Talk:3037: Radon

2025-01-14T07:45:40Z

172.68.50.200:

The sun is a white star. It looks yellow from within the atmosphere because blue light is scattered out of it, the same reason the sky is blue. How did physicist Randall not know that? [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 20:26, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
:Randall is almost certainly a Superman fan, and we all know that Kryptonians get their powers from yellow suns. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 21:07, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia disagrees; The Sun is a G-type main-sequence star (G2V), informally called a yellow dwarf, though its light is actually white. It formed approximately 4.6 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of matter within a region of a large molecular cloud. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.23.87|172.71.23.87]] 20:43, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
:Your quote agrees with me. As @Starstar says below, it might be intentional on his part. [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 20:53, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
:: No "his quote" doesn't?? (Unless I'm understanding your meaning with "his quote") Yes the sun is White. HOWEVER, it is NOT called a "white star". Stars aren't categorized by color but by tempeture. Which I mean I guess it sorta means their catagorized by color but thats being nitpicky. Our sun is 5,772 K, which according to wikipedia means its a class-G star which is known by the not nerds as a yellow dwarf. Being a physicist means Randell is VERY aware of the category of our Sun. Repeat, the Sun is called a "yellow dwarf", therefore is Ponytail said "white star", she'd be talking about a star that is 9000 K and therfor NOT our Sun. Seriously this was like a 5 minute google search. [[User:Apollo11|Apollo11]] ([[User talk:Apollo11|talk]]) 21:01, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
:: At any rate, I believe it plays into Ponytail just goofing around more than being precise [[User:Starstar|Starstar]] ([[User talk:Starstar|talk]]) 22:12, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps it is intentional? [[User:Starstar|Starstar]] ([[User talk:Starstar|talk]]) 20:36, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Possible trivia: The effect used in the title text for "²³⁸Umbrella" does NOT use html formatting. It uses unicode for the almost-but-not-technically superscripted "238" before "Umbrella." On some systems, this renders with the "23" being larger than and slightly below the level of the "8". Whether Randall knew of this effect or not is a mystery. If he did know, his motivations are a mystery. Maybe the 8 is radioactive and emitted a non-massless particle, thereby making it smaller (less mass != less volume, but go with it here) and more buoyant (less weight) in the presence of the adjacent characters. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.227.105|198.41.227.105]] 21:19, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
:You can't use HTML markup in the title attribute, so there's no other way to do super/sub-scripting there. He could have used JavaScript to emulate the title attribute, though. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 21:38, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

What do people think of Hairstylist Wannabe's near-total rewrite of the explanation? While they added lots of technical details about radon, I think they missed much of the humor. Ponytail's comments are typical of the kind of things a home inspector or repair person will say to the owner, not really "flippant". [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 21:48, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
:I like the facts but i changed the joke explantion back. [[User:Apollo11|Apollo11]] ([[User talk:Apollo11|talk]]) 22:07, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
:The rewrite has waaaaay too much detail. This site is for explaining what's going on in a comic, not repeating everything you know that's related, however remotely, to the comic. Just add wikilinks to things! Like, do we really need to have repeated here how much <sup>238</sup>U the Earth contains? How much radiation one experiences from uranium? I vote to remove a lot of the detail and just explain the comic. [[User:DKMell|DKMell]] ([[User talk:DKMell|talk]]) 23:45, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Possible trivia: 238 Umbrella is a common weight for a patio umbrella stand. {{unsigned|TallJason|22:53, 13 January 2025}}

I started to write another paragraph:
:The primary reason why the radon is considered more deadly than the original uranium (and thorium) is its nature as a heavy gas; the earlier states of decay remain stuck in the original rock, interstitially, whereas radon more freely leaches out. This quickly disperses to extremely diluted levels in the open air but, being a gas that is denser than air, it can accumulate to low (but potentially significant) levels in a cellar or basement, having few natural air-currents to drive the heavier gas atoms out of the sump in which the radon sits. Although each atom does not last long in this state, the resulting polonium, bismuth or lead atoms (all being isotopes that are themselves radioactive) ''can'' find themselves drifting as dust particles initially (and, after settling, easily disturbed), with the potential
...but it got out of hand. Was going to edit it down (and correct anything I'd accidentally mispoken/misedited/ispunctuated, in the initial fervour) when I'd finished, but I've got to go somewhere, so leaving it as possible inspiration for someone else to use/ignore/tear part/whatever. Have fun. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.205.92|172.68.205.92]] 23:50, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
:: "possible inspiration for someone else" Good stuff, but surely it already exists (without xkcd context) many other places? Can be just linked? [[User:PRR|PRR]] ([[User talk:PRR|talk]]) 02:33, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

I thought, the title text was a reference to nuclear umbrella. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.50.200|172.68.50.200]] 07:45, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy

2023-04-09T19:19:01Z

172.68.50.200:

*[[Beret Guy]] is a very strange person. Sometimes he takes these strange tendencies into the supernatural.
**'''Click''' to expand for a more detailed explanation:
<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed leftAlign" style="width:100%">
<br>
==Explanation==
In the early comics he was more just a strange and naive guy. There is an early start to the strangeness, but that power could also be attributed to [[Cueball]] (at least it is a shared power) in [[248]].

After comic [[1099]], Beret Guy begins to appear frequently with these strange powers, typically not related to each other, except that he has some issues with electrical sockets and power cords as seen in [[1293]] and [[1395]]. (See also [[509: Induced Current]] and the title text of [[614: Woodpecker]], regarding power cords, but not these strange powers.)

Many of these apparent powers manifest as objects behaving strangely around him. It is unclear whether these are in fact powers inherent to Beret Guy or whether the objects are simply cursed; as indicated in [[1772]], most of his possessions were acquired from shops specializing in cursed items.

Here is a list of the comics where Beret Guy displays strange powers that are beyond the realm of possibility.

===List of abilities===
#[[248]]: Manages to create a hypothetical situation (trapping him and his friend).
#[[1088]]: Capable of waiting in the same place for five years, presumably without sustenance
#[[1099]]: He has infinite wings.
#[[1135]]: Makes spiders weave him a shirt.
#[[1158]]: Creates rope to pull & release ball via his imagination.
#[[1293]]: Pours soup from power socket.
#[[1388]]: Subducts through the floor to form mountains in his room.
#[[1395]]: Inflates a laptop through a power cord so that it floats like a helium balloon.
#[[1422]]: Makes a phone with an old battery behave like a dying star.
#[[1486]]: Uses the vacuum energy to fly and "gain unlimited power" with a vacuum cleaner.
#[[1490]]: Sees the individual atoms, and can distinguish the different elements. But he cannot see what they are actually a part of, like a human or a dog.
#[[1522]]: Can examine life on exoplanets around distant stars through a magnifying glass just by standing on a ladder.
#[[1614]]: A little less clear what his powers are in this. But first he is walking a flying/floating dog, and then he returns flying on (or as) a kite, while the dog holds on to the line of the kite.
#[[1617]]: Living by eating newspaper and without breathing oxygen for several years in a sealed and buried box.
#[[1922]]: Riding in the air above two small dogs combined into a larger dog through interferometry
#[[2310]]: Being able to sleep on the vertical side of walls due to a much higher than normal attraction to the {{w|Great Attractor}}, because of higher dimensional bones.
#[[2325]]: Beret Guy attracts water so it flows to him rather than running out towards the nearby oceans. He thus claims he is like an endorheic basin, which is a limited drainage basin that normally retains water and allows no outflow to other external bodies of water.
#[[2376]]: Claims to have the ability to do battle with ghosts, although this is not shown because Beret Guy did not have a cursed amulet that makes ghosts angry.
#[[2446]]: He creates a huge spike protein outside his body after receiving the [[:Category:COVID-19_vaccine|COVID-19 vaccine]].
#[[2534]]: He managed to create a retractable "rocket" that can extend and deliver payload to the ISS and then return to its starting position without the base ever leaving the ground.
#[[2695]]: He created volcano seeds which, when planted, create a tiny volcano.
#[[2710]]: He created a hydroelectric dam that has achieved Q>1, meaning it has produced more water than has been put into it.
</div>
<br>

[[Category:Comics by topic]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]

explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:3037: Radon

Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy