explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2907: Schwa

2024-03-18T18:54:26Z

172.69.247.40:

In what crazy dialect do these all use the same 1 vowel? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.210.73|172.68.210.73]] 22:10, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
:I can think of several. I was immediately reminded of Lucy Porter's Hull accent ([https://www.google.com/search?q=hull+accent+oh+no some examples, including videos/audio, here]), but I can also think of New Zealand (more 'i'ish vowels, at least stereotypically), South African (down a couple of tones from that), and a number of state-side accents that ''conceivably'' are what Randall's drawing upon. [...as ninjaed, below, by 172.71.166.190 at 22:30]
:My own accent (when given its full reign) actually tends to be consonant-light ("o'er" for "over", such that my vowels tend to be ''two or three'' separate tones in a row), so it doesn't work so well. But if I shift my focus to try to impersonate people from ten miles to the north (or a dozen or so miles east) from where I grew up then I can actually get quite close to 'perfect monovowelism' (still suppressing the consonants!). [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.139|172.69.79.139]] 22:32, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
:All of them? I had to read the explanation to get what constitutes a schwa, but then I read the comic again, and yeah, they're all roughly the same sound, in the average North American accent anyway. Only exception is the word "A", which people might often pronounce like the letter "A", which of course isn't a schwa, :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:57, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
::'Round these 'ere parts, you'd never say "A"-to-rhyme-with-"Hay" (except to stress "that isn't just ''a(y)'' good song but ''the(e)'' best song ever!", e.g.). Still confused, me, though when at my first ever French class at school, the teacher (with not far off the local accent) told us that 'un' and 'une' were "the words for 'uh'...". Which only became clear when she clarified "...like 'uh book', 'uh table', 'uh window'...". This was actually how we all spoke. (More or less... Ah din't spake quart ser m'tch lahk dat, wot wi' mi mam'n'dad bofe bin frum a cupla tarns ovver, f'witch ah gut uh rep f'beyin "posch". Ur mebbe 'twuz cuz mi mam whir uh titch'r, ser ah gut lurnt t' spake proppah?) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.3|172.71.242.3]] 17:23, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Personally I pronounce those pretty much all the same (I live in Boston like Randall but don't have an actual Boston accent)
--[[Special:Contributions/172.71.166.190|172.71.166.190]] 22:30, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
:I too, living in the Pacific Northwest of the US, immediately saw all the vowels the same. [[User:RandalSchwartz|RandalSchwartz]] ([[User talk:RandalSchwartz|talk]]) 00:43, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

I didn't think it was considered schwa when stressed as in "up" and "love". But my dictionary has a schwa in its pronunciation guide for both, so I guess I was wrong. But this basically means the usual "short U" pronunciation is schwa. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 22:59, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
:Some dialects split the vowel at the end of "comma" from the vowel in "strut," but most North American dialects don't. So in pronouncing dictionaries, you will sometimes see the strut vowel written ʌ and the comma vowel written ə even though they might be exactly the same in your accent. In vowels that split comma and strut, schwa is rarely stressed, but that's not a rule. This is sometimes confused by American teachers, who try to explain why they see two different symbols for the same sound. But they really are different sounds, and Americans just don't use /ʌ/ at all. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 02:50, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
::Plus, this "schwa is never stressed" mnemonic doesn't even make perfect predictions for dialects without the merger. I've heard that in ''undone'' /ʌnˈdʌn/, the unstressed vowel doesn't go to schwa. In the end, the IPA wasn't created just for English, and it only defines [ə] as a mid central vowel, not an unstressed one. Reduced vowels may often mid-centralize, but nothing says a language can't stress mid central vowels at other times, just like any other vowel quality can be stressed or unstressed. [[User talk:AgentMuffin|~AgentMuffin]] 21:53, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

This all works in a generically american accent, except for the i vowel in onion, which cannot be schwa-ified in any english accent I've ever heard. [[Special:Contributions/
172.69.34.171|172.69.34.171]] 23:27, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
:Depends. {{wiktionary|onion|Wiktionary says}} /ˈʌn.jən/ (any particular places?) or /ˈʌŋ.jɪn/ (Canada) (and an obsolete version that I'd imagine the Kiwis to use).
:If the /j/ ''isn't'' considered a vowel then you could definitely justify something like "un-yun" or "ern-yern" or even "in-yin" (amongst various ''other'' like-vowel versions)...
:If you do the /j*n/ more as in {{wiktionary|eon|/ˈi.ɑn/, /ˈeɪ.ɑn/, /ˈiː.ən/, /ˈiː.ɒn/ or /ˈeɪ.ɒn/}} then clearly you can't switch to "uhn-uh-uhn" quite so easily. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.69|162.158.74.69]] 23:52, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
:It says every vowel SOUND, which is different than "how each vowel sounds". The sound of that I is a Y. The O following it indeed uses the schwa. :) That's my guess, anyway, I don't know these pronunciation things that deeply. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:57, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
:This dipthong has a consonant in it. What is going on? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.65.182|172.69.65.182]] 12:15, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
: "''except for the i vowel in onion''" IMHO, there is no 'i' in onion. UN-YUN. The Y acts more of a consonant. -Me (born of a Missouri mom and a Connecticut father, babbled in Colorado, schooled in Calif then New Jersey within hearing of South Philly, yo!) [[User:PRR|PRR]] ([[User talk:PRR|talk]]) 20:18, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
::Personally, I'd call onion a two-and-a-half syllable word. I've internalized the concept of half syllables ever since my Korean friend Hyun taught me how to properly pronounce her name. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.247.40|172.69.247.40]] 18:54, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
I can't read the words "love cult" without thinking of DHMIS 3. [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Miscellaneous#Help_with_Creating_a_User_Page|Trogdor147]] ([[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Miscellaneous#Help_with_Creating_a_User_Page|talk]]) 00:10, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
::The /j/ sound commonly found in "onion" is not generally considered a vowel. As a test, try to put it between two consonants to make a complete syllable: first try to say /np/, and notice you have to add a schwa (neutral vowel), /nəp/; then try to say /nyp/, and you'll add that same extra vowel, /nyəp/. It's sometimes called a "semivowel", because it has some properties of a vowel and some of a consonant; or sometimes a "glide", because of the way it sets at the edge a syllable. - [[User:IMSoP|IMSoP]] ([[User talk:IMSoP|talk]]) 16:01, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

If someone actually read this conversation to me using only schwa, I don't think I'd understand it. I usually consider myself a fluent English speaker, but my native language - Polish - doesm't have this vovel at all. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.103.231|162.158.103.231]] 07:16, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
:Yeah, I think for us non-native speakers this is quite hard to replicate. I had to read the sentences out loud several times before I heard it. The standard British English I learned at school 35 years ago tends to have less Schwas in it, I guess. In German we do have some Schwas, mainly towards the end of words, but I don't think it is possible to construct whole sentence without any other vowels. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.155.157|162.158.155.157]] 07:56, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
I’m american (boston area) but some of these vowels do sound different from others to me, although it still seems it would be clear and ok if they’re all said the same. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.65.182|172.69.65.182]] 12:15, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Randall seems to have terminally confused the schwa [ǝ] with [ʌ] as in "cup". I've never seen such an incorrect xkcd. In the UK, the Manchester accent almost universally consists of [ǝ] and even they wouldn't be able to use [ǝ] for "onion" [[Special:Contributions/172.69.223.163|172.69.223.163]] 13:04, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
:The explanation mentioned the {{w|strut–comma merger}} well before this comment. There's no need to jump to {{w|Linguistic prescriptivism|calling other dialects "incorrect"}}. [[User talk:AgentMuffin|~AgentMuffin]] 21:53, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Maybe a better symbol could be used than an apostrophe in the explanation? It's difficult to read/spot, and the quote is surrounded in quotation marks, which makes it a little confusing. I'm not sure what though. --[[User:Mushrooms|Mushrooms]] ([[User talk:Mushrooms|talk]]) 15:24, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

:Maybe an underscore? “D_gs c_s(_)n, th_ _n fr_m L_nd_n, r_ns _ B_mbl l_v c_lt.” - 16:01, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

It's a shame Schwa isn't pronounced with a schwa. [[User:Kev|Kev]] ([[User talk:Kev|talk]]) 16:47, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

For an example of where people mispronounce vowels for comic effect, here's a 40 year old and occasionally very impolite/politically incorrect BBC comedy which used people speaking in different accents as their conceit for different languages. So an englishman speaking very bad french comes across very like these XKCD characters https://youtu.be/ycqc0L4a2wQ?si=KO_qvZqMJH-3Gy1N&t=90 [[User:Kev|Kev]] ([[User talk:Kev|talk]]) 16:52, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

This is highly inconsistent both with my experience and the diction/IPA I studied in college as part of a vocal music education degree. The short U [ʌ] and schwa [ǝ] are different vowels, and the difference is most obvious (in words used in the strip) in "cousin" and "obstruction" which would sound ridiculous if you pronounced all the vowel sounds exactly the same. I would have failed an assignment I turned in marking this strip full of schwas. They're almost all [ʌ] except in those words and "a" and "of". {{unsigned ip|172.70.131.119|13:10, 17 March 2024}}
:Diction ('correct' diction, e.g. RP or other elevated standards) is one thing, but this is everyday casual speech. Maybe your vocal music emphasis is on something like RADA's high-baseline 'standard' accent, beating out the provincial drawl (like they certainly used to, yet anyone in a Ken Loach film is expected to use more highly local inflections (as suited to themselves and their intended character). Accents in music are going to be different (either hyper, in 'folk'/regional, suppressed in easy-listening or stylised for partifular wide genres), but again hard to compare with casual (lazy?) speech.
:Ironically "of" is the one word I might not 'schwaify' so quickly. For something "I would've done it", there's a schwa in the "d'v", but "I would of course have done it" has none in the "d of" (even run together). [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.190|172.71.178.190]] 14:48, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

We should make this post able to be spoken only using ə. I'll have a go tomorrow if no-one does first. [[User:SqueakSquawk4|SqueakSquawk4]] ([[User talk:SqueakSquawk4|talk]]) 22:30, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

I like how this is one of the most controversial comics in recent memory and it's about pronunciation. [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Miscellaneous#Help_with_Creating_a_User_Page|Trogdor147]] ([[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Miscellaneous#Help_with_Creating_a_User_Page|talk]]) 18:15, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Talk:2876: Range Safety

2024-01-03T17:37:57Z

172.69.247.40:

The 'standard' and '2x' sized images had unexpected sizes, so a Trivia section has been automatically generated, and an imagesize parameter has been added (at half size) to render the image consistently with other comics on this website. --[[User:TheusafBOT|TheusafBOT]] ([[User talk:TheusafBOT|talk]]) 14:54, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
:Okay, so, today we learned modern xkcd comics are drawn entirely with the pencil tool, with the brush size for the text averaging 22 pixels, and then downscaled to 1/15th of the size before final publication. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.103.91|162.158.103.91]] 15:01, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
::The text is a font...
::[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 17:03, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Why is the tower missing in the second panel?
:If the other buildings weren't in the same place, and the tower weren't back in panel 3, I'd have guessed that the rocket was moved back to the VAB to wait for the next launch window. Maybe this was more activity of the Range Mischief Officer? [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 17:05, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Is it worth adding a guess of what kind of rocket it is to the explanation? The phallic design seems like one of Blue Origin's. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 17:06, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
:The thin "neck" makes it look like somewhat like a Long March 4 when carrying a large fairing, but it's a bit exaggerated in how much thicker the lower stages are. The ratio looks more like a Vega-C, but then the next is way too short.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.247.40|172.69.247.40]] 17:37, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Talk:2870: Love Songs

2023-12-23T05:24:51Z

172.69.247.40:

I need to know which axis means “does the ‘me’ like them” because I fail to understand it.--[[Special:Contributions/172.71.134.164|172.71.134.164]] 23:53, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
:Pick a song you know that isn't near the (X=Y) line, and it should explain it.
:e.g. "That don't impress me much", at centre-top. Clearly the other party is trying to impress (likes the 'me') but Shania is ambivalent in response (she doesn't actually love their being a rocket-scientist, nor hate it).
:"Killing me softly..." is from 'me' having love, whilst "You're so vain..." is actively insulting the other party (but indifference by the target ''could'' be the attitude).
:Though for X=Y items (e.g. "I will survive" - it's declared to be an unamicable but ultimately mutually-acceptable split) the way round of course doesn't matter. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.224|172.69.194.224]] 00:12, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm hoping "I Will Survive" isn't a reference to the Zootopia abortion comic. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.174.82|172.68.174.82]] 23:56, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
:Well, some of the (apparently obvious) references I didn't know. First thought about "Girlfriend" was the {{w|Girlfriend in a Coma (song)|The Smiths song}} ''almost'' of that name. (And it looks like there are almost thirty possible songs... not sure how many are covers of others... {{w|Girlfriend (disambiguation)#Songs|under that exact name}}.) Can I suggest that any possible songs that could be confused (but maybe not match the plotted position, being of a different story/tone) be recorded in a "Not to be confused with..." section? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.177|172.71.178.177]] 01:02, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
::At first, I confused "The Shape of You" with [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1xVigsyoJw "The Shape of Things"]. Whose position and trajectory on the chart would be complex. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 19:14, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

not pictured: Jim Steinman songs, which spend most of their time out of the XY plane. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.214.109|172.69.214.109]] 00:14, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Gotta say, Perfect is a far better Ed Sheeran song than Shape of You

The fault here is not so much with the axes or their interpretation as with the verb, "to love." [http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~heycock/thurber-only.html Nothing can be done about the verb "to love."] [[Special:Contributions/172.70.210.62|172.70.210.62]] 04:19, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

(reads comic) (automatically sorts in all "Offspring" love songs) (thanks very much, xkcd, you got me again) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.160.124|172.71.160.124]] 09:24, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

"Girlfriend" by Matthew Sweet doesn't remotely follow the narrative in the explanation, but could nevertheless be graphed as shown.[[User:Yorkshire Pudding|Yorkshire Pudding]] ([[User talk:Yorkshire Pudding|talk]]) 10:07, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Why is "I Will Always Love You" higher on the Y axis than the X axis?? The title and chorus seem genuine to me, and the rationale for breaking up is "I'm not what you need." [[Special:Contributions/172.68.34.58|172.68.34.58]] 15:08, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

I love the way this came out. Mad props to everyone who worked on the table summaries. Were LLMs employed? [[User:Liv2splain|Liv2splain]] ([[User talk:Liv2splain|talk]]) 18:31, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

:yes, and it made a mistake. Well, I made the mistake.In my prompt I was asking for a summary of the Song T-Rex from Katy Perry and chatGPT did neither complain nor correct - THAT is their mistake. And several people did not recognize even as it was obvious - including me. 🫣 --[[User:LaVe|LaVe]] ([[User talk:LaVe|talk]]) 23:43, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

In my opinion the Y-Axis of "Girlfriend" does not fit Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend", it should be closer to "Yes" than to "No". The lyrics include "I see the way you look at me [...] I know you talk about me all the time again and again".
If the video counts: The guy ends up without his girlfriend (red-haired Avril) and seems to always enjoy the company and a kiss of black-haired Avril. The video ends with him and blond-haired Avril disappearing into a bathroom stall. Whomever you see as the "I" in the song, black-haired or blond-haired Avril, he seems sorta interested in both, so a "Yes". [[Special:Contributions/172.71.134.31|172.71.134.31]] 18:46, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Idea: We could add a column for the year the song came out. It would be interesting to see the year distribution and if it clumps in the late 90s (when Randall was a teenager). [[User:Laser813|Laser813]] ([[User talk:Laser813|talk]]) 19:33, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

It needs a third (time) axis: in "You’re so vain", for example, there's the line "But you gave away the things you loved/And one of them was me" which suggests that the Warren Beatty^w^w male character at least USED to live the singer, and "when I was still quite naïve” might imply the feeling was once mutual, regardless of the current degree of indifference and/or active disdain. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.135.129|172.69.135.129]] 10:56, 22 December 2023 (UTC)
:That's just the same issue as the Piña Colada, really. What you could do for those (and others) is trace a track leading up to the dot (probably, from whatever history the song narrative describes as having come from). And maybe a short dashed onwards line to where they hope/fear/want/expect the relationship to progress to. Could get busy. And would need (probably subjective) analysis of the full lyrics then work out how best to tweak it not to get a plate full of undifferentiatable spaghetti. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.111|172.71.178.111]] 11:24, 22 December 2023 (UTC)
:It seems to me that, while both a past tense, it seems to me that "You're So Vain" is describing history (focused on how we got to the "now" of the song), while Piña Colada is presenting a narrative. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.247.40|172.69.247.40]] 05:24, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2845: Extinction Mechanisms

2023-10-23T23:09:49Z

172.69.247.40:

-Hello, I'm a Christian that has done research to be intellectually fulfiled, and I would just want to say that I did not know that paleontologists were having trouble with this problem. A general Christian solution is that Noah's Flood, combined with the aftermath being much cooler, was the cause of the dinosaur extinction. Also, before you hate on me, I'm not trying to correct anyone, or be offensive. I just thought I'd share my thoughts on this and add another theory to the mix. This is my second time posting a comment, so sorry if I did something wrong or something. Also, I know there's a comic that "debunks" this, but there seems to have been more evidence and research done since then. Also, the biggest help to me has been ''The Case for A Creator'' by Lee Strobel. [[User:Azerty99|Azerty99]] ([[User talk:Azerty99|talk]]) 15:17, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

:Reading a book (or even many books) is not research. Science means you're never absolutely sure about anything. You're only relatively certain until contradictory proof of the currently theory (or theories) exists. This is not a weakness, but exactly the strength of the scientific method. If you have significant and non-controvertible proof that men and dinosaurs existed at the same time, I'll tentatively accept your ideas. Until then, it's all just bunk. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.197.151|162.158.197.151]] 15:32, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

:Paleontologists are not having an issue with this. It is merely the premise for the comic. The available evidence vastly points to the extinction of the non avian dinosaurs ~66 million years ago. Of course the scientific community always welcomes new evidence to evaluate and see if it leads to a different conclusion or modification of the current consensus.

:It's a troll folks, treat it with the contempt it deserves. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.43.240|172.69.43.240]] 19:09, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

One obvious type of hole was not discussed. The Acme Portable Hole™ is an entirely different class of holes as extensively demonstrated in (this)[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wile_E._Coyote_and_the_Road_Runner] documentation.

-Ok, thanks for the comments in return! And thanks for not being extremely rude! Here's one article that shows several bio-organic materials that should have decayed if in the situations they were in for -66 million years. https://genesisapologetics.com/faqs/dinosaurs-lived-recently-and-died-in-noahs-flood/ Also, can I see the evidence shown in the second comic? I would like to see all this evidence. Also, I wasn't aware that scientific ideas shown in xkcd that were heavily implied to be true were false. That sounds a bit rude, but usually xkcd
gives funny interpretations of actual problems, like all the ones about COVID, or the Heartbleed Bug. Also, I'm not a troll. I'm willing to debate as long as people aren't saying things like "Science says" and equivocal stuff, and shows evidence instead of just giving vague statements. Thanks! [[User:Azerty99|Azerty99]] ([[User talk:Azerty99|talk]]) 22:25, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
:There's little disagreement that an asteroid striking the Yucatan around 66 mya caused or was a significant contributor to the extinction of the dinosaurs, but there are multiple (not necessarily mutually exclusive) hypotheses about what exact mechanisms had the biggest effects.
:It's like finding a body with nineteen bullet wounds. The detectives will have to piece together the evidence and come to tentative conclusions about what kind of gun was used, from how far away, whether the body was moved after the shooting, whether the victim died immediately or after some time, etc. But until someone finds something major that suggests otherwise, "death by shooting" is going to have to remain the working theory. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.247.41|172.69.247.41]] 23:09, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2827: Brassica

2023-09-12T00:51:26Z

172.69.247.40:

You can also get pretty good mileage from claiming random things (like peaches, corn, or Skittles) are actually a type of berry. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.247.40|172.69.247.40]] 00:51, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2821: Path Minimization

2023-08-29T03:05:36Z

172.69.247.40:

Judging from the angle of the arms, I do not believe that the swimmer is in distress. In fact I think the swimmer is just a future projection of Cueball, not a separate person.

Technically, the path that minimizes swimming passed a nearby boat rental stand. (by the way, I didn't write the unsigned paragraph above this one) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.247.40|172.69.247.40]] 03:05, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2816: Types of Solar Eclipse

2023-08-17T04:26:29Z

172.69.247.40:

Is the annular eclipse actually possible? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.78.118|162.158.78.118]] 21:24, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes. https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/eclipses/2023/oct-14-annular/where-when/ [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.7|172.69.33.7]] 21:34, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

I interpret the Hug Eclipse as the sun wrapping around the moon giving it a hug, rather than the moon being pinched in on the sides. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.62|172.70.211.62]] 21:38, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
:I amended that (twice, first time got blitzed in an Edit Conflict situation), when I thought of a better way (two slightly different better ways! ...might not even have used the better one, in instance #2) to describe it. But I rushed a bit anyway... I can see typos. (Not including the likes of "centre", which is not a typo but me defaulting to British English by default; though no doubt that 'needs' changing too.)
:I'm still wondering if just "label" and "description" columns are needed (image details can be recycled into Transcript, per label). Or if it could be ";header" and ":...description" without the table, but I think it looks no worse than I had feared, as the current table form. Of course, others have added more prosaic explanation paragraphs, so I'll let it sit a while. Almost certainly the other active editors here are going to have ideas about how to merge/expunge my efforts, and I'll let them copyedit my errors/'errors' as well. But at least there's a framework answer (or several) now. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.179|172.70.162.179]] 22:20, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

That must be a VERY scary dragonite. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.26.153|172.71.26.153]] 02:20, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

I love this community, which will explain how a solar panel works and why the moon cannot give the sun a hug with the same level of rigor and detail. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.247.40|172.69.247.40]] 04:26, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2798: Room Temperature

2023-07-06T11:56:36Z

172.69.247.40:

Isn't there actually quite a lot of funding available for uncontrolled hot fusion? https://www.icanw.org/squandered_2021_global_nuclear_weapons_spending_report ;) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.38.32|162.158.38.32]] 23:29, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Note that '''controlled''' hot fusion (e. g. a functioning Tokamak) would also be really valuable. [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 02:17, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Someone explain why superconductors are a big deal

Arguably the temperature has to change for a semiconductor to work. For it to work at room temperature alone would be pure magic.

A note about the fusion connection. In recent years, there have been breakthroughs in high temperature superconductors, which theoretically would allow to build controlled hot fusion reactors at a much smaller scale (because they can create much higher magnetic fields). There are seveal private companies that attempt to do that, most notably CFS with their [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARC_(tokamak) SPARC Tokamak]. I think this is what is being referenced here. --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.160.54|172.71.160.54]] 08:16, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
:Maybe you could add that yourself? I wrote the current explanation but actually have no expertise in that area, and also I'm not sure how to incorporate that into the current flow of the explanation. [[User:Rebekka|Rebekka]] ([[User talk:Rebekka|talk]]) 09:01, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

:I assumed the title text (which says "demonstrates" and not "produces" uncontrolled fusion) - could be as simple as a device proving the sun is a fusion reaction --[[User:Nico|Nico]] ([[User talk:Nico|talk]]) 11:49, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

::It could also be that he does have a device that produces uncontrolled hot fusion, and they won't fund it because the government does not negotiate with terrorists. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.247.40|172.69.247.40]] 11:56, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

As I understand it, "cold fusion" doesn't necessarily mean room temperature. That would actually be quite useless. Cold fusion could mean anything from "doesn't need millions of degrees" to "cool enough to directly hook up to boilers to power steam turbines" (and potentially a lower pressure requirement). The "room temperature" thing is mostly due to bad "science" and frauds (though it is still questionable if higher temperature cold fusion can be a thing, too). It's easier to cheaply make an alleged "cold fusion device" if you don't have to heat it up to or contain it at up to several thousand degrees. [[User:627235|627235]] ([[User talk:627235|talk]]) 11:23, 6 July 2023 (UTC)