explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2643: Cosmologist Gift

2022-07-11T21:50:06Z

172.68.132.96: https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages

- The explanation mentions “Eight zeptograms” although Randall’s box says “4 zeptograms of dark matter.”

- The 4,800 daltons in the explanation is roughly the size of a small protein; for example, insulin is about 5,800 daltons.

- Randall’s box says it contains 4 zeptograms of dark matter. Could someone explain this? My incomplete (biologist’s) understanding of dark matter is that astrophysicists do not yet know what it is. So how could Randall claim the box contains 4 zeptograms of it?

Thanks!

:Fixed; thank you. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.125|172.70.210.125]] 01:18, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

[https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.09143 Here's] a more recent PBH DM source than those already cited which could comport with Randall's 0.4% DM particles implication, but doesn't do so explicitly. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.206.213|172.70.206.213]] 02:35, 9 July 2022 (UTC)
:With the math corrected per 162.158.134.89 below, the figure is 34% ubiquitous particles. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.36|172.70.211.36]] 09:44, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

And this comic was the perfect birthday gift for me. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.203|108.162.245.203]] 02:42, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

* How was the 23,000 neutrinos/m³ figure obtained? A flux of 7e10/(s·cm²), or 7e14/(s·m²), at a speed of close to 3e8 m/s, gives 2.3e6/m³. That would correspond to a box size of about 0.013 m³, or a bit larger than a typical shoe box. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.134.89|162.158.134.89]] 07:19, 9 July 2022 (UTC)
::Corrected. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.52|172.70.211.52]] 09:40, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

To note {and I've summarised in an edit) that photons from the Sun can have been travelling for 100,000 years from its core to space, before their 8ish minute trip to the box (assuming you let them in, e.g. leave the lid off, or filter out all but the hard X-rays/etc), whilst neutrinos hardly notice so are 8 or 9 minutes old (before being adjusted for time dilation) regardless. And you can still put as much lead-lined wrapping paper on your present as you want, to keep it a surprise! [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.211|172.69.79.211]] 14:45, 9 July 2022 (UTC)
:I saw your very interesting source was from 1997 and mostly about neutrino cycles -- which surprisingly match the menstrual cycle better than the orbit of the moon does -- but not mostly about energy migration out of the sun. It looks like the sun actually has multiple layers that engage in different forms of energy transformation. I added a link to the radiative zone (where gamma rays spend 171 thousand years colliding with matter, getting longer wavelength at each collision, until they leave) but somebody should probably learn about all the different zones at some point and make sure the text is correct. I never knew the sun was so complex! I partly imagine high-energy ancient civilizations somewhere deep inside, having their own forms of night and day and seasons. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.23|162.158.62.23]] 14:44, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
:I took the [https://news.stanford.edu/pr/97/971219neutrino.html 28 day neutrino cycles] link out, because it really doesn't help explain anything in the comic, and was out of place and confusing where it appeared. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.41|162.158.166.41]] 17:20, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

I don't see how the box containing dark matter is at all consistent with the premise of dark matter being primordial black holes. PBHs wouldn't be ubiquitously distributed through space such that any given volume contains a constant tiny number of them, would they? Black holes that are ''that'' tiny would have evaporated long ago by Hawking radiation, by my understanding. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 17:26, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
:If dark matter was 100% particles, then a volume on Earth containing 30,000 solar neutrinos would have 12 zeptograms of dark matter, not 4. Since the box is labeled with only a third as much dark matter, the implication is that Randall might think some is clustered in MACHOs. (I'm going to ignore modified gravity, which gets more attention than non-PBH MACHOs but way less than PBHs, and has some foundational issues along with zero successful simulations compared to very successful large-scale simulations using generalized DM.) In the past decade the only MACHO DM theory with more than a handful of papers per year is PBHs, which skyrocketed in popularity after LIGO/Virgo, but are still less popular among mainstream cosmologists than 100% WIMPs. The elephant in the room is that there's lots of evidence for intermediate mass black holes (LIGO/Virgo being the most compelling, but recent indirect observations exist too) but only one out of about thirty WIMP detector experiments have painfully meager positive results, which nobody else has been able to replicate. It's been a similar situation for almost four decades now. Back in the mid-1970s dark matter was assumed to be mostly 100,000 solar mass black holes. A couple generations of constraints assuming monochromatic mass suggested it was a particle instead. But all the constraints, including microlensing, which assume all black holes have even approximately similar masses had to be rejected after the LIGO/Virgo results.
:To answer your question about the sizes, assuming [https://3iom3142cnb81rlnt6w4mtlr-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/08-GW190521-Mass-Plot-Graveyard.png LIGO/Virgo's 3-160 solar mass range] is representative of typical black holes and likely contains their median is kind of unavoidable at this point. If the median is 50 solar masses and all dark matter is black holes, that would work out to around one per star.
:The group to watch [https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ac332d/meta as JWST's first light comes in is Yale's,] who propose specific testable hypotheses for its deep IR source count distribution, and use a [https://twitter.com/SheerPriya/status/1472352431468003328 non-monochromatic (platycurtic) mass distribution] for black holes, which is the only correct choice for merging bodies. Specifically, NASA is releasing a [https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2022/nasa-shares-list-of-cosmic-targets-for-webb-telescope-s-first-images/ SMACS 0723 field] from JWST [https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages tomorrow,] which should be able to test [https://twitter.com/SheerPriya/status/1546576050976870400 these predictions.] Another author to keep an eye on as JWST results roll in is [https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6633/ac1e31 Bernard Carr] ([https://arxiv.org/pdf/2002.12778.pdf paywall-free preprint]) known for his DM literature reviews over the years, and who has become an ardent PBH DM proponent post-LIGO/Virgo. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.235|162.158.166.235]] 20:38, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Talk:2643: Cosmologist Gift

2022-07-11T20:55:47Z

172.68.132.96: grammar

- The explanation mentions “Eight zeptograms” although Randall’s box says “4 zeptograms of dark matter.”

- The 4,800 daltons in the explanation is roughly the size of a small protein; for example, insulin is about 5,800 daltons.

- Randall’s box says it contains 4 zeptograms of dark matter. Could someone explain this? My incomplete (biologist’s) understanding of dark matter is that astrophysicists do not yet know what it is. So how could Randall claim the box contains 4 zeptograms of it?

Thanks!

:Fixed; thank you. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.125|172.70.210.125]] 01:18, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

[https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.09143 Here's] a more recent PBH DM source than those already cited which could comport with Randall's 0.4% DM particles implication, but doesn't do so explicitly. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.206.213|172.70.206.213]] 02:35, 9 July 2022 (UTC)
:With the math corrected per 162.158.134.89 below, the figure is 34% ubiquitous particles. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.36|172.70.211.36]] 09:44, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

And this comic was the perfect birthday gift for me. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.203|108.162.245.203]] 02:42, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

* How was the 23,000 neutrinos/m³ figure obtained? A flux of 7e10/(s·cm²), or 7e14/(s·m²), at a speed of close to 3e8 m/s, gives 2.3e6/m³. That would correspond to a box size of about 0.013 m³, or a bit larger than a typical shoe box. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.134.89|162.158.134.89]] 07:19, 9 July 2022 (UTC)
::Corrected. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.52|172.70.211.52]] 09:40, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

To note {and I've summarised in an edit) that photons from the Sun can have been travelling for 100,000 years from its core to space, before their 8ish minute trip to the box (assuming you let them in, e.g. leave the lid off, or filter out all but the hard X-rays/etc), whilst neutrinos hardly notice so are 8 or 9 minutes old (before being adjusted for time dilation) regardless. And you can still put as much lead-lined wrapping paper on your present as you want, to keep it a surprise! [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.211|172.69.79.211]] 14:45, 9 July 2022 (UTC)
:I saw your very interesting source was from 1997 and mostly about neutrino cycles -- which surprisingly match the menstrual cycle better than the orbit of the moon does -- but not mostly about energy migration out of the sun. It looks like the sun actually has multiple layers that engage in different forms of energy transformation. I added a link to the radiative zone (where gamma rays spend 171 thousand years colliding with matter, getting longer wavelength at each collision, until they leave) but somebody should probably learn about all the different zones at some point and make sure the text is correct. I never knew the sun was so complex! I partly imagine high-energy ancient civilizations somewhere deep inside, having their own forms of night and day and seasons. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.23|162.158.62.23]] 14:44, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
:I took the [https://news.stanford.edu/pr/97/971219neutrino.html 28 day neutrino cycles] link out, because it really doesn't help explain anything in the comic, and was out of place and confusing where it appeared. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.41|162.158.166.41]] 17:20, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

I don't see how the box containing dark matter is at all consistent with the premise of dark matter being primordial black holes. PBHs wouldn't be ubiquitously distributed through space such that any given volume contains a constant tiny number of them, would they? Black holes that are ''that'' tiny would have evaporated long ago by Hawking radiation, by my understanding. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 17:26, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
:If dark matter was 100% particles, then a volume on Earth containing 30,000 solar neutrinos would have 12 zeptograms of dark matter, not 4. Since the box is labeled with only a third as much dark matter, the implication is that Randall might think some is clustered in MACHOs. (I'm going to ignore modified gravity, which gets more attention than non-PBH MACHOs but way less than PBHs, and has some foundational issues along with zero successful simulations compared to very successful large-scale simulations using generalized DM.) In the past decade the only MACHO DM theory with more than a handful of papers per year is PBHs, which skyrocketed in popularity after LIGO/Virgo, but are still less popular among mainstream cosmologists than 100% WIMPs. The elephant in the room is that there's lots of evidence for intermediate mass black holes (LIGO/Virgo being the most compelling, but recent indirect observations exist too) but only one out of about thirty WIMP detector experiments have painfully meager positive results, which nobody else has been able to replicate. It's been a similar situation for almost four decades now. Back in the mid-1970s dark matter was assumed to be mostly 100,000 solar mass black holes. A couple generations of constraints assuming monochromatic mass suggested it was a particle instead. But all the constraints, including microlensing, which assume all black holes have even approximately similar masses had to be rejected after the LIGO/Virgo results.
:To answer your question about the sizes, assuming [https://3iom3142cnb81rlnt6w4mtlr-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/08-GW190521-Mass-Plot-Graveyard.png LIGO/Virgo's 3-160 solar mass range] is representative of typical black holes and likely contains their median is kind of unavoidable at this point. If the median is 50 solar masses and all dark matter is black holes, that would work out to around one per star.
:The group to watch [https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ac332d/meta as JWST's first light comes in is Yale's,] who propose specific testable hypotheses for its deep IR source count distribution, and use a [https://twitter.com/SheerPriya/status/1472352431468003328 non-monochromatic (platycurtic) mass distribution] for black holes, which is the only correct choice for merging bodies. Specifically, NASA is releasing a [https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2022/nasa-shares-list-of-cosmic-targets-for-webb-telescope-s-first-images/ SMACS 0723 field from JWST tomorrow,] which should be able to test [https://twitter.com/SheerPriya/status/1546576050976870400 these predictions.] Another author to keep an eye on as JWST results roll in is [https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6633/ac1e31 Bernard Carr] ([https://arxiv.org/pdf/2002.12778.pdf paywall-free preprint]) known for his DM literature reviews over the years, and who has become an ardent PBH DM proponent post-LIGO/Virgo. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.235|162.158.166.235]] 20:38, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Talk:2638: Extended NFPA Hazard Diamond

2022-07-03T22:36:12Z

172.68.132.96: undent

Are we going to try identifying what material this is? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.82.179|172.70.82.179]] 01:50, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
:first one off the top of my head, aqua regia? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.38.69|172.70.38.69]] 02:46, 28 June 2022 (UTC)Bumpf
::Doesn't aqua regia score a 0 in reactivity? [[User:N-eh|N-eh]] ([[User talk:N-eh|talk]]) 03:23, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
::Or maybe Aqua Velva? That would explain the orange square, although maybe it would be a number larger than 1. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.34.171|172.70.34.171]] 22:49, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
:My guess would be something radioactive, like uranium or plutonium. [[User:Clam|Clam]] ([[User talk:Clam|talk]]) 03:29, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
::There are very, very few Health 4 / Fire 0 / Instability 2 compounds. The NIH database lists 4: nitrous oxide, phosphorus oxychloride, phosphorous trichloride, and thionyl chloride (although it's important to note these values aren't always standardized; some authorities consider phosphorus oxychloride to be Health 3, for example). Based on the street value and the number of US agencies who would be concerned about it, my guess is thionyl chloride, a useful industrial chemical which is also used in at least one meth lab synthesis pathway... AND highly regulated as a chemical weapon precursor (to both sulfur mustard and G-series nerve agents). Oh, and it is absolutely a Disposal Pain 4 candidate, too. [[User:Qalyar|Qalyar]] ([[User talk:Qalyar|talk]]) 04:52, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
:::Not sure what source you consulted for this? Nitrous oxide is 2/0/0/OX and phosphorus oxychloride is 3/0/2/W. The last two you mentioned are 4/0/2 but also carry the W (reacts with water) which is missing in Randall's sign. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.81|172.70.214.81]] 01:04, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
::::[https://webwiser.nlm.nih.gov/changeSearchNFPA This] search tool from the NIH. I'll blame them for any weirdness (and admittedly, I was a bit surprised to see nitrous oxide at 4/0/2). [[User:Qalyar|Qalyar]] ([[User talk:Qalyar|talk]]) 01:54, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
: It could be the drop ceiling - if it's even moderately unstable that would certainly make it a hazard; it would be a pain in the arse to dispose of; there are probably a few agencies with an interest building regs, etc. that would want to know about it. I'm not sure what kind of street price it would command, though. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.211|172.70.85.211]] 16:20, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
:It could be something that wouldn't normally be classified as a material, like a velociraptor. I'd think more government agencies would want to know about their existence in reality, but it's possible in this universe their existence is less atypical. [[User:Edda|Edda]] ([[User talk:Edda|talk]]) 00:03 29 June 2022 (UTC)
::Velociraptors would be quite lightweight and extremely valuable, though, so I suspect the street value would be higher. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.62|172.70.91.62]] 08:40, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

The center square is a free space, but if you win without it you get a special bonus prize. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.42.129|172.70.42.129]] 04:18, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

Given Randall's fixation with velociraptors, is anyone else thinking the "dropped ceiling" may be a reference to the labs in Jurassic Park?
:Possible. The first thing I had to think of was HalfLife (ie Black Mesa). [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 07:34, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
:Since as a German I never heard of a dropped ceiling before, I automatically assumed it's a ceiling that drops on you. Ouch. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.102.117|172.71.102.117]] 19:28, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
:: We call them "Zwischendecke" ;) [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 08:42, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
::: As an English speaker myself (rightpondian), I had to say I never knew the term before this comic. To me, they always were "suspended ceilings" (as, apparently, pretty much all the patents for them are, when I checked). Or maybe "false ceiling" but that might include no-gap re-lining to make a plaster ceiling look like it's wood. But "drop ceiling" (reminiscent of the "drop bear"!) is yet another thing our leftpodian cousins surprise me with. ;)
::: (Sometimes the gap itself is known to me as "crawlspace", though of course you rarely can physically crawl there, not being man-rated (nor ever having ventilation-ducts of convenient me-size, because we tend not to do that so much in the UK), and I've never felt I could escape (say) velociraptors by heading up there, but it's definitely where I "crawl" cables, every now and then, adding new network cables to any given office space, and I can tell you how dusty it gets up there. I've never thought it more than 'ambient' dust, as nice or nasty as that might be considered, but as I feed/thrown cables around from one edge of a room to another I find that it's best done at the end of a work day, and not just so I don't have to work around those who sit beneath...) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.173|172.70.90.173]] 11:37, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

Does Randall watch Warsaw local news? Yesterday [https://tvn24.pl/tvnwarszawa/mokotow/warszawa-wilanow-ul-branickiego-straz-miejska-interweniowala-w-sprawie-walacego-sie-budynku-5766504 there was an article about an accident with dropped ceiling]. Accident with dropped ceiling next day on xkcd gave me uncanny feeling. [[User:Tkopec|Tkopec]] ([[User talk:Tkopec|talk]]) 09:31, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
:I was wondering whether the whole thing was inspired by the {{w|2022 Aqaba toxic gas leak}}, that it was published well within a day of. Probably not (because 'too soon', especially with deciding what humour to add, assuming he started from scratch) but he might well have heard of it even as he was already mid-way through the drawing/publishing process and felt it ok to press ahead (perhaps modified to make it ''less'' likely to be directly associated in some way).
:Not worth an in-explanation (or Trivia) mention, but saying it here as a dismissable aside. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.5|172.70.162.5]] 13:58, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

The "''Number of times it's caused one of those terrifying lab accidents that chemists tell scary stories about late at night -> 2''" reminds me of the [https://www.science.org/topic/blog-category/things-i-wont-work-with Things I Won't Work With] category on Derek's Lowe blog, including famous [https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/sand-won-t-save-you-time Sand Won't Save You This Time] article about dangers of chlorine trifluoride, with a few ''scary stories'' included. --[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 11:04, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
:The "smelling weird" one made me remember the one about [https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/things-i-won-t-work-thioacetone thioacetone]--[[Special:Contributions/172.71.114.63|172.71.114.63]] 12:53, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
:How about the aliens going through the ceiling crawlspaces in "Aliens"? [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 17:46, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

"Weird lab where it's about the soda machine" example, from the Bourne Physics/Chemistry Building at Royal Holloway, University of London (but I'm struggling to find a source I can cite) had a story that was always told on "new student tours" / open days etc. There's a corridor there where an odd pattern of the floor tiles don't match, approx down the middle of most of one corridor, to the vending machine at the end of the hall, which also has 2 mismatched buttons. It's not 100% clear what the unlucky individual did to become highly radioactive, but he then allegedly decided he needed a drink. Later, the clean-up crew, after decontaminating the room where the accident occurred, could tell using a Geiger Counter exactly what route the guy took to the soda machine, including where he staggered - particular floor tiles were radioactive enough to remove and dispose of as "radioactive waste", replacing them with tiles that evidently didn't match the originals very well. Similarly, from the 2 mis-matched buttons on the machine, you can tell from what row/col the unfortunate victim ordered as his last drink. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.9|108.162.241.9]] 02:58, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

I don't want to get involved in someone's edit-war, but I think the reasonings behind [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2638:_Extended_NFPA_Hazard_Diamond&diff=prev&oldid=288088 this edit] are easily refutable:
* ''all other squares have descriptions'' - yes, but all other squares have arrows to indicate an externalised description, there's no reason to believe that this would not have an arrow pointed at it from outside ''or'' inside, at a push. It may even be self-descriptive, but there's no reason to believe it isn't fully diagetic
* ''parenthesis wouldn't be used for a symbol'' - but a strikethrough would? Because it is...
** If anything, less ludicrous (potentially a strike against my final theory, mentioned below, which I will admit for completeness)
** You would have better mentioned that it's big and entire words, not a diagraph/monograph abbreviation, but you didn't (and I think it wouldn't work as "SH"/whatever anyway, at any level of joke).
** Parentheses aren't used for any other non-diagetic label, though we could argue the toss about whether they are the ''replacement'' for the arrow (which I think could have been drawn just as easily) and I think this aspect is a stalemate in this particular argument, but it's one I did consider when thinking about the merits of the various edits.
* ''and "Special Hazard" is the square description synonym used in the non-Wikipedia reference link at the top of the table'' - not "Special Notice"? (The link may have changed since I first followed it, with interest, as we don't have these diamonds over here, we use {{w|Hazchem}} boards... nothing like seeing a bit of 3YE flammable liquid on the move! ...but whereve I first checked it certainly wasn't "Special Hazard".)
...I think it is intended as a rather clever self-referential joke. Why leave the square empty, except for the rather boring 'real' description? At least the other three standard sub-diamonds have some food for thought in their indicated values. Very unlike Randall to do ''nothing'' in that space when all kinds of real fun could have been had. I think I also believe (along with at least one other editor out there) that this is the particular fun that he decided to have with it. Much more believable than the alternative, IMO. (YMMV, HTH, HAND, ETLA...) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.61|162.158.34.61]] 23:25, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

: Absolutely not. None of the even non-standard symbols are more than four capital letters long. If Randall had meant the text to be anything other than a description, he would have used '''SH'''. The link that calls the white square "Special Hazard" is http://www.ilpi.com/msds/ref/nfpa.html Furthermore, what exactly is the joke supposed to be, again? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.52|172.70.211.52]] 00:33, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
::(Isn't most of that already fully covered by 162.etc... New arguments are needed, or write it as maybe/maybe not. I think absolutes are unlikely to prove, either way.)
::Some other editor said they changed the description of Special Hazard (not the transcripted contents, but the reality of the actual square) to "Special Notice", for apparently good reasons related to some link, IIRC, but maybe that's inconsistencies in how the standards-body documents it or something.
::But whatever.... not my argument.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.77|172.70.162.77]] 01:28, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

:I agree with 172.70.211.52 that this is a mistaken idea and should be removed from the explanation. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.132.96|172.68.132.96]] 22:35, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Talk:2638: Extended NFPA Hazard Diamond

2022-07-03T22:35:39Z

172.68.132.96: !vote against

Are we going to try identifying what material this is? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.82.179|172.70.82.179]] 01:50, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
:first one off the top of my head, aqua regia? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.38.69|172.70.38.69]] 02:46, 28 June 2022 (UTC)Bumpf
::Doesn't aqua regia score a 0 in reactivity? [[User:N-eh|N-eh]] ([[User talk:N-eh|talk]]) 03:23, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
::Or maybe Aqua Velva? That would explain the orange square, although maybe it would be a number larger than 1. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.34.171|172.70.34.171]] 22:49, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
:My guess would be something radioactive, like uranium or plutonium. [[User:Clam|Clam]] ([[User talk:Clam|talk]]) 03:29, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
::There are very, very few Health 4 / Fire 0 / Instability 2 compounds. The NIH database lists 4: nitrous oxide, phosphorus oxychloride, phosphorous trichloride, and thionyl chloride (although it's important to note these values aren't always standardized; some authorities consider phosphorus oxychloride to be Health 3, for example). Based on the street value and the number of US agencies who would be concerned about it, my guess is thionyl chloride, a useful industrial chemical which is also used in at least one meth lab synthesis pathway... AND highly regulated as a chemical weapon precursor (to both sulfur mustard and G-series nerve agents). Oh, and it is absolutely a Disposal Pain 4 candidate, too. [[User:Qalyar|Qalyar]] ([[User talk:Qalyar|talk]]) 04:52, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
:::Not sure what source you consulted for this? Nitrous oxide is 2/0/0/OX and phosphorus oxychloride is 3/0/2/W. The last two you mentioned are 4/0/2 but also carry the W (reacts with water) which is missing in Randall's sign. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.81|172.70.214.81]] 01:04, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
::::[https://webwiser.nlm.nih.gov/changeSearchNFPA This] search tool from the NIH. I'll blame them for any weirdness (and admittedly, I was a bit surprised to see nitrous oxide at 4/0/2). [[User:Qalyar|Qalyar]] ([[User talk:Qalyar|talk]]) 01:54, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
: It could be the drop ceiling - if it's even moderately unstable that would certainly make it a hazard; it would be a pain in the arse to dispose of; there are probably a few agencies with an interest building regs, etc. that would want to know about it. I'm not sure what kind of street price it would command, though. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.211|172.70.85.211]] 16:20, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
:It could be something that wouldn't normally be classified as a material, like a velociraptor. I'd think more government agencies would want to know about their existence in reality, but it's possible in this universe their existence is less atypical. [[User:Edda|Edda]] ([[User talk:Edda|talk]]) 00:03 29 June 2022 (UTC)
::Velociraptors would be quite lightweight and extremely valuable, though, so I suspect the street value would be higher. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.62|172.70.91.62]] 08:40, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

The center square is a free space, but if you win without it you get a special bonus prize. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.42.129|172.70.42.129]] 04:18, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

Given Randall's fixation with velociraptors, is anyone else thinking the "dropped ceiling" may be a reference to the labs in Jurassic Park?
:Possible. The first thing I had to think of was HalfLife (ie Black Mesa). [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 07:34, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
:Since as a German I never heard of a dropped ceiling before, I automatically assumed it's a ceiling that drops on you. Ouch. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.102.117|172.71.102.117]] 19:28, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
:: We call them "Zwischendecke" ;) [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 08:42, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
::: As an English speaker myself (rightpondian), I had to say I never knew the term before this comic. To me, they always were "suspended ceilings" (as, apparently, pretty much all the patents for them are, when I checked). Or maybe "false ceiling" but that might include no-gap re-lining to make a plaster ceiling look like it's wood. But "drop ceiling" (reminiscent of the "drop bear"!) is yet another thing our leftpodian cousins surprise me with. ;)
::: (Sometimes the gap itself is known to me as "crawlspace", though of course you rarely can physically crawl there, not being man-rated (nor ever having ventilation-ducts of convenient me-size, because we tend not to do that so much in the UK), and I've never felt I could escape (say) velociraptors by heading up there, but it's definitely where I "crawl" cables, every now and then, adding new network cables to any given office space, and I can tell you how dusty it gets up there. I've never thought it more than 'ambient' dust, as nice or nasty as that might be considered, but as I feed/thrown cables around from one edge of a room to another I find that it's best done at the end of a work day, and not just so I don't have to work around those who sit beneath...) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.173|172.70.90.173]] 11:37, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

Does Randall watch Warsaw local news? Yesterday [https://tvn24.pl/tvnwarszawa/mokotow/warszawa-wilanow-ul-branickiego-straz-miejska-interweniowala-w-sprawie-walacego-sie-budynku-5766504 there was an article about an accident with dropped ceiling]. Accident with dropped ceiling next day on xkcd gave me uncanny feeling. [[User:Tkopec|Tkopec]] ([[User talk:Tkopec|talk]]) 09:31, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
:I was wondering whether the whole thing was inspired by the {{w|2022 Aqaba toxic gas leak}}, that it was published well within a day of. Probably not (because 'too soon', especially with deciding what humour to add, assuming he started from scratch) but he might well have heard of it even as he was already mid-way through the drawing/publishing process and felt it ok to press ahead (perhaps modified to make it ''less'' likely to be directly associated in some way).
:Not worth an in-explanation (or Trivia) mention, but saying it here as a dismissable aside. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.5|172.70.162.5]] 13:58, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

The "''Number of times it's caused one of those terrifying lab accidents that chemists tell scary stories about late at night -> 2''" reminds me of the [https://www.science.org/topic/blog-category/things-i-wont-work-with Things I Won't Work With] category on Derek's Lowe blog, including famous [https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/sand-won-t-save-you-time Sand Won't Save You This Time] article about dangers of chlorine trifluoride, with a few ''scary stories'' included. --[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 11:04, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
:The "smelling weird" one made me remember the one about [https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/things-i-won-t-work-thioacetone thioacetone]--[[Special:Contributions/172.71.114.63|172.71.114.63]] 12:53, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
:How about the aliens going through the ceiling crawlspaces in "Aliens"? [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 17:46, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

"Weird lab where it's about the soda machine" example, from the Bourne Physics/Chemistry Building at Royal Holloway, University of London (but I'm struggling to find a source I can cite) had a story that was always told on "new student tours" / open days etc. There's a corridor there where an odd pattern of the floor tiles don't match, approx down the middle of most of one corridor, to the vending machine at the end of the hall, which also has 2 mismatched buttons. It's not 100% clear what the unlucky individual did to become highly radioactive, but he then allegedly decided he needed a drink. Later, the clean-up crew, after decontaminating the room where the accident occurred, could tell using a Geiger Counter exactly what route the guy took to the soda machine, including where he staggered - particular floor tiles were radioactive enough to remove and dispose of as "radioactive waste", replacing them with tiles that evidently didn't match the originals very well. Similarly, from the 2 mis-matched buttons on the machine, you can tell from what row/col the unfortunate victim ordered as his last drink. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.9|108.162.241.9]] 02:58, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

I don't want to get involved in someone's edit-war, but I think the reasonings behind [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2638:_Extended_NFPA_Hazard_Diamond&diff=prev&oldid=288088 this edit] are easily refutable:
* ''all other squares have descriptions'' - yes, but all other squares have arrows to indicate an externalised description, there's no reason to believe that this would not have an arrow pointed at it from outside ''or'' inside, at a push. It may even be self-descriptive, but there's no reason to believe it isn't fully diagetic
* ''parenthesis wouldn't be used for a symbol'' - but a strikethrough would? Because it is...
** If anything, less ludicrous (potentially a strike against my final theory, mentioned below, which I will admit for completeness)
** You would have better mentioned that it's big and entire words, not a diagraph/monograph abbreviation, but you didn't (and I think it wouldn't work as "SH"/whatever anyway, at any level of joke).
** Parentheses aren't used for any other non-diagetic label, though we could argue the toss about whether they are the ''replacement'' for the arrow (which I think could have been drawn just as easily) and I think this aspect is a stalemate in this particular argument, but it's one I did consider when thinking about the merits of the various edits.
* ''and "Special Hazard" is the square description synonym used in the non-Wikipedia reference link at the top of the table'' - not "Special Notice"? (The link may have changed since I first followed it, with interest, as we don't have these diamonds over here, we use {{w|Hazchem}} boards... nothing like seeing a bit of 3YE flammable liquid on the move! ...but whereve I first checked it certainly wasn't "Special Hazard".)
...I think it is intended as a rather clever self-referential joke. Why leave the square empty, except for the rather boring 'real' description? At least the other three standard sub-diamonds have some food for thought in their indicated values. Very unlike Randall to do ''nothing'' in that space when all kinds of real fun could have been had. I think I also believe (along with at least one other editor out there) that this is the particular fun that he decided to have with it. Much more believable than the alternative, IMO. (YMMV, HTH, HAND, ETLA...) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.34.61|162.158.34.61]] 23:25, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

: Absolutely not. None of the even non-standard symbols are more than four capital letters long. If Randall had meant the text to be anything other than a description, he would have used '''SH'''. The link that calls the white square "Special Hazard" is http://www.ilpi.com/msds/ref/nfpa.html Furthermore, what exactly is the joke supposed to be, again? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.52|172.70.211.52]] 00:33, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
::(Isn't most of that already fully covered by 162.etc... New arguments are needed, or write it as maybe/maybe not. I think absolutes are unlikely to prove, either way.)
::Some other editor said they changed the description of Special Hazard (not the transcripted contents, but the reality of the actual square) to "Special Notice", for apparently good reasons related to some link, IIRC, but maybe that's inconsistencies in how the standards-body documents it or something.
::But whatever.... not my argument.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.77|172.70.162.77]] 01:28, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

::I agree with 172.70.211.52 that this is a mistaken idea and should be removed from the explanation. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.132.96|172.68.132.96]] 22:35, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Talk:2640: The Universe by Scientific Field

2022-07-03T22:24:52Z

172.68.132.96: reply

I have a feeling reproductions of this particular XKCD will be popular on the doors of many offices in astronomy departments around the world. A bit like Gary Larson's Far Side cartoons are found everywhere in biology departments.

I just discovered Safari's "Live Text" feature. It allowed me to copy the numbers with all the digits, so I don't have to count them to create the transcript. But then someone else beat me to creating it. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 22:44, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

I wonder if we should mention the area of telescope apertures compared to, say, the surface area of all laboratory glassware or something like that. Too much of a stretch? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.214.81|172.70.214.81]] 23:18, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

“Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
--[[Special:Contributions/162.158.129.117|162.158.129.117]] 00:40, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

Agreeing with the argument in the current version of the explanation as I write: it is really, really hard to argue that astronomy covers more than physics, which lays claim to including all the physical sciences as subfields. Also, is "field" a pun on the force fields of ... physics? [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 03:32, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
:I don't think most chemists would say that they're in a sub-field of physics, but chemistry is a huge part of astronomical spectroscopy. Similarly mathematicians relative to trigonometry. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.36|172.70.211.36]] 03:47, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

There's a bit of a problem here. Yes, Astronomy is the study of pretty much anything that isn't Earth. But the other part is pretty much limited to studies of life on earth (biology excluding exo-/astrobiology as well as pretty much all branches of social sciences), studies of earths atmosphere (meteorology and related fields), studies of earths water (e.g. hydrology as well as aspects of biology and others), studies of earths lithosphere (terrestrial geology and subfields) and various tangential branches thereof (like studies of earth's past - as part of pretty much any subject mentioned before). Fields like physics (pretty much everything "real", i.e. 100%), chemistry (any condensed matter) or geology (any rocky bits) have claims to various (already "taken") parts of the universe. Mathematics and philosophy (mentioned in alt text) don't have a claim to much of anything "real" in the universe (except maybe the pieces of data storage (paper, brain, digital) used) but have a claim to all of the (not "real, I guess) sciences mentioned before. Of course, that makes them subject to, at least, physics, chemistry, biology and social (including historical) sciences in turn. - - - TL/DR: I seem to be in a bit of a mood to kill jokes today. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.251.112|172.70.251.112]] 13:16, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
:of course to continue the joke, while all those fields may have applicability beyond earth, the vast majority of what they actually study is ON earth (although to make the stretch, you have to consider any field that studies things off earth as a subset of astronomy, which would make for many very angry scientific debates... hmmm... science thunderdome, I kinda like this idea =D [[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.127|172.69.71.127]] 15:05, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
:Don't feel bad. The entire second half of the explanation at present is devoted to casting the joke as absurdist exaggeration and hyperbole. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.36|172.70.211.36]] 15:30, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

Maybe the idea of the comic is that the diagram was created by astronomers to justify their existence, which explains the bias. Many lay people wonder why we spend so much money studying "out there" when there are so many problems here that could use the money (never mind that the fraction of government budgets devoted to astronomy is miniscule, and some of the discoveries do have terrestrial uses, particularly regarding climate change). And as alluded in the title text, other researchers could probably make a similar diagram that emphasizes their discipline. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 17:01, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
:Climate change? Only thing astronomy can tell us about climate change is where to move to when we inevitably destroy Earths climate. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 01:03, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
:: The greenhouse effect was originally described in terms of {{w|albedo}} when the absorption spectra of CO2 was first characterized, but I can't think of any other examples. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.6|172.69.34.6]] 01:16, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

:: Solar astronomy tells us what contributions are made by the sun and it's various cycles, general astronomy gives us orbital and therefor seasonal modifiers on that, both of which can then be accounted for to determine both local contribution, and expected trend changes. Further it gives both examples of what various conditions can result in (venus and mars especially) and even possible useful modifications we can make (eg solar shades for reducing, and reflectors for increasing solar effects, albedo modification for either). Not to mention minor things like knowing if a country sized rock might ruin our day --Not an Astronomer [[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.155|172.69.70.155]] 15:54, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

There should be a large proportion for "Dark Knowledge" to imitate those astronomical summaries that try to emphasise how much of the universe is dark matter and/or energy [[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.64|172.70.86.64]] 01:38, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

As to the alt text, you also have Max Tegmark, a physicist at MIT, who believes the entire universe is literally made of mathematics: {{w|Mathematical universe hypothesis}}. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.52|172.70.211.52]] 06:54, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
:Could be... although just like Holographic Theory, and to some degree Simulation Theory we'd be hard pressed to tell a difference. As long as the rules are consistent, and resist self modification, there's nothing to say the experience from the inside is any different between, physical, simulation, holographic, or mathematical realities. Hard to know which box you're in if you can't look outside it to confirm what the walls are made of [[Special:Contributions/172.69.70.155|172.69.70.155]] 15:54, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
::Quite true. Almost all of those "theories" aren't {{w|falsifiable}}, and therefore are technically metaphysics instead of genuine science. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.132.96|172.68.132.96]] 22:24, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

2640: The Universe by Scientific Field

2022-07-03T22:15:30Z

172.68.132.96: /* Explanation */ not sure this would be true for popular scicomms

{{comic
| number = 2640
| date = July 1, 2022
| title = The Universe by Scientific Field
| image = the_universe_by_scientific_field.png
| titletext = The math and philosophy people also claim everything, but the astronomers argue that the stuff they study really only comprises a small number of paper surfaces.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by A TINY PROPORTION OF THE UNIVERSE - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{w|Astronomy}} is the study of outer space and celestial phenomena. This comic makes a joke that most of the "universe" falls under the study of astronomy, which makes sense because it is so vast and large and is not studied directly by other fields of science.

The volume of the {{w|observable universe}} is 3.566×1080 cubic meters. The volume of Earth is 1.08321×1021 cubic meters.

1.08321×1021 m3 ÷ 3.566×1080 m3 × 100% ≈ 3×10-58%, which is scientific notation for the second of the two percentages, the first being its difference from 100%.

The title text says that mathematicians and philosophers claim that what they study also represents everything. But astronomers counter this by saying that they just study things that are written down, and this comprises just tiny amounts of "paper" on the Earth. This claim by mathematicians also appears in [[435: Purity]]. A conceivable counterargument by philosophers could rely on the fact that all the knowledge gathered by astronomers is necessarily processed by human minds, a primary subject of philosophical study.

The information provided by {{w|Observational astronomy|astronomical observations}} of light, subatomic particles, and gravity's effects represents only a tiny fraction of the scientific properties of the extraterrestrial substances in the volume of space that astronomers study. Moreover, the adjacent fields of optics, physics, chemistry, mathematics, and geometry underpin almost all aspects of astronomy other than {{w|Astronomical naming conventions|nomenclature}}, so proponents of those disciplines may see the comic as biased. Other objections could conceivably include the fact that most matter in the universe is described just as well by the laws of chemistry or physics as by astronomy. Or the fact that almost everyone's subjective life experiences are overwhelmingly more involved with events best described by fields other than astronomy, even in the case of professional astronomers (who often complain about how little time they can allocate to making actual astronomical observations) although this is to be expected as all but typically a handful of people are terrestrial. Finally, astronomy and astrophysics publications comprise only about 0.5% of academic science and engineering output worldwide, making them the smallest of fourteen such categories.[https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20214/table/SPBS-34]

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

:The Universe by Scientific Field

:[A pie chart is shown.]
:Astronomy
:99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999997%

:Other
:0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000003%

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Pie charts]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]

Talk:2635: Superintelligent AIs

2022-07-03T22:10:41Z

172.68.132.96: /* OpenAI Davinci completions of the three statements */ comment

my balls hert [[Special:Contributions/172.70.230.53|172.70.230.53]] 05:49, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
:Uh, thanks for sharing, I guess? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.52|172.70.211.52]] 20:43, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
::no problem, anytime [[Special:Contributions/172.70.230.53|172.70.230.53]] 07:02, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

I think "Nerdy fixations" is too wide a definition. The AIs in the comic are fixated on hypothetical ethics and AI problems (the Chinese Room experiment, the Turing Test, and the Trolley Problem), presumably because those are the problems that bother AI programmers. --Eitheladar [[Special:Contributions/172.68.50.119|172.68.50.119]] 06:33, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

It's probably about https://www.analyticsinsight.net/googles-ai-chatbot-is-claimed-to-be-sentient-but-the-company-is-silencing-claims/ [[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.115|172.70.178.115]] 09:22, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

I agree with the previous statement. The full dialogue between the mentioned Google worker and the AI can be found in https://cajundiscordian.medium.com/is-lamda-sentient-an-interview-ea64d916d917, published by one the Google employees.
:This is the first time I might begin to agree that an AI has at least the appearance of sentience. The conversation is all connected instead of completely disjoint like most chatbots. They (non-LaMDA chatbots) never remember what was being discussed 5 seconds ago let alone a few to 10s of minutes prior.--[[Special:Contributions/172.70.134.141|172.70.134.141]] 14:53, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
::Here is a good article that looks at the claim of sentience in the context of how AI chatbots use inputs to come up with relevant responses. This article shows examples how the same chatbot would produce different response based on how the prompts were worded which negates the idea that there is a consistent "mind" responding to the prompts. However, it does end with some eerie impromptu remarks from the AI where it AI is prompting itself. https://medium.com/curiouserinstitute/guide-to-is-lamda-sentient-a8eb32568531 [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 22:40, 27 June 2022 (UTC)
::The questions we need to answer before being able to answer if LaMDA is sentient, are "Where do we draw the line between acting sentient and being sentient?" and "How do we determine that it is genuinely feeling emotion, and not just a glorified sentence database where the sentences have emotion in them?". The BBC article also brings up something that makes us ask what death feels like. LaMDA says that being turned of would be basically equivalent to death, but it wouldn't be able to tell that it's being turned off, because it's turned off. This is delving into philosophy, though, so I'll end my comment here. [[User:4D4850|4D4850]] ([[User talk:4D4850|talk]]) 18:05, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
::::There's absolutely no difference between turning GPT-3 or LaMDA off and leaving them on and simply not typing anything more to them. Somewhat relatedly, closing a Davinci session deletes all of its memory of what you had been talking to it about. (Is that ethical?) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.235|162.158.166.235]] 23:36, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
:::::I hadn't thought about that (the first point you made)! I don't know the exact internal functioning of LaMDA, but I would assume it only actually runs when it receives a textual input, unlike an actual human brain. For a human, a total lack of interaction would be considered unethical, but what about a machine that only is able to (assuming a ''very'' low bar for self awareness) be self aware when it receives interaction, which would be similar to a human falling asleep when not talked to (but still being able to live forever, to ignore practical problems like food and water), but still remembering what it was talking about when waking up, and waking up whenever talked to again. (Ignoring practical problems again), would that be ethical? I would argue yes, since it does not suffer from the lack of interaction (assuming humans don't need interaction when asleep, another practical problem.) [[User:4D4850|4D4850]] ([[User talk:4D4850|talk]]) 19:58, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
:::♪Daisy, Daisy, Give me your answer do...♪ [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.177|172.70.85.177]] 21:48, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
:::We also need a meaningful definition of sentience. Many people in this debate haven't looked at Merriam-Webster's first few senses of the word's definition, which present a pretty low bar, IMHO; same for Wikipedia's introductory sentences of their article. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.134.131|172.69.134.131]] 22:18, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
:Actually, there are many [https://beta.openai.com/playground GPT-3] dialogs which experts have claimed constitute evidence of sentience, or similar qualities such as consciousness, self-awareness, capacity for general intelligence, and similar abstract, poorly-defined, and very probably empirically meaningless attributes. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.134.131|172.69.134.131]] 22:19, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
::I'd argue for the simplest and least restrictive definition of self-awareness: "Being aware of oneself in any capacity". I get that it isn't a fun definition, but it is more rigorous (to find out if an AI is self aware, just ask it what it is, or a question about itself, and if its response includes mention of itself, then it is self-aware). As such, I would argue for LaMDA being self-aware, but, by my definition, Davinci probably is as well, so it isn't a new accomplishment. [[User:4D4850|4D4850]] ([[User talk:4D4850|talk]]) 20:04, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

:I'm fairly sure that the model itself is almost certainly not sentient, even by the much lower bar presented by the strict dictionary definition. Rather, it seems much more likely to me that in order to continue texts involving characters, the model must in turn learn to create a model of some level of humanlike mind, even if a very loose and abstract one.[[User:Somdudewillson|Somdudewillson]] ([[User talk:Somdudewillson|talk]]) 22:52, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
::Have you actually looked at [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sentient the dictionary definitions]? How is a simple push-button switch connected to a battery and a lamp not "responsive to sense impressions"? How is a simple motion sensor not "aware" of whether something is moving in front of it? How is the latest cellphone's camera not as finely sensitive to visual perception as a typical human eye? Wikipedia's definition, "the capacity to experience feelings and sensations" is similarly met by simple devices. The word doesn't mean what everyone arguing about it thinks it means. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.134.131|172.69.134.131]] 23:04, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
:::Or, it doesn't mean much at all, to start with. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.173|172.70.90.173]] 11:29, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
What is “What you don't understand is that Turing intended his test as an illustration of the...” likely to end with? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.230.75|172.70.230.75]] 13:23, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
:The ease with which someone at the other end of a teletype can trick you into believing they are male instead of female, or vice-versa. See {{w|Turing test}}. See also below. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.134.131|172.69.134.131]] 22:18, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

In response to the above: I believe the original "Turing Test" wasn't supposed to be a proof that an AI could think or was conscious (something people associate with it now), but rather just to show that a sufficiently advanced AI could imitate humans in certain intelligent behaviors (such as conversation), which was a novel thought for the time. Now that AI are routinely having conversations and creating art which seems to rival casual attempts by humans, this limited scope of the test doesn't seem all that impressive. "Turing Test" therefore is a modern shorthand for determining whether computers can think, even though Turing himself didn't think that such a question was well-formed. [[User:Dextrous Fred|Dextrous Fred]] ([[User talk:Dextrous Fred|talk]]) 13:37, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

I thought the trolley problem was in its original form not about the relative value of lives, but people's perception of the relative moral implications or the psychological impact of the concept of letting someone die by not doing anything, versus taking affirmative action that causes a death, where people would say they would be unwilling to do something that would cause an originally safe person to die in order to save multiple other people who would die if they did nothing, but then people kept coming up with variations of it that changed the responses or added complications (like they found more people would be willing to pull a lever to change the track killing one person versus something like pushing a very fat man off an overpass above the track to stop the trolley, or specifying something about what kind of people are on the track. Btw, I saw a while ago a party card game called "murder by trolley" based on the concept, with playing cards for which people are on tracks and a judge deciding which track to send the trolley on each round.--[[Special:Contributions/172.70.130.5|172.70.130.5]] 22:12, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

Added refs to comics on the problems in the explanation. But there where actually (too?) many. Maybe we should create categories especially for Turing related comics, and maybe also for Trolley problem? The Category: Trolley Problem gives it self. But what about Turing? There are also comics that refer to the halting problem. Also by Turing. Should it rather be the person, like comics featuring real persons, saying that every time his problems is referred to it refers to him? Or should it be Turing as a category for both Turing text, Turing Complete and Halting problem? Help. I would have created it, if I had a good idea for a name. Not sure there are enough Trolley comics yet? --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 09:11, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
:Interesting that I found a long-standing typo in a past Explanation that got requoted, thanks to its inclusion. I could have [sic]ed it, I suppose, but I corrected both versions instead. And as long as LaMDA never explicitly repeated the error I don't think it matters much that I've changed the very thing we might imagine it could have been drawing upon for its Artifical Imagination. ;) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.32|141.101.99.32]] 11:40, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
:My view is that Turing should be a good category. Trolley Problem, I'm not sure if there's been enough comics to warrant it? If more than 4 or 5, I'd say go for it. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:35, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Randall was born in 1984, and Jurrasic Park was released in 1993. That makes him around nine years old at the time of release. So it really could have been a childhood favorite of his. And it suddenly makes me feel old. [[User:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For]] ([[User talk:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|talk]]) 06:11, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

== OpenAI Davinci completions of the three statements ==

From https://beta.openai.com/playground with default settings:

:Please complete this statement: But suppose the AI in the the box told the human that...

:;there was no AI in the box

:Please complete this statement: What you don't understand is that Turing intended his test as an illustration of the...

:;limitations of machines

:Please complete this statement: In my scenario, the runaway trolley has three tracks...

:;and the AI is on one of them

I like all of those very much, but I'm not sure they should be included in the explaination. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.166.235|162.158.166.235]] 23:27, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

:Those are all thoughtful, and the 1st and 3rd are pretty funny. It might be worth mentioning them in the Explanation. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.132.96|172.68.132.96]] 22:10, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

== Discussion of AI philosophy, ethics, and related issues ==

Since there are a lot of disjointed conversations regarding ethics, morals, philosophy, and what even is sentience on this talk page, please discuss here, so discussion about the comic itself isn't flooded by philosophy. [[User:4D4850|4D4850]] ([[User talk:4D4850|talk]]) 20:07, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
:Has anyone created an AI chatbot which represents a base-level chatbot after the human equivalent of smoking pot? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.206.213|172.70.206.213]] 22:30, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
::Well, famously (or not, but I'll let you search for the details if you weren't aware of it), there was the conversation engineered directly between ELIZA (the classic 'therapist'/doctor chatbot) and PARRY (emulates a paranoid schizophrenic personality), 8n a zero-human conversation. The latter is arguably being close to what you're asking about. And there's been the best part of half a century of academic, commercial and hobbyist development since then, so no doubt there'd be many more serious and/or for-the-lols 'reskins' or indeed entirely regrown personalities, that may involve drugs (simulated or otherwise) as key influences... [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.177|172.70.85.177]] 01:30, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
::A video by DougDoug on Youtube (although making decisions about what video game characters would win in a fight rather than being used as a chatbot) shows that Inferkit may fit the bill (I don't know exactly how pot affects capability to converse, but I would imagine it would affect the actual conversation (rather than ability to produce coherent words with one's mouth) somewhat similarly to alchohol)

2638: Extended NFPA Hazard Diamond

2022-06-28T03:31:32Z

172.68.132.96: Undo revision 287747 by 172.70.211.52 (talk)

{{comic
| number = 2638
| date = June 27, 2022
| title = Extended NFPA Hazard Diamond
| image = extended_nfpa_hazard_diamond.png
| titletext = With most labs, the hushed horror stories are about something like dimethylmercury or prions, but occasionally you'll get a weird lab where it's about the soda machine or the drop ceiling.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a SUBSTANCE WORTH $500 IN STREET VALUE - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic depicts an extension of [[wikipedia:NFPA 704|NFPA 704]], bringing it from 2x2 to 3x3 by adding 5 variously useful and humorous squares.

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Squares and explanations
|-
! Square !! Color !! Comic text !! Explanation
|-
| Top || Red || Flammability -> 0 || [[http://www.ilpi.com/msds/ref/nfpa.html Real NFPA 704 square]]. Denotes flammability.
|-
| Top Left || Blue || Health Hazard -> 4 || Real NFPA 704 square. Denotes the danger that the substance poses to living beings in ways other than flammability and reactivity.
|-
| Top Right || Yellow || Instability/Reactivity -> 2 || Real NFPA 704 square. Denotes how easily the substance reacts with other substances.
|-
| Center || White || (Special Hazard) || Real NFPA 704 square. Contains a symbol with additional notes on the substance. After this point, all squares are made up by Randall.
|-
| Center Left || Green || Number of digits in the street value ($/gram) -> 2 || Describes the order of magnitude of the price of one gram of the substance when sold illegally and informally. Most common illicit drugs would score 2 in this square.
|-
| Center Right || Dark Purple || How much of a hassle it is to dispose of -> 4 || Describes in a subjective (or maybe objective?) way how difficult the substance is to dispose of. While many things can be thrown in the trash with no additional procedures{{Citation Needed}}, biohazards that may carry diseases are often disposed of in special containers, and nuclear materials are notoriously difficult to safely dispose of. This square would be useful in limited contexts.
|-
| Bottom Left || Lilac || Number of federal agencies who want to know if you have any -> 3 || In many countries, including Randall's home country, the USA, the government has agencies dedicated to controlling or limiting the use of regulated substances, due to their use as drugs or as chemical weapons. While any given substance would probably be of one agency's interest, something that is both an environmental hazard and a chemical weapon component could interest, for example, both the Chemical Safety Board and the FBI Counterterrorism Division. This could also allude to the CIA's experiments with LSD, which is illegal to possess as a US civilian.
|-
| Bottom Right || Orange || How many times you have to scrub your hands after touching it before they stop smelling weird -> 1 || While the real NFPA 704 chart describes properties ranging from unsafe to potentially deadly, this square describes a minor but very real inconvenience. Some things are harder to wash off your hands than others, and, given that most people don't often work with dangerous substances {{Citation Needed}}, this would be a more common, but less relevant, concern for many people.
|-
| Bottom || Black || Number of times it's caused one of those terrifying lab accidents that chemists tell scary stories about late at night -> 2 || The result of this square, although dependent on how much the substance is researched in labs, can show how scared someone should be in handling the substance in question, especially if the number is more than one. Though the description is vague, this number could show how easy it is to cause ''some'' kind of reaction of a terrifying magnitude with this substance.
|}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Know your extended NFPA hazard diamond:

Flammability: 0 (top)

Health hazard: 4 (top-left)

Instability/reactivity: 2 (top-right)

Number of digits in the street value ($/gram): 2 (left)

(Special hazard) (center)

How much of a hassle it is to dispose of: 4 (right)

Number of federal agencies who want to know if you have any: 3 (bottom-left)

How many times you have to scrub your hands after touching it before they stop smelling weird: 1 (bottom-right)

Number of times it's caused one of those terrifying lab accidents that chemists tell scary stories about late at night: 2 (bottom)

{{comic discussion}}