explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:3046: Stromatolites

2025-02-05T14:07:53Z

172.71.146.32:

Yay, another Beret Guy appearance! '''[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]][[User talk:42.book.addict|Talk to me!]]''' 03:46, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I'm trying to remember Bloom County and the penguin (Opus) or Snoopy by Schulz because of the last panel. Shrug. Prolly both. Warm is good. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.175.208|172.70.175.208]] 06:08, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
:Add Zonker to this list? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.39|108.162.245.39]] 17:29, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
:: Zonker Harris, yes! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.175.106|172.70.175.106]] 18:16, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

How can anybody be related to rock formations? Stomatolites are not organisms, they are the product of organisms. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.88|141.101.105.88]] 08:12, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
:This might be one of Randall's weaker offerings in terms of scientific accuracy. I think that "stromatolites" as here used refers to the cyanobacterial component of stromatolites, which is the component detected in ancient fossils and is the one responsible for oxygen-evolving photosynthesis (responsible for what was perhaps the {{w|Great_Oxidation_Event|first global environmental catastrophe}} - an element of ancestry of which it might be wise not to boast). Modern stromatolites have both cyanobacteria (ancestors of plastids) and alpha-proteobacteria (ancestors of mitochondria) in their microbial mats, and it's reasonable to assume that alpha-proteobacteria were present in the fossils. So the "cousins" would be of cyanobacteria in the stromatolites, not the stromatolites themselves (in which both were, presumably, cohabiting). Beret Guy also appears to be confused about the proposed sequence of events leading to the origins of mitochondria and eukaryotic cell nuclei. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.39|108.162.245.39]] 17:29, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
:I've seen the surviving microbial mats in Australia referred to as "stromatolites" as well.[[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 12:39, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

I wonder if he is related to any specific dinosaurs or whether he bypassed that branch of the tree completely. 09:48, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

I think there's a joke (or at least a reference) here about the relatedness of life. All currently-known organisms are related by descent from a common ancestor, which in English makes us all cousins, of various distances. Mitochondria in plants and animals, for instance, must descend from the same bacterium-like organism that became an endosymbiont in a proto-eukaryote.[[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 12:39, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
:Since mitochondria and chloroplasts were both originally distinct organisms that were absorbed into the host cells, that makes most modern life descendants of cannibals. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 15:37, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
::By that logic, eating pretty much any food except salt (and maybe dairy?) is cannibalism. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.70.87|172.68.70.87]] 16:09, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

I immediately thought of [https://fabpedigree.com/ Fabulous Pedigree], which ''does'' include ancestry (and side-branches) going back to (and past) mitochondria, though from a quick check it doesn't seem to specifically include stromatolites. Obviously the listing has lots of (mostly implied) gaps. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.217.72|162.158.217.72]] 13:55, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Beret Guy is emulating Pooh-Bah in The Mikado: "I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial atomic globule."[[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.190|172.69.33.190]] 19:07, 4 February 2025 (UTC)NickM

I've added a bit about the length of time it would need to take to click that far back in the past. I'm sure I have got the amount out by several orders of magnitude, so I would appreciate it if anyone fancies a go at estimating how long Beret Guy would have taken. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.241.27|172.71.241.27]] 10:49, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
: [[2608: Family Reunion]] estimates about 50 billion generations to the MRCA with plants; this would have taken about a century at a speed of 15 clicks per second. Bacteria reproduce extremely fast - or at least modern ones do - which could easily add a few trillion generations (and a few thousand years of clicking) on the bacterial side of the ancestry. In other words, "thousands of years" is likely an overestimate but not ''that'' much of one. (Obviously the time becomes very feasible if Beret Guy used a site that summarized the ancestry.) --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.111.134|162.158.111.134]] 20:25, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
::Typically the way it works is you work back so far and then find a connection to a ''pre-existing'' tree, so he wouldn't need to go very far back to get to a tree that covered all modern humans, provided someone had already done the work beyond that point before him.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.29|172.70.91.29]] 10:27, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
:::...this would have required someone else to have (give or take a small proportion of BG's generations, due to mismatches) done the same work as BG ''and then'' the work that we're now excusing BG as having not done. Hard to know how that would happen
:::Theoretically, if the website/database was ''live'' at the point of the point of Most Recent Common Human Ancestor, that individual could establish the 'further back' (ready for BG's search to find them and latch on to it), or at least as far back as a prior MRCA that also had the website hand to pre-establish yet further back (for as many further iterations as necessary), which might even be tied in with ''how'' sufficiently(?) detailed core family tree data. But then BG's Special Powers is reliant upon finding a website that actually predates the web ('90s) and the internet ('70s), and networked databases ('60s), and programmable computers ('40s), and keyboards (let's say the 1700s), and mice (the paleocene, who would have probably prefered using {{w|Gopher (protocol)|gopher}}), that was somehow still interacted with in order to set things up ready for BG's own (more trivial) direct miracles. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.167|172.70.163.167]] 13:10, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Six paragraphs should be four. Too much non-explanatory and otherwise pointless digression. I'm sure the people who write it don't realize how much it turns off people coming here to read an explanation. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.215.72|172.70.215.72]] 11:03, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
:Which two paragraphs? And we already have long paragraphs, but if we joined two pairs together then you'd be happy? Counting just paragraphs is not a good measure, whatever you really mean. And I guarantee that most of what you'd want to remove is only subjectively unnecessary.
:Personally, I'd like the existing six to be tightened up (somehow, yet to go through them to work out how), but each has good points in. Could you be happier with just less loquacious verbosity, but presenting the same general scope in less space? (Probably not, but depends exactly which elements are "pointless digression" in your POV...) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.167|172.70.163.167]] 13:10, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
:Tolkien wrote this about critique of his Lord of the Rings: "... for I find from the letters that I have received that the passages or chapters that are to some a blemish are all by others specially approved." In the absence of a polling system, how are folk to assess the significance of individual comments? One could do a Musk run through the text, roiling the explain-xkcd community and thereby creating a disturbance in the Force, without actually improving the read. The uncharacteristically poor handling of the science underlying the comic complicates efforts to improve conciseness and clarity. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.146.32|172.71.146.32]] 14:07, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

== The [[What If? chapters|What If? article index]] project ==

Hey everyone,

I'm not sure if you noticed the banner of the site, but for the last few weeks a group of [[Talk:What If? chapters|incredibly talented editors]] have been redesigning the [[What If? chapters|'''index of ''What If?'' articles''']] from the ground up. Among other things, we've merged two huge tables, added a TON of additional info, created complex templates, and made [[What If? chapters|dozens and dozens of other improvements]]. I believe that, as a wiki, we should have a complete and detailed index of all what if? articles, [[List of all comics (full)|just like we do for the comics]], and we're getting so close to that goal! We mostly only need to add the missing explanations, improve the existing ones, and add the questions and answer summary from the books (plus other things).

We would love your help (especially if you have the first book)! We've prepared a [[What If? chapters|to-do list]] at the top of the page, containing everything that needs to be done, if you're interested. --[[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 07:00, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

3007: Probabilistic Uncertainty

2024-11-07T16:12:20Z

172.71.146.32: Pre-election anxiety

{{comic
| number = 3007
| date = November 4, 2024
| title = Probabilistic Uncertainty
| image = probabilistic_uncertainty_2x.png
| imagesize = 474x385px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = "One popular strategy is to enter an emotional spiral. Could that be the right approach? We contacted several researchers who are experts in emotional spirals to ask them, but none of them were in a state to speak with us."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a PESSIMISTIC POLL-VIEWING BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic is about the difficulty of dealing psychologically with 50/50 odds, and is likely inspired by the {{W|2024 United States presidential election}}, as this comic was released the day prior. The odds of the election as reported by many media sources were close to 50/50 <ref>https://www.270towin.com/2024-presidential-election-polls/</ref> <ref>https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/us/elections/polls-president.html</ref> <ref>https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/national/</ref>, where the pre-election polls show roughly a 50/50 chance of either {{w|Kamala Harris}} or {{w|Donald Trump}} being elected. It seems more and more people suffer from pre-election anxiety <ref>https://www.cnet.com/health/mental/stressed-about-election-day-9-expert-approved-protect-your-mental-health/</ref> <ref>https://www.cbsnews.com/news/election-2024-stress-anxiety-tips-experts/</ref> <ref>https://jedfoundation.org/resource/election-stress-tips-to-manage-anxious-feelings-about-politics/</ref> <ref>https://fortune.com/well/article/election-anxiety/</ref> <ref>https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/04/us/politics/election-anxiety.html</ref> and the uncertainty of the results doesn't help.
This 50/50 scenario is the third scenario shown in the comic.

Further, with regards to N/A - the odds of "precisely" 50/50 are probabilistically zero, unless the event under consideration is something relatively trivial such as a coinflip or die roll (and even with those it is extremely unlikely the coins or dice are perfectly "fair"). Any scenario that involves social sciences, such as an election (or even a single relationship) will never be precisely 50/50 (or, indeed, *any* discrete value).

{| class="wikitable"
!Odds
!How to think about it in an emotionally healthy way
!Explanation
|-
| Good outcome more likely || Recognize that the bad outcome is possible, but be reassured that the odds are in your favor || An optimistic attitude with a dose of realism.
|-
| Bad outcome more likely || Prepare for the bad outcome while remembering that the future isn't certain and hope is justified || A realistic attitude with a dose of optimism.
|-
| Precisely 50/50 || ????? N/A ???? || {{w|N/A}} stands for "not available", "no answer", "not applicable" or "not assessed". The actual worst case scenario, with no single obvious stance to take. (Thus also leaving ambiguous which fall-back position one should prepare to hold in reserve.)
|}

There are any number of actual strategies to consider, the details of which will all depend very much upon the exact situation being faced, and one's own existing range of experiences and attitudes. Part of the joke may be in presenting such a condensed summary. Anyone who truly feels they need help to prepare such expectations should ideally seek specific advice/counsel, not take a generic and impersonal checklist at face value.

The title text is a joke making use of ambiguous wording: "researchers who are experts in emotional spirals" could either refer to researchers who study emotional spirals, or researchers who are undergoing emotional spirals themselves. Evidently, all the researchers "we" contacted were the latter, and thus unable to advise the comic.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[A table titled "Coping With Probabilistic Uncertainty", with two columns labeled "Scenario" and "How to think about it in an emotionally healthy way". The boxes in the Scenario column contains text followed by a rectangle split into two parts; the left part is a smiley face, the right part is a frowny face with slanted, angry eyes.]

Row 1, column 1: "Good outcome more likely". The smiley face portion of the rectangle is about 75%.
Row 1, column 2: "Recognize that the bad outcome is possible, but be reassured that the odds are in your favor".

Row 2, column 1: "Bad outcome more likely". The smiley face portion of the rectangle is about 25%.
Row 2, column 2: "Prepare for the bad outcome while remembering that the future isn't certain and hope is justified".

Row 3, column 1: "Precisely 50/50". The rectangle is split in half.
Row 3, column 2: "????? N/A ????"

==Trivia==
* This comic was posted a day before Election Day in the US, where the media has been reporting (based off of voter polls) that the 2 presidential candidates ([[Kamala Harris]] and [[Donald Trump]]) are closely contesting for the White House. This may be a possible reason behind the creation of this comic.

* Randall has dealt with the possibility of a tied electoral count 12 years before in ''what-if? [https://what-if.xkcd.com/19 #19]''

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Psychology]] [[Category:Statistics]]

1862: Particle Properties

2024-05-30T07:55:56Z

172.71.146.32: /* Explanation */ more correct

{{comic
| number = 1862
| date = July 12, 2017
| title = Particle Properties
| image = particle_properties.png
| titletext = Each particle also has a password which allows its properties to be changed, but the cosmic censorship hypothesis suggests we can never observe the password itself—only its secure hash.
}}

==Explanation==
A table is presented comparing the range (maximum and minimum value) and scale (how big number increments are) of several measures. The table begins by listing properties pertinent to {{w|particle physics}} as the title suggests, but quickly devolves to other domains such as role-playing games (such as D&D) and sports after failing to provide a good definition of {{w|Flavour (particle physics)|flavor}}.

{| class=wikitable
! Property
! Scale
! Explanation
|-
| Electric charge
| [-1,1]
| The {{w|electric charge}} is shown in increments of a third from -1 to +1 which are the only known charges of fundamental particles (leptons, quarks and gauge bosons); however there are some exotic composite particles with twice integer charge, e.g. the recently discovered {{w|Ξcc++|double charmed Xi baryon}} with a charge of +2.

Quarks are the only particles with charges of ± ⅓ or ± ⅔, but cannot exist individually; below the {{w|Hagedorn temperature}}, they are only found within hadrons. To date, all hadrons (particles composed of quarks), leptons, and bosons have integer charge, and current models indicate that this must be the case.
|-
| Mass
| [0,∞) in kg
| Mass (specifically {{w|rest mass}}) is the measure of an object or particle's resistance to force, as well as its ability to distort {{w|spacetime}} (its gravitational attraction).
Theoretically, any object's mass could approach infinity, but mass cannot be below 0 (as far as {{w|Negative mass|we know}}). The mass units shown (kilograms) are, however, far too large for particles. Some particles, such as photons, have zero rest mass and are therefore massless.

All particles with rest mass obtain it through confinement, either by the {{w|Higgs field}} (the quarks; leptons; and W, Z, and Higgs bosons) or the strong nuclear force (hadrons).
Particles with no rest mass (photons and gluons) can only move at lightspeed.
|-
| Spin number
| (-∞,∞) (Intervals of ½)
| {{w|Spin (physics)|Spin}} is an intrinsic property of particles, a relativistic form of angular momentum. The spin of a particle determines what statistics the particle follows, half odd integer spin particles are classified as fermions and integer spin particles are bosons.

Two fermions cannot have exactly the same state, an observation known as the Pauli exclusion principle. Thus, for fermions to exist in the same position, they must have opposite spins, of + ½ and - ½. It follows that a maximum of two fermions of the same flavor (e.g. two electrons) may exist in the same position.
|-
| Flavor
| Misc. quantum numbers
| Flavor is a series of {{w|quantum numbers}} that do not fit neatly onto a set of dimensional axes.

The most general theory breaks flavor down into four distinct conserved values, the electric charge, the weak isospin, the baryon number and the lepton number, but more specific models increase the number of distinct values. Quarks, for example, add five more flavor numbers: isospin (upness vs. downness), strangeness, charm, topness and bottomness (the last four are literally just the number of strange, charmed, top and bottom quarks, minus the corresponding anti-quarks).
|-
| Color charge
| Coordinate system with R, G and B axes
| The primary {{w|strong nuclear force}} has six mutually attractive charges, arranged in three perpendicular axes each analogous to electric charge. These charges are commonly referred to as "{{w|Color charge|color}}" and the three axes are given the names of the three primary colors of light: Red, Green and Blue. The black dots in the diagram represent the actual colors while the white dots are the anti-color charges: anti-Red (colored cyan in diagrams), anti-Green (magenta) and anti-Blue (yellow). To complete the analogy, a color charge of zero is referred to as "White". The names of these charges are purely allegorical, but they do make it convenient to refer to them, especially in diagrams.

The color of a particle not confined by the strong force must be White, either as the sum of a color and its anti-color (as in a meson), as the sum of RGB or anti-RGB (as in a baryon), or as a sum of those sums (As in tetra-, penta- or hexaquarks). The attraction of the strong nuclear force is so strong that attempting to separate two quarks from each other creates enough energy to create two new quarks, which then bind to the original quarks. This property is known as "confinement" and means that color charge can never be observed directly.

Randall is incorrect in stating "Quarks only", since {{w|gluon}}s (the particle that carries the color force) are themselves colored. However, the colors of gluons are much more complicated, with a total of eight distinct superpositions of every possible color-anticolor pair. The fact that gluons are subject to the force they mediate also means that the strong force has a defined radius of effect, unlike the electromagnetic force, whose gauge bosons (the photon) are uncharged.
|-
| Mood
| 5 emojis on a number line ranging from angry to joyful
| Particles are not considered to have mood, even in the allegorical way they have color or flavor, but Randall implies that there is a quantized 5 point scale (from "angry" to "ecstatic") which would have some effect on the properties of the particle. This would be more appropriate for measuring customer satisfaction. Charts such as this are also sometimes used in medicine to indicate levels of pain, and in some psychiatric treatments as a quick way to track changes in the patient's condition.

In grammar, {{w|Grammatical particles|particles}} are a nebulous class of words, usually defined by a lack of declension or conjugation (such as prepositions in English). Some languages use particles instead of or in addition to "standard" declension/conjugation, much like auxiliary verbs are used in English. These particles may well carry "{{w|Grammatical mood|mood}}" as an attribute, as well as tense and aspect.
|-
| Alignment
| 3x3 grid with varying shades (columns Good-Evil, rows Lawful-Chaotic)
| A reference to the tabletop RPG ''{{w|Dungeons & Dragons}}'', where characters have an {{w|Alignment (Dungeons & Dragons)|alignment}} that is either Good, Neutral, or Evil (describing whether they have a propensity to help or harm others) and either Lawful, Neutral, or Chaotic (describing how much they care about organizations, social norms, and the status quo). Common examples of these alignments include Darth Vader (Lawful Evil), Superman (Lawful Good), Robin Hood (Chaotic Good), and the Joker (Chaotic Evil). This may be a reference to the now defunct names of the two heaviest known quarks ("truth" and "beauty").
|-
| Hit points
| [0,∞)
| Games (videogames, board games, CCGs, RPGs, etc.) often have values for players and other entities that represent {{w|Health (video game)|health}} (also called hit points or HP). Generally there is not necessarily a limit on this value, but it does not often go below 0 as the zero value is considered "dead" (or some equivalent).
|-
| Rating
| 5-star scale
| The five-star rating system is often used to rate films, TV shows, restaurants, and hotels. Randall has previously criticized this system in [[937: TornadoGuard]] and [[1098: Star Ratings]].

Interestingly, unlike the "Heat" rating with the chili peppers below, this scale doesn't have a creatively labeled number line, merely a rating (3.5, in this case). Considering [[1098]], could Randall be subtly self-deprecating here?
|-
| String type
| Bytestring-Charstring
| In computer science, this denotes what type of data is stored subsequent set of elements or a {{w|String_(computing)|string}}. This is likely a pun on {{w|String_(physics)|string}} types that appear in {{w|string theory}} and particle physics, and may also be a reference to {{w|Python (programming language)|Python}}, in which the difference between a byte string and a (Unicode) character string is a cause of difficulties for some programmers.
|-
| Batting average
| [0,100] in %
| In {{w|baseball}}, a player's {{w|batting average}} is calculated by dividing their hits by their at-bats. Instead of using the percent sign (%), it is usually presented as a number between 0 and 1 (inclusive) expressed as three decimal places with no leading zero: [.000, 1.000]. It is pronounced as though it is multiplied by 1,000: A batter with a batting average of .342 (which is very good) is said to be "batting three forty-two." A perfect batting average (unattainable except in very small samples) gives rise to the expression "batting a thousand." The 0-100 scale would be a better match for the batting average statistic in {{w|cricket}}, although percents would still not be used.
|-
| Proof
| [0,200]
| This refers to {{w|alcohol proof}}, which is the measure of the amount of ethanol in a beverage by volume. In the United States, 100 proof correspond to 50% alcohol, so the proof of a beverage is two times the percentage of ethanol, so the maximum value is at most 200.
|-
| Heat
| No jalapeño icons - 3 jalapeño icons, increasing
| Spicy dishes are sometimes measured by the intensity of the spicy flavor, usually ranging from values like "mild" to "hot". The gray jalapeño likely represents negligible or no spicy taste in the food. However, as an objective scale it is largely meaningless, since there is no reliable consistency in how these ratings are applied - what may be considered a 3-chilli dish in one establishment may only be a 1-chilli dish in another (as restaurants rarely if ever intend their dishes to be rated on the {{w|Scoville scale}}). The scale being unlimited may be a reference to the practice of some restaurants where a fourth or fifth chilli may be added to exaggerate the heat of their dishes.

This measure of heat is unrelated to the particle's {{w|Thermodynamics|thermodynamic}} momentum.
|-
| Street value
| [0,∞) in $
| The value of a good or service (particles are usually not services{{fact}}) in non-retail, non-wholesale transactions between individuals.
|-
| Entropy
| ''This already has like 20 different confusing meanings, so it probably means something here, too.''
| The term "entropy", which {{w|History of entropy|began}} as a {{w|Entropy (classical thermodynamics)|thermodynamic measure}}, has since been adopted {{w|Entropy in thermodynamics and information theory|by analogy}} into {{w|Entropy (disambiguation)|multiple seemingly unrelated domains}} including, for example, information theory. The table allows that the term "entropy" must mean something in the context of particle physics, but isn't certain whether it's the classical, Gibbs' modern {{w|Entropy (statistical thermodynamics)|statistical mechanics}}, Von Neumann's {{w|Von Neumann entropy|quantum entropy}}, or some other meaning.

In classical thermodynamics, entropy is a macroscopic property describing the disorder or randomness of a system with many particles. However, in statistical mechanics and quantum mechanics, the concept of entropy can also be applied to single particles under certain conditions. If the particle's position is not precisely known and can be described by a probability distribution, this contributes to entropy. Similarly, if the particle's momentum is uncertain and described probabilistically, this also contributes to entropy. A single quantum particle in a pure state (e.g., an electron in a specific atomic orbital) has zero entropy. This is because there is no uncertainty about the state of the system. If the single particle's state is described by a density matrix representing a mixed state (a probabilistic mixture of several possible states), the Von Neumann entropy can quantify the degree of uncertainty or mixedness of the state.

Imagine two identical balloons filled with the same gas and heated from two opposite sides with identical heat sources, creating symmetric temperature gradients in both; because the distribution of temperatures is the same, the Gibbs statistical thermodynamic entropy 𝑆 of the gas molecule particles in each balloon will be the same. In contrast, if one balloon is heated by a low-power heat source and another from by an otherwise identical high-power heat source, the balloon next to the high-power heat source will have a steeper temperature gradient, increasing the number of [https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/mathematics/accessible-microstates accessible] {{w|Microstate|microstates}}, so the Gibbs entropy 𝑆low power < 𝑆high power. Now consider electrons in two atoms excited by absorbing identical photons to a mixed state; if the mixed states have the same probabilities for different energy levels, their Von Neumann quantum entropy 𝑆 values will be the same. Conversely, if one atom has electrons excited to a {{w|Purity_(quantum_mechanics)|pure state}} and another to a mixed state by photons of different energies, the mixed state will have higher entropy due to greater uncertainty, i.e., 𝑆pure = 0 and 0 < 𝑆mixed ≤ ln(2).

Please see also [[2318: Dynamic Entropy]].
|}

The title text says that in addition each particle has a password, but only hash of the password can be observed. This is a computer science reference. In computer science, properties (e.g. of an object or program) often can be changed with a single command. In physics as we observe it, properties can locally change with the environment. There are several {{w|Time-variation_of_fundamental_constants|experiments}}, whether physical constants are really time-const. Password hashing is the practice of hiding the password itself by storing only an irreversible representation of the password. Since the password itself is not stored, the password cannot ever be viewed by the user or a hacker (outside of the login page). This method is considered to be safest way of storing passwords. Password hashing using some {{w|key derivation function}} makes it impossible to steal passwords even if the server that stores hashes is cracked, unless the hash function is also broken, which should be a task which cannot be completed in any feasible time for sufficiently strong passwords. The title-text claims this is predicted by the {{w|cosmic censorship hypothesis}}, which in reality claims that a {{w|gravitational singularity}} must always be obscured by an event horizon (i.e.: there can't be a {{w|naked singularity}}). There is also a hint of quantum mechanics in the statement, as observation is one of the central concepts of the field, and {{w|Heisenberg's uncertainty principle}} actually states that it is impossible to observe (measure) some property of a particle with arbitrary precision when another one is known (e.g.: you can't determine the momentum and position of a particle). This makes the title text a mix of several domains, as was the above table.

==Transcript==
:<big>Particle Properties in Physics</big>
{| class=wikitable
! Property
! Type/scale
|-
| Electric charge
| [Scale with -1, 0 and +1 labeled and markings dividing the units in thirds. The endpoints are both dots.]
|-
| Mass
| [Scale with 0, 1kg and 2kg labeled and markings dividing the units into thirds. The endpoints are a dot on the zero end and an arrow on the other end.]
|-
| Spin number
| [Scale with -1, -½, 0, ½ and 1 labeled and no additional markings. The endpoints are both arrows, pointing out.]
|-
| Flavor
| (Misc. quantum numbers)
|-
| Color charge
| [Coordinate system of three axes labeled R, G and B clockwise from the 10 o'clock position. Endpoints are arrow-dots on all ends, with black dots for the labeled ends and white dots for the unlabeled ends.] (Quarks only)
|-
| Mood
| [Scale labeled with 5 emoticons, from angry to happy, and markings dividing the units in thirds. Endpoints are both arrows, pointing out.]
|-
| Alignment
| [3x3 grid with varying shades] Good-Evil, Lawful-Chaotic
|-
| Hit points
| [Scale starting from 0, markings but no labels other than zero. Endpoints are a dot at zero end and an arrow at the other end.]
|-
| Rating
| [Star rating of 3.5/5 stars.]
|-
| String type
| Bytestring-Charstring
|-
| Batting average
| [Scale from 0% to 100%. Endpoints are dot at 0% end and arrow-dot at 100% end.]
|-
| Proof
| [Scale from 0 to 200. Endpoints are dot at 0 end and arrow-dot at 200 end.]
|-
| Heat
| [Scale labeled with pepper icons, from 0 (a grayed-out pepper) to 3 black peppers. Endpoints are a dot at zero end and an arrow at the other end.]
|-
| Street value
| [Scale with $0, $100 and $200 labeled. Endpoints are a dot at zero end and an arrow at the other end.]
|-
| Entropy
| (This already has like 20 different confusing meanings, so it probably means something here, too.)
|}

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Baseball]]