explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2636: What If? 2 Countdown

2022-06-23T13:02:55Z

Aditya95sriram:

I've started the table to explain all the calendar entries. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 00:19, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Is the dog minutes calculation backwards? 777,777 dog minutes should be 777,777 x 7 human minutes, which is over 10 years. Randall seems to be dividing instead of multiplying. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 00:36, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
: No - 1 human year = 7 dog years; 1 dog year = 1/7 human year; 1 dog minute = 1/7 human minute; 777,777 dog minutes = 111,111 human minutes = 77 days, 3 hours, 51 minutes. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.173|172.70.90.173]] 11:32, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

First entry is probably mistake by Randall, e^pi would give value of 84.5 [[Special:Contributions/162.158.203.38|162.158.203.38]] 11:57, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
: That would be too high, though. 82.xxx days (from midnight at the start of launch day) would fall within the 83rd day before it (Jun 22). 84.5 would fall within the 85th (Jun 20). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.58|172.70.91.58]] 12:15, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Not sure if this is even worth mentioning, but he forgot the box around the date number in the top corner for August 29th. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.126.151|172.70.126.151]] 12:49, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Fyi, used wolfram alpha for most of the calculations. Seems to be able to handle anything I throw at it (nanocenturies, megaseconds, fortnights etc) [[User:Aditya95sriram|Aditya95sriram]] ([[User talk:Aditya95sriram|talk]]) 13:02, 23 June 2022 (UTC)aditya95sriram

Talk:2636: What If? 2 Countdown

2022-06-23T13:01:17Z

Aditya95sriram:

2636: What If? 2 Countdown

2022-06-23T12:58:01Z

Aditya95sriram: fix conflict and add some rows

{{comic
| number = 2636
| date = June 22, 2022
| title = What If? 2 Countdown
| image = what_if_2_countdown.png
| titletext = If you don't end the 99 Bottles of Beer recursion at N=0 it just becomes The Other Song That Never Ends.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT THAT IS WONDERING ABOUT THINGS - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic takes the idea of {{w|Advent calendar}}s, and takes it to the extreme. It uses rather absurd and/or obscure ways to measure the amount of time until [[Randall]]'s new book What if? 2 is released, with esoteric units or esoteric numbers. And often both.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Days !! Date !! Units !! Exact value !! Explanation
|-
| 83 || Jun 22 || πe millidecades || 82.0304 days || π =~ 3.14159, e =~ 2.718, so πe is about 22.459. A millidecade is 1/1000 decade, or 1/100 year, or about 3.6525 days. Multiplying these results in 82.03 days.
|-
| 82 || Jun 23 || 7 megaseconds || 81.0185 days || 7,000,000 seconds
|-
| 81 || Jun 24 || e lunar months || 80.27247 days || A lunar month =~ 29.53059 days, e =~ 2.718
|-
| 80 || Jun 25 || 60 rotations of Foucault's pendulum in Paris || 79.67 days || The Foucault's pendulum measures and/or prooves earth's rotation. Possibly a reference to the Bogdanow brothers who used pointless circumlocutions with the Foucalt pendulum as tech babble in their fake dissertation
|-
| 79 || Jun 26 || 8 milligenerations || 78.84 days || A generation is in general 22-33 years, the mean is 27; so 8 * 0.001 (mili) * 365 (not accounting for leap years) * 27 =~ 78.84 days
|-
| 78 || Jun 27 || 777,777 dog minutes || 77.16 days|| A popular myth is that dogs age 7 times faster than humans, so 1 dog minute equals 1/7 human minutes.
|-
| 77 || Jun 28 || 7! episodes of Jeopardy! (skipping ads) || 77 days || 7!=7*6*…=5040 - The standard episode of Jeopardy is 22-26 minutes skipping ads - taking the lowest value you get 110880 minutes total which is the exact value needed.
|-
| 76 || Jun 29 || 5,000 repeats of 99 Bottles of Beer || ||
|-
| 75 || Jun 30 || 5 baker's fortnights (15 days) || 75 days || A {{w|baker's dozen}} is a dozen (12) plus 1 extra item. Randall has generalized this to adding 1 to any unit. A fortnight is 2 weeks, so a baker's fortnight is 15 days. 5x15 is 75 days.
|-
| 74 || Jul 1 || √2 dog years || 73.79 days||
|-
| 73 || Jul 2 || π millivics (1/1000th of Queen Victoria's reign) || || Queen Victoria ruled between 20 June 1837 and 22 January 1901.
|-
| 72 || Jul 3 || 42 drives from NYC to LA (Google Maps estimate) || || According to Google Maps, the drive from New York City to Los Angeles via I-80 E takes 41 hours.
|-
| 71 || Jul 4 || 1,000 viewings of ''Groundhog Day''|| 70.14 days|| Using 101-minute run time.
|-
| 70 || Jul 5 || 100,000 minutes || 69.44 days||
|-
| 69 || Jul 6 || 1/10th of Martian year || 68.70 Earth days || Martian sidereal and tropical years both round to 687.0 Earth days
|-
| 68 || Jul 7 || 1,234,567 sound-miles || ||
|-
| 67 || Jul 8 || 2^π^e seconds ||5,766,073 seconds = 66.7 days || 2^(π^e)
|-
| 66 || Jul 9 || 2^16 beats (Swatch Internet Time) || ||
|-
| 65 || Jul 10 || 1,000 ISS orbits || ||
|-
| 64 || Jul 11 || Five hundred twenty five thousand (base seven) Minutes|| 62.8833333333333 days || In any number system, the value of each digit is calculated as "value" * "base" ^ "position of the digit minus one" counting the position of the digit starting from the less significant side. Base seven means the number only uses 7 digits (0-6). To represent 7 (base10) you would need two digits which would be 10 (base7). This gives: 5*7^5 + 2*7^4 + 5*7^3 + 0*7^2 + 0*7^1 + 0*7^0 = 90552 minutes
|-
| 63 || Jul 12 || 10^50 Planck times || ||
|-
| 62 || Jul 13 || 4,000 episodes of The Office (skipping ads)|| ||
|-
| 61 || Jul 14 || Four Score and Seven Kilominutes || ||
|-
| 60 || Jul 15 || 2 Lunar Months|| ||
|-
| 59 || Jul 16 || Half a Day on Venus || ||
|-
| 58 || Jul 17 || 5 megaseconds || 57.8704 days || 5,000,000 seconds
|-
| 57 || Jul 18 || 30 MicroLits (1/1,000,000,000th of the time since the invention of writing) || ||
|-
| 56 || Jul 19 || 1,000 viewings of Run Lola Run || ||
|-
| 55 || Jul 20 || One Million Sound-Miles || ||
|-
| 54 || Jul 21 || 30 Ionian Months|| ||
|-
| 53 || Jul 22 || One Dog Year || ||
|-
| 52 || Jul 23 || 60 Viewings of Star Wars Episodes I-IX|| ||
|-
| 51 || Jul 24 || 1/ 100,000,000,000th of the Universe's age || ||
|-
| 50 || Jul 25 || 5 milli-Generations|| ||
|-
| 49 || Jul 26 || 10,000 Games of 7 minutes in Heaven or 7 games of 10,000 minutes in Heaven|| ||
|-
| 48 || Jul 27 || φ^e^π minutes || 47.6164 days || 68,567.57 minutes
|-
| 47 || Jul 28 || 4 megaseconds || 46.2963 days || 4,000,000 seconds
|-
| 46 || Jul 29 || 2^16 minutes || 45.5111 days || 65,536 minutes
|-
| 45 || Jul 30 || e^e^e seconds || 44.1467 days || 3,814,279.10 seconds
|-
| 44 || Jul 31 || π fortnights|| 43.98 days ||
|-
| 43 || Aug 1 || || ||
|-
| 42 || Aug 2 || || ||
|-
| 41 || Aug 3 || || ||
|-
| 40 || Aug 4 || || ||
|-
| 39 || Aug 5 || e fortnights || 38.0559 days ||
|-
| 38 || Aug 6 || || ||
|-
| 37 || Aug 7 || || ||
|-
| 36 || Aug 8 || || ||
|-
| 35 || Aug 9 || || ||
|-
| 34 || Aug 10 || || ||
|-
| 33 || Aug 11 || 777 hours || 32.375 days ||
|-
| 32 || Aug 12 || || ||
|-
| 31 || Aug 13 || || ||
|-
| 30 || Aug 14 || || ||
|-
| 29 || Aug 15 || 777,777 nanocenturies || 28.4077 days || 777,777 × 10-9 × 102 years
|-
| 28 || Aug 16 || || ||
|-
| 27 || Aug 17 || || ||
|-
| 26 || Aug 18 || π^π kilominutes || 25.3209 days || 36,462.16 minutes
|-
| 25 || Aug 19 || || ||
|-
| 24 || Aug 20 || || ||
|-
| 23 || Aug 21 || || ||
|-
| 22 || Aug 22 || || ||
|-
| 21 || Aug 23 || 500 hours || 20.8333 days ||
|-
| 20 || Aug 24 || √2 fortnights || 19.7990 days || 1.4142 × 14 days
|-
| 19 || Aug 25 || || ||
|-
| 18 || Aug 26 || || ||
|-
| 17 || Aug 27 || √2 megaseconds || 16.3682 days || 1.4142 × 1,000,000 seconds
|-
| 16 || Aug 28 || π^π^π πcoseconds || 15.5112 days || 1.3402 picoseconds (i.e., 10-12 seconds)
|-
| 15 || Aug 29 || || ||
|-
| 14 || Aug 30 || || ||
|-
| 13 || Aug 31 || || ||
|-
| 12 || Sep 1 || || ||
|-
| 11 || Sep 2 || || ||
|-
| 10 || Sep 3 || || ||
|-
| 9 || Sep 4 || || ||
|-
| 8 || Sep 5 || || ||
|-
| 7 || Sep 6 || || ||
|-
| 6 || Sep 7 || || ||
|-
| 5 || Sep 8 || || ||
|-
| 4 || Sep 9 || || ||
|-
| 3 || Sep 10 || || ||
|-
| 2 || Sep 11 || || ||
|-
| 1 || Sep 12 || || ||
|-
| 0 || Sep 13 || || ||
|}

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

{{comic discussion}}

2636: What If? 2 Countdown

2022-06-23T12:33:13Z

Aditya95sriram: filled in some more rows

{{comic
| number = 2636
| date = June 22, 2022
| title = What If? 2 Countdown
| image = what_if_2_countdown.png
| titletext = If you don't end the 99 Bottles of Beer recursion at N=0 it just becomes The Other Song That Never Ends.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT THAT IS WONDERING ABOUT THINGS - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic takes the idea of {{w|Advent calendar}}s, and takes it to the extreme. It uses rather absurd and/or obscure ways to measure the amount of time until [[Randall]]'s new book What if? 2 is released, with esoteric units or esoteric numbers. And often both.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Days !! Date !! Units !! Exact value !! Explanation
|-
| 83 || Jun 22 || πe millidecades || 82.0304 days || π =~ 3.14159, e =~ 2.718, so πe is about 22.459. A millidecade is 1/1000 decade, or 1/100 year, or about 3.6525 days. Multiplying these results in 82.03 days.
|-
| 82 || Jun 23 || 7 megaseconds || 81.0185 days || 7,000,000 seconds
|-
| 81 || Jun 24 || e lunar months || 80.27247 days || A lunar month =~ 29.53059 days, e =~ 2.718
|-
| 80 || Jun 25 || 60 rotations of Foucault's pendulum in Paris || 79.67 days || The Foucault's pendulum measures and/or prooves earth's rotation. Possibly a reference to the Bogdanow brothers who used pointless circumlocutions with the Foucalt pendulum as tech babble in their fake dissertation
|-
| 79 || Jun 26 || 8 milligenerations || 78.84 days || A generation is in general 22-33 years, the mean is 27; so 8 * 0.001 (mili) * 365 (not accounting for leap years) * 27 =~ 78.84 days
|-
| 78 || Jun 27 || 777,777 dog minutes || 77.16 days|| A popular myth is that dogs age 7 times faster than humans, so 1 dog minute equals 1/7 human minutes.
|-
| 77 || Jun 28 || 7! episodes of Jeopardy! (skipping ads) || 77 days || 7!=7*6*…=5040 - The standard episode of Jeopardy is 22-26 minutes skipping ads - taking the lowest value you get 110880 minutes total which is the exact value needed.
|-
| 76 || Jun 29 || 5,000 repeats of 99 Bottles of Beer || ||
|-
| 75 || Jun 30 || 5 baker's fortnights (15 days) || 75 days || A {{w|baker's dozen}} is a dozen (12) plus 1 extra item. Randall has generalized this to adding 1 to any unit. A fortnight is 2 weeks, so a baker's fortnight is 15 days. 5x15 is 75 days.
|-
| 74 || Jul 1 || √2 dog years || 73.79 days||
|-
| 73 || Jul 2 || π millivics (1/1000th of Queen Victoria's reign) || || Queen Victoria ruled between 20 June 1837 and 22 January 1901.
|-
| 72 || Jul 3 || 42 drives from NYC to LA (Google Maps estimate) || || According to Google Maps, the drive from New York City to Los Angeles via I-80 E takes 41 hours.
|-
| 71 || Jul 4 || 1,000 viewings of ''Groundhog Day''|| 70.14 days|| Using 101-minute run time.
|-
| 70 || Jul 5 || 100,000 minutes || 69.44 days||
|-
| 69 || Jul 6 || 1/10th of Martian year || 68.70 Earth days || Martian sidereal and tropical years both round to 687.0 Earth days
|-
| 68 || Jul 7 || 1,234,567 sound-miles || ||
|-
| 67 || Jul 8 || 2^π^e seconds || ||
|-
| 66 || Jul 9 || 2^16 beats (Swatch Internet Time) || ||
|-
| 65 || Jul 10 || 1,000 ISS orbits || ||
|-
| 64 || Jul 11 || || ||
|-
| 63 || Jul 12 || 10^50 Planck times || ||
|-
| 62 || Jul 13 || || ||
|-
| 61 || Jul 14 || || ||
|-
| 60 || Jul 15 || || ||
|-
| 59 || Jul 16 || || ||
|-
| 58 || Jul 17 || 5 megaseconds || 57.8704 days || 5,000,000 seconds
|-
| 57 || Jul 18 || || ||
|-
| 56 || Jul 19 || || ||
|-
| 55 || Jul 20 || || ||
|-
| 54 || Jul 21 || || ||
|-
| 53 || Jul 22 || || ||
|-
| 52 || Jul 23 || || ||
|-
| 51 || Jul 24 || || ||
|-
| 50 || Jul 25 || || ||
|-
| 49 || Jul 26 || || ||
|-
| 48 || Jul 27 || φ^e^π minutes || 47.6164 days || 68,567.57 minutes
|-
| 47 || Jul 28 || 4 megaseconds || 46.2963 days || 4,000,000 seconds
|-
| 46 || Jul 29 || 2^16 minutes || 45.5111 days || 65,536 minutes
|-
| 45 || Jul 30 || e^e^e seconds || 44.1467 days || 3,814,279.10 seconds
|-
| 44 || Jul 31 || || ||
|-
| 43 || Aug 1 || || ||
|-
| 42 || Aug 2 || || ||
|-
| 41 || Aug 3 || || ||
|-
| 40 || Aug 4 || || ||
|-
| 39 || Aug 5 || || ||
|-
| 38 || Aug 6 || || ||
|-
| 37 || Aug 7 || || ||
|-
| 36 || Aug 8 || || ||
|-
| 35 || Aug 9 || || ||
|-
| 34 || Aug 10 || || ||
|-
| 33 || Aug 11 || || ||
|-
| 32 || Aug 12 || || ||
|-
| 31 || Aug 13 || || ||
|-
| 30 || Aug 14 || || ||
|-
| 29 || Aug 15 || || ||
|-
| 28 || Aug 16 || || ||
|-
| 27 || Aug 17 || || ||
|-
| 26 || Aug 18 || || ||
|-
| 25 || Aug 19 || || ||
|-
| 24 || Aug 20 || || ||
|-
| 23 || Aug 21 || || ||
|-
| 22 || Aug 22 || || ||
|-
| 21 || Aug 23 || || ||
|-
| 20 || Aug 24 || || ||
|-
| 19 || Aug 25 || || ||
|-
| 18 || Aug 26 || || ||
|-
| 17 || Aug 27 || || ||
|-
| 16 || Aug 28 || || ||
|-
| 15 || Aug 29 || || ||
|-
| 14 || Aug 30 || || ||
|-
| 13 || Aug 31 || || ||
|-
| 12 || Sep 1 || || ||
|-
| 11 || Sep 2 || || ||
|-
| 10 || Sep 3 || || ||
|-
| 9 || Sep 4 || || ||
|-
| 8 || Sep 5 || || ||
|-
| 7 || Sep 6 || || ||
|-
| 6 || Sep 7 || || ||
|-
| 5 || Sep 8 || || ||
|-
| 4 || Sep 9 || || ||
|-
| 3 || Sep 10 || || ||
|-
| 2 || Sep 11 || || ||
|-
| 1 || Sep 12 || || ||
|-
| 0 || Sep 13 || || ||
|}

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

{{comic discussion}}