in the way of the bullet.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic presents a series of images depicting a female {{w|gnome}} who is known as "Gnome Ann". The humor derives from the fact that the name "Gnome Ann" and the compound noun "no man" are {{w|homophone}}s, meaning they sound alike but have different meanings and spellings.
(Users of the {{w|GNOME|Gnome desktop system}} may have difficulties understanding this since they pronounce Gnome with a hard "g", reflecting its {{w|GNU}} ties.)

[[Randall]] presents the reader with six images (and a title text) captioned with quotations from a wide range of sources, each featuring an instance of the compound noun "no man" being replaced by "Gnome Ann" (and featuring a drawing that reflects this change). There is one proverb, two Biblical quotations, two literary quotations (the {{w|Miguel de Cervantes|Cervantes}} quote is from ''{{w|Don Quixote}}'', the other one is from {{w|Lord of the Rings}}, the line {{w|Éowyn}} said to the {{w|Witch-king_of_Angmar|Witch-king of Angmar}} before killing him), one quotation from the opening of a television show (''{{w|Star Trek: The Original Series}}''), and a quotation from a piece of historical rhetoric in the title text.

The third panel, in which Gnome Ann pushes the groom aside and approaches the bride, may suggest that Gnome Ann is attracted to her and perhaps intends to marry her in his stead (reflecting the fact that by definition Gnome Ann is a lesbian). According to {{w|Joseph Smith}}, Gnome Ann shall have but one wife. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_Latter_Day_Saint_polygamy]

The process by which "no man" becomes "nom an" (and hence Gnome Ann) is known as {{w|false splitting}}, and is a familiar process of word formation in English and other languages; examples include {{w|Vipera_berus#Etymologies|"an adder" from "a nadder"}} and "lone" from "(all) one".

===Table of quotes===
{| class="wikitable"
| '''Modified quote'''
| '''Original quote'''
| '''Origin'''
| '''Explanation'''
|-
| "Time and tide wait for Gnome Ann."
| "Time and tide wait for no man."
| Proverb
| [[89: Gravitational Mass|Normally]] it is not possible for anyone to influence time or tides. However in this case it would appear than Gnome Ann is able to stop time, and tides.
|-
| "The wicked flee when Gnome Ann pursueth."
| "The wicked flee when no man pursueth."
| Bible: [http://biblehub.com/proverbs/28-1.htm Proverbs 28:1]
| This (out of context) biblical reference normally implies the wicked are a cowardly and/or paranoid lot, jumping at shadows and eager to flee at simply the pretense of danger or pursuit. However in this case it would imply that wicked people run away from Gnome Ann specifically.
|-
| "What therefore God hath joined together, let Gnome Ann put asunder."
| "What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder."
| Bible: [http://biblehub.com/mark/10-9.htm Mark 10:9]
| In the Bible, Jesus is asked about whether people should be allowed to divorce, and Jesus responds with this quote. It is known to appear in wedding vows, hence the fact that the man and woman in the panel are dressed for a wedding. However, in the comic, the quote becomes a command to Gnome Ann to break apart what God has joined.
|-
| "Time ripens all things; Gnome Ann is born wise
| "Time ripens all things; no man is born wise."
| The novel {{w|Don Quixote}} by {{w|Miguel De Cervantes}}
| This states that nobody is wise to begin with, and it takes time to become wise. However it now states that Gnome Ann is wise to begin with, suggesting she is not part of the order of things within time.
|-
| "Our Mission: To boldly go where Gnome Ann has gone before."
| "Our Mission: To boldly go where no man has gone before."
| Intro at {{w|Star Trek: The Original Series}}
| Originally this was meant to emphasize that they would be going to completely unexplored territory, which would be a potentially risky venture. However in this case , it means that they will be following Gnome Ann, which is not exploration. Though depending on where Gnome Ann has gone, these may still be risky ventures: "(Gnome Ann) goes to battle to be killed." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_and_Cleopatra_%28play%29]
|-
| Witch-king of Angmar: "Fool! No man can kill me." Gnome Ann: "I Am Gnome Ann!"
| Witch-king of Angmar: "Fool! No man can kill me." Éowyn: "I Am no man!"
| {{w|The Lord of the Rings}}
| The Witch-king of Angmar was given a prophecy that he would never be bested in combat by the hand of man, and he boasted "no man" could kill him. Both in ''Lord of the Rings'' and this comic, he is defeated by a woman. Gnome Ann is simply that good.
|-
| "In the words of Andrew Johnson, if I am to be shot at, I want Gnome Ann to be in the way of the bullet."
| "In the words of Andrew Johnson, if I am to be shot at, I want no man to be in the way of the bullet."
| {{w|Andrew Johnson}}, 17th President of the United States
| The intent of this statement originally was that Andrew Johnson would rather be killed, than have somebody else be killed trying to save his life. However in this case it would appear that Andrew Johnson would really prefer Gnome Ann to be shot instead of himself, perhaps because he knows that "(Gnome Ann) lives forever." [https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Algernon_Charles_Swinburne]
|}

==Transcript==
:[Caption above the panels.]
:The <big>Legend</big> of <big>Gnome Ann</big>

:[At the beach, between a clock hanging in the air, showing 10 past 10 and the shoreline, Gnome Ann, a woman with curly hair and a black triangular hat, stands with her arms outstretched towards the clock and the sea. For each of the first five panels a text is written within a frame above the drawings.]
:Time and tide wait for Gnome Ann.

:[Gnome Ann running in from the left frame with her arms out chases three Cueball like men running from her towards right. The one closest to her looks over his shoulder at her, the next runs forward "normally" and the last in front throws up his arms in the air.]
:The wicked flee when Gnome Ann pursueth.
:-Proverbs 28:1

:[Gnome Ann takes the groom's place in a wedding, shoving him to the side. The groom, Hairy with a bow tie, falls while throwing his arms out. The bride stands to the left, in full wedding dress, showing no reaction.]
:What therefore God hath joined together, let Gnome Ann put asunder.
:-Mark 10:9

:[Gnome Ann sits in a yoga position meditating on a big rock in a desolate area with small rocks on the ground around the big rock.]
:Time ripens all things; Gnome Ann is born wise.
:-Miguel De Cervantes

:[The starship Enterprise from Star Trek is seen from behind as it flies to the right, chasing a smaller craft. In this panel the frame with text is shown to emanate from Enterprise with a zig zag arrow pointing to the starship.]
:Enterprise: Our Mission: To boldly go where Gnome Ann has gone before.

:[The Witch-king of Angmar, Lord of the Nazgûl, from the Lord of the Rings sits on his knees (below the frame) to the left of Gnome Ann, who is preparing to stab him with a sword pointing at his head. She is also holding her other arm out towards him. The Witch-king has a black cloak covering his head and body with a kind of crown with six small spikes shown around his head and one large spike in front. It also goes down on each side of his head showing a gaping hole instead of a face. In this panel the text is spoken by the two characters.]
:Witch-king: Fool! No man can kill me.
:Gnome Ann: '''''I Am Gnome Ann!'''''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Time]]
[[Category:Star Trek]]
[[Category:LOTR]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]
[[Category:Religion]]

1591: Bell's Theorem

2015-11-22T17:24:13Z

141.101.81.74: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1591
| date = October 16, 2015
| title = Bell's Theorem
| image = bells_theorem.png
| titletext = The no-communication theorem states that no communication about the no-communication theorem can clear up the misunderstanding quickly enough to allow faster-than-light signaling.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Ponytail]] begins reading Bell's theorem to [[Cueball]], who is standing 5 meters away. Cueball responds with a misunderstanding of Bell's Theorem in 1 nanosecond. The speed of light in a vacuum is 299,792,458 meters per second. In one nanosecond, the light from Ponytail would only have traveled 0.3 meters, thus Cueball misunderstands Bell's Theorem faster than the light from Ponytail reading the theorem can reach him, which implies that some kind of faster-than-light communication occurred to set up the misunderstanding. This would violate {{w|Principle of locality|locality}}. Of course no correct information was transferred faster than light (see also the title text explanation below)...

This comic was published on October 16 2015, five days before an article about the first-ever [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v526/n7575/full/nature15759.html Loophole-free Bell's Theorem test] was published in {{w|Nature magazine}} ([https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature15759 DOI:10.1038/nature15759]) (see also {{w|Bell test experiments}}). However, the paper was submitted almost two months earlier on the [http://arxiv.org/abs/1508.05949 24th of August] and could most likely be found on-line before this comic was released. It was accepted by Nature already on the 28th of September, but was first published online October 21 2015. [[Randall]] may very well have been aware of the imminent release of this paper, although it is peculiar that he did not wait until the paper was released.

{{w|Bell's Theorem|Bell's Theorem}} states "No physical theory of (finitely many) {{w|Local_hidden_variable_theory|local hidden variables}} can ever reproduce all of the predictions of quantum mechanics." It says that a theoretical treatment that divides the universe up into separate ("local") systems like this will always discard something about those systems' intercorrelations.

"Global hidden variables" are another story: if there is classical information shared across systems (perhaps by superluminal communication) even up to superdeterminism where the universe is just reading off a script, any correlations can be explained away. But this is unsatisfying.

The preferred resolution of the paradox is not to insist (as early physicists did) that the universe's state is a collection of bits (classical information), but treat it as a collection of qubits (quantum information).

In quantum mechanics (QM), "measurement" is the process of allowing a small system to interact with its environment in a controlled way. The interaction allows information about the system's state to escape to the environment, producing an "observation." If the measurement apparatus is governed by classical mechanics (impossible in reality, but a very common simplification for the purposes of calculation), then the observation can be thought of as classical information, a bit (yes/no answer) in the simplest case. While the system may have been in any one of infinitely many states before the measurement (each a superposition of classical states), the fact that the measurement must leave it consistent with the classical result means that it can end up in only finitely many states afterwards. This is the "wave-function collapse" of early QM, popularized by {{w|Schrödinger's cat}}, but unrelated to the Heisenberg {{w|Uncertainty Principle}}, with which lay audiences often confuse it.

Modern quantum mechanics acknowledges that the environment is not classical, and that wave-function collapse happens by a (comparatively) gradual process called "decoherence," where information leaving the system is made up for by information coming from the environment that drives the system closer and closer to one of the finitely many states predicted by the simplified model above. If a "Schrödinger's cat" is in a half-and-half superposition of the states "dead" and "alive", when its liveness is measured, the ratios of "dead" and "alive" will shift rapidly towards (though not quite reach) 0 and 100% or 100 and 0%. For all but the shortest time scales, the cat's post-measurement state might as well be classical.

{{w|Quantum_entanglement|Entanglement}} is a situation where the future outcomes of two or more measurements that would be independent in a classical world are nonetheless correlated. For example, two widely separated electrons from one source could be in a state where, considered individually, each is in a superimposed spin-up/spin-down state, but if one is measured as spin-up, the other will necessarily be measured as spin-down. This is untroubling if the two electrons are modeled as a single system, but strange-seeming if we think of them as separate: how did the measurement of the first electron allow information from the environment around it affect the far-away second electron? It seems like the electrons are communicating, potentially at superluminal speeds, which would violate either relativity or causality. In actuality, there's a fairly simple proof (see below) that correlations from entanglement can't be used to communicate, and causality and relativity are safe. But that doesn't make the seemingly faster-than-light effects much less of a surprise.

One can try to address these concerns by considering 'local hidden variables', classical properties of a local system (like a single electron) that could have been observed but were not. For example, perhaps a classical part of the electrons' state lets them "agree" on a future classical state at the moment they are entangled, and then they just reveal that state in the future. But this becomes unwieldy: there are infinitely many possible future observations the electrons would have to agree on, and it seems difficult to do this without infinitely many local hidden variables.

The title text jokes about the {{w|No-Communication Theorem}}. The real theorem states that although determination of the state of one half of an entangled pair immediately determines that of the other half, however far away it may be, there's no way for the observer of the other half to see if he's the first to find out the state or whether it'd already been determined by the first observer. Thus, no information travels from one observer to the other.

Randall's version of the ''No-Communication Theorem'' states that no matter how you try to send information about this theorem (no communication about the No-Communication Theorem) then it cannot clear up the misunderstanding about Bell's Theorem quickly enough that any correct information (about Bell's theorem) has actually been transfered faster than light. So the conclusion is the same as the real No-Communication Theorem - faster-than-light signaling is not possible...

==Transcript==
:[Ponytail, facing right, is holding a piece of paper with both hands. In a small frame breaking the top of the large frame is a caption:]
:t= 0 nanoseconds
:Ponytail: This is called Bell's Theorem. It was first–

:[A double-headed arrow points to Ponytail and then exits the frame crossing into the next frame where it points to Cueball. The arrow is split in two parts and in the center across the border of the two frames is a label:]
:5 meters

:[Cueball, facing left. In a small frame breaking the top of the large frame is a caption:]
:t= 1 nanosecond
:Cueball: Wow, faster-than-light communication is possible!

:[Caption below the frames:]
:Bell's Second Theorem:
:Misunderstandings of Bell's Theorem
:happen so fast that they violate locality.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Science]]

Talk:858: Milk

2015-11-16T14:49:47Z

141.101.81.74:

Psychic and oddly aware of some mad fetishes. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 07:04, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Am I just being pedantic when I note that there is no mention of breastfeeding in the comic? Were I to milk a cow, for example, I would not wish that action to be characterized as breastfeeding. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.223|108.162.219.223]] 19:54, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Where are her legs in the third panel? {{unsigned ip|108.162.250.111}}

:Perhaps she got uncomfortable with the idea of Cueball's continual sexual perversion, and tucked her legs up into the armchair in an unconscious effort to feel more secure. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.58|108.162.219.58]] 23:41, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

I think it is more likely that she is being witty when suggesting Queball is thinking about milking her breasts. Queball gets the witty remark considering he was thinking about her breast in a possibly sexual context and gets amazed she would know he was having that thought right this minute. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.81.74|141.101.81.74]] 14:49, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Talk:380: Emoticon

2015-11-09T06:37:41Z

141.101.81.74:

This ''may'' also be a reference or allusion to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Langford#Basilisks David Langford's basilisks], which are computer-generated images (mostly fractals) that kill or otherwise incapacitate people by triggering faults or overloads common to human neuropathways. ...I think it's just about the humor in a mythological basilisk's power transferring via emoticons, though. [[User:JET73L|JET73L]] ([[User talk:JET73L|talk]]) 16:05, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

<BSLSK05> :) {{unsigned ip|173.72.159.14}}

Perhaps Cueball isn't dead, but petrified, because he saw the eyes indirectly? Like in Harry Potter. [[Special:Contributions/121.99.61.70|121.99.61.70]] 21:10, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

:The X'd eyes and skull floating above [[Cueball]] indicates that the basilisk was, indeed, successful in its task. For those concerned about the paradox between "Cueball"'s untimely demise in this comic and his future appearances, consider this a parallel reality. Your brain is safe! [[User:Thokling|Thokling]] ([[User talk:Thokling|talk]]) 05:50, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

:: ...or just consider that 'Cueball' is simply the name of the 'species' of stick figure here. Otherwise, the Cueball here would still be [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Talk:169:_Words_that_End_in_GRY missing a hand, literally.] [[User:Greyson|Greyson]] ([[User talk:Greyson|talk]]) 03:16, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
::: Of course, there's no way we can tell it's not a prosthesis. --[[User:Alex|Alex]] ([[User talk:Alex|talk]]) 19:51, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
Is this the last comic with a CRT monitor? [[Special:Contributions/89.243.117.162|89.243.117.162]] 20:57, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
:Good question, I did add a category for this so we can collect them.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:26, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
::The CTR category was deleted by Davidy so the puzzle is left unsolved [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:10, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

It would be extraordinarily like xkcd to include a reference to [[http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Roko%27s_basilisk Roko's Basilisk]] and make it literal, in a manner similar to how other debates and ideas in computer science, mathematics, and other fields became actual battles. Consider [[http://xkcd.com/804/ Pumpkin Carving]] or [[http://xkcd.com/704/ Principle of Explosion]], where ideas from set theory and logic manifest directly in the world. Warning: some folk find the thought experiment of Roko's Basilisk disturbing. {{unsigned ip|108.162.238.166}}
:As noted above, the reference is more likely to Langford's basilisks (though the rest of your comment fits just as well). Though now I at least have an idea why is Roko's Basilisk named that... I kept wondering "why is this thought experiment in any way similar to a basilisk?" --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.81.74|141.101.81.74]] 06:37, 9 November 2015 (UTC)