explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2798: Room Temperature

2023-07-06T14:04:05Z

172.70.174.223:

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.

:While I agree that a semiconductor that does not heat up in operation (IE stays at room temp) would be revolutionary, the way Cueball describes that they work "while sitting right here on the table" suggests they are "Room Temperature Semiconductors" in the sense that they can operate while immersed in a room temperature environment not necessarily that they themselves stay room temperature. Akin to the contrast between current superconductors that need to be blisteringly cold before they super-conduct and the hypothetical "room temperature superconductors" that could simply be strung through the air like present day power lines.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.174.223|172.70.174.223]] 14:04, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

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)
:I took that phrasing directly from wikipedia, but you appear to be right. I did some further reading and apparently there are working methods of cold fusion (most notably {{w|Muon-catalyzed fusion}}) which are very different from the badly-performed experiments that gave cold fusion a bad name. But the difference is, reputable cold fusion still requires vast amounts of energy, just not as heat, while disreputable cold fusion is claimed to perform nuclear fusion basically for free (commonly by doing an electrolysis of palladium in heavy water). I'll try to incorporate that, but it would be great if someone with actual expertise would chime in and do their own edits.[[User:Rebekka|Rebekka]] ([[User talk:Rebekka|talk]]) 12:33, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
::I don't claim any great expertise, but I was already (when I wasn't being edit-conflicted) adding little bits such as the "meeting at 'room temperature' speculation" whereby a nigh-on perpetual room-temperature process (albeit with 'hot products') ''could'' be the Holy Grail (or {{w|DeLorean time machine#Mr. Fusion|"Mr Fusion"}}) of future cheap and manageable (and somehow not weaponisable/fail-deadly) table-top-scale fusion devices. Of course, this is is at least twenty-minutes-into-the-future stuff (deLoreans aside!) and may or may not ever become realistic. Perhaps less likely than the "flying cars and jetpacks" (or hover-boards!), of common imagination. But ''perhaps'' we might sometime get something the size (and surface heat, beyond the layers of necessary insulation and shielding for temperatures, fusion products and magnetic flux) of a household gas boiler. Probably not even that, in which case it could be justneighbourhood "{{w|Cogeneration|CHP}}"s to add managed resilience across the power-grids. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.230|172.70.90.230]] 13:43, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

2421: Tower of Babel

2022-03-08T14:53:16Z

172.70.174.223: Changed it to actually describe morphosyntactic alignment

{{comic
| number = 2421
| date = February 5, 2021
| title = Tower of Babel
| image = tower_of_babel.png
| titletext = Soon, linguists will be wandering around everywhere, saying things like "colorless green ideas sleep furiously" and "more people have been to Russia than I have," and speech will become unintelligible.
}}

==Explanation==

The story of the {{w|Tower of Babel}} is the Biblical explanation for the existence of different languages in the world. In the story, humans endeavor to build a tower reaching heaven. Their arrogance angers God and prompts him to sabotage the project. He does this by "confounding their speech" (commonly interpreted as giving everyone their own language), inhibiting their ability to work together.

In this retelling, however, the events are the same, but the motives changed. God is pleased with the tower, and promises to create a diversity of languages, not as a punishment, but as a reward for the member of the party who finds words interesting. Megan seems to recognize the potential issues this would cause, but the word-loving woman is enthusiastic. This plays on [[Randall]]'s various geeky interests, recognizing that complexities of the world, which frustrate many people, are a source of great joy and interest to others. A world with only one language would make travel and global communication much easier, but for those with an interest in linguistics, it would be deeply limiting, as there would be only one language to study.

The party that ascends to the top of the tower consists of [[Cueball]], [[Megan]] and a curly-haired woman, who may be the linguist {{w|Gretchen McCulloch}} as she was depicted in [[2381: The True Name of the Bear]].

{{w|Phonology}} is the study of the sounds used in a language or dialect, or of the systems that languages use to organize sounds. For example, English has the words "light" and "right", indicating a distinction between /l/ and /r/, but other languages, such as Japanese, do not, resulting in the (in)famous stereotype. On the other hand, English does not make a distinction between /u/ and /y/, while French does, having words such as "le but" (the goal) and "le bout" (the tip).

{{w|Word order}} is the study of order of the parts of a language, e.g. the subject, object, verb, and other modifiers. English uses the subject–verb–object order ("She loves him"), but other languages use subject-object-verb ("She him loves") and other permutations of these orders.

{{w|Morphosyntactic alignment}} is the relationship between the "roles" in a sentence, and how they relate to transitivity. The vast majority of world languages, including English, use nominative-accusative alignment. In nominative-accusative languages, the subjects of transitive verbs (verbs with objects) and the subjects of intransitive verbs (verbs without objects) are treated the same, and differently from the objects of transitive verbs. For example, "She sees him" and "She runs" use the same word "she". However, other forms exist like ergative-absolutive alignment, where the subject of an intransitive verb matches the ''object'' of a transitive verb ("She sees him" and "Her runs"), transitive alignment, where the subject and object of a transitive verb are the same and different from the subject of an intransitive verb ("Her sees him" and "She runs"), or split-S and split ergativity, where it follows nominative-accusative or ergative-absolutive based on context. For example, if it depends on animacy, you could have "She (the person) runs", but "Them (the trees) fall".

The title text expands the joke by suggesting that the miscommunication caused by the Tower of Babel is not due to language barriers, but instead because linguists have created intentionally meaningless sentences to illustrate points about grammar, and identifies two famous examples of such. "{{w|Colorless green ideas sleep furiously}}", coined by linguist {{w|Noam Chomsky}} in 1957, is an example of a sentence that is structurally correct but contains paradoxes and meaningless comparisons: Something cannot be both colorless AND green (see {{w|Invisible Pink Unicorn}}), ideas do not sleep, and sleeping generally is not done furiously.{{Citation needed}} That said, the sentence "colorless green ideas sleep furiously" is so well known in linguistics that a competition to make the sentence meaningful was held in 1985 and {{w|Colorless_green_ideas_sleep_furiously#Attempts_at_meaningful_interpretations|attracted a number of entrants}}.

"More people have been to Russia than I have" is an example of {{w|comparative illusion}}. This sentence seems to make sense at first, but upon deeper analysis does not. Many people misinterpret its meaning as "I do not own/have in my household as many people as those who have been to Russia."

==Transcript==
:[The Tower of Babel is shown. It has a broad two sectioned base and above that extends straight up out of the top of the frame, with 10 identical segments. This is seen from afar, so the three people standing at the base of the tower is very small. But Cueball and Megan can be easily identified. They are standing on either side of a woman with big curly hair (which is first clear in the next panel). The text spoken is written over the tower in white sections that hides the tower. But the tower can be seen above, between and below these two text segments:]
:Cueball: The Tower of Babel is complete!
:Megan: Let's go meet God!

:[Cueball, the curly haired woman and Megan are now standing at the top of the Tower of Babel. The top is made of bricks, but the part of the last segment before the top looks like those shown in the first panel. God is represented by an off-panel voice coming from a star burst at the top of the panel. The three people look up in that direction.]
:Cueball: Hi God!
:God (off-panel): Wow, nice tower!
:God (off-panel): You did a great job! I'm so proud!
:Megan: Thanks!

:[Same settings but Megan has turned towards the curly haired woman holding an arm out towards her. The woman has taken one hand to her chin.]
:God (off-panel): I'm going to give you a reward.
:God (off-panel): What do you like about the world?
:Curly haired woman: Hmm. Words are really cool.
:Megan: No, wait-

:[Same settings, in a broader panel. The curly haired woman lifts her hands up curled into fists. Her yell comes from a starburst over her head, to indicate the difference to normal speech. Megan has taken her arm down.]
:God (off-panel): Great! I'm going to give you lots of languages to study, each with its own phonology, word ordering, morphosyntactic alignment...
:Curly haired woman: '''''YESSSSSS!'''''
:Megan: We should '''''not''''' have brought a linguist.

==Trivia==
In [[2381: The True Name of the Bear]], sentences spoken by the curly haired-woman, the suspected Gretchen McCulloch do not have periods at their ends, a fact which she mentioned on Twitter. However, in this comic, she uses periods, so her previous periodlessness might be a coincidence and not a trait of her character on xkcd.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Religion]]
[[Category:Language]]