explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:3213: Dental Formulas

2026-04-01T15:07:29Z

EebstertheGreat:

First![[User:AmethystSky14|AmethystSky14]] ([[User talk:AmethystSky14|talk]]) 21:43, 27 February 2026 (UTC)

The top left drawing is a tooth. [[User:Xkdvd|Xkdvd]] ([[User talk:Xkdvd|talk]]) 22:04, 27 February 2026 (UTC)

This confused me for a long time (partly due to the mammal/mammol thing) - I took them to be dentists. I'm now inferring that the counts are typical of a species rather than descriptive of an individual patient. Maybe the write up could make that more clear in case someone else as dumb as me passes by [[Special:Contributions/2A00:23EE:10C8:110F:D992:D45:1C7A:DF02|2A00:23EE:10C8:110F:D992:D45:1C7A:DF02]] guest
:"in case someone as dumb as me passes by" - that would be everyone, see ''<nowiki>Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.</nowiki>'' [[Special:Contributions/64.201.132.210|64.201.132.210]] 22:21, 27 February 2026 (UTC)
:Yes, dental formulas are based on typical, not individual, dentition. In cases where it frequently varies (like humans with their unreliable wisdom teeth) you sometimes see a range. [[Special:Contributions/70.40.90.209|70.40.90.209]] 02:29, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

Because I'm sure someone else will be wondering, based on a very cursory search, the formula on the board appears to be permanent teeth for felines. At the very least, Wikipedia's entry on Dentition lists this formula for cats, lions, and tigers. Perhaps an actual expert will come along and shed further light on this. [[Special:Contributions/97.116.61.145|97.116.61.145]] 22:52, 27 February 2026 (UTC)

Some British sources still use a baseline dot (full stop/period) as the multiplication symbol and a midline dot (interpunct) as the decimal point. These sources could write 3.2·1 = 6·3. Scary. Even ''The Lancet'' uses the interpunct as a decimal point (though its style guides do not specify a multiplication symbol, so presumably '×' should be used when juxtaposition isn't an option, e.g. for scientific notation). Most British schools still teach it this way as well, where the dot product is always a baseline dot. (This convention also used in some other European countries, which use the comma as the decimal separator and the period as the thousands separator. But it's confusing, because 〈x,y〉or even (x,y) is also used to represent the inner product of x and y. It's really a mess.) [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 04:36, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
:I didn't know it was called the interpunct but that was how I was taught to write decimal points at my UK school in the early sixties and how I still write them by hand.--[[Special:Contributions/2A00:23CC:D248:8901:30F4:4052:A4F7:386E|2A00:23CC:D248:8901:30F4:4052:A4F7:386E]] 09:36, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
:And some countries use interpuncts for multiplying scalars, baseline dots (interchangeably with spaces, but never both in a single number) for thousands, and commas as decimal symbol. There are languages that even include group separation ''after'' the latter, with a 4-digit final group iff the last digit is the 10-3''n''-1s place (e. g. "3 863 387,274 479 0001" instead of "3 863 387,274 479 000 1"), even with several exceptions (e. g. rules like "4-digit numbers do not require formatting, '''unless they are in a table with longer numbers in the same column'''"). [[Special:Contributions/2001:4C4E:1C00:EB00:D063:D715:3937:44C6|2001:4C4E:1C00:EB00:D063:D715:3937:44C6]] 11:42, 1 March 2026 (UTC)
:I was taught, in the UK in the '80s, to use the '×' symbol. It seems that practically everybody else uses some sort of dot, or worse just stuffs the variables side by side and the multiplication is "assumed". Hmm, and some people wonder why maths causes so much distress. [[Special:Contributions/2A01:CB08:82C3:1A00:F550:3C0C:BC34:851E|2A01:CB08:82C3:1A00:F550:3C0C:BC34:851E]] 19:29, 6 March 2026 (UTC)
::I probably significantly overlap you, in locale and timeframe, so here's my take on that: When learning basic arithmatic (primary school level) I'd be using the notation × (and ÷, to go along with + and -), but by the time it came to algebra (in secondary level education) then dotted adjacency was preferable (as well as using a ")(" writing style for the variable "x", to be extra-sure it's not mistaken as a multiplication). So you have the likes of "y = mx + c" or "y=ax² + bx + c". And, by this point, the difference between {{w|cross product}} and {{w|dot product}} potentially become very important... Technically, the '1d vectors' that are plain numbers are multiplied in dot-product fashion to create the requisite scalar (i.e. also 1d) that you'd expect through all prior experiences of multiplication. And this continues into higher and further education levels.
::If using the cross, at this level, it risks the impression that you are using the cross-product. If obeying ''its'' calculative rules, creates a result that is perpendicular (and anti-commutative, so dependent upon order applied) to the vectors supplied. Trying to apply a cross-product to single-values essentially tells you that they have zero angular difference between the two two (whether in the same of opposite directions) and no magnitude in the co-perpendicular direction (requiring 3d of vector-space, or more). (And I hope I explained that right, and am not using my own understanding of the terminology in a way that doesn't match more standard uses of it. ;) ) [[Special:Contributions/81.179.199.253|81.179.199.253]] 21:26, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

::Don't forget that India uses different rules for separating digits. Instead of separating every block of three digits with a "thousands separator," it separates lakhs and crores and higher amounts like this: ab,cd,ef,ghi, where those letters represent digits. So for instance, 1 crore 50 lakh (i.e. 15 million) would be written 1,50,00,000. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 15:07, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

An unrelated note, I'm just curious, does any beast have more than 1 canine? or is the second number limited to the set {0, 1}? -- [[User:Malgond|Malgond]] ([[User talk:Malgond|talk]]) 09:31, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

Fun Fact: The {{w|São Tomé collared fruit bat}} is the only known mammal where the whole population has an asymmetrical dental formula. --[[Special:Contributions/134.102.219.31|134.102.219.31]] 18:51, 2 March 2026 (UTC)
:O.K., the IP address at the end of that sentence looked like a very scary set of teeth. {{unsigned ip|96.230.198.167|23:46, 9 March 2026 (UTC)}}

Although "mammals in general" have breasts not all do. The platypus is a mammal and does produce milk to feed its young, however it has no nipples. Instead an area of skin "leaks" (secretes) milk into the fur. [[User:Martin|Martin]] ([[User talk:Martin|talk]]) 21:01, 2 March 2026 (UTC)
:A platypus? [[User:Commercialegg|Commercialegg]] ([[User talk:Commercialegg|talk]]) 01:32, 3 March 2026 (UTC)
::With a fedora? [[Special:Contributions/93.176.188.2|93.176.188.2]] 16:50, 4 March 2026 (UTC)
:::PERRY the platypus?![[User:Commercialegg|Commercialegg]] ([[User talk:Commercialegg|talk]]) 16:26, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

Talk:3213: Dental Formulas

2026-02-28T04:36:55Z

EebstertheGreat:

Talk:3210: Eliminating the Impossible

2026-02-21T14:20:08Z

EebstertheGreat:

I’ve found that when looking for an item, I’ll search harder and more thoroughly in the places where the item is supposed to be, which is just frustrating and usually unsuccessful.
Then I realized that if the item isn’t where it’s supposed to be, then it’s somewhere ''it isn’t supposed to be'' - so I start looking in those places.
[[Special:Contributions/170.64.111.76|170.64.111.76]] 20:51, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

It also assumes exclusion of the middle.
[[User:MithicSpirit|MithicSpirit]] ([[User talk:MithicSpirit|talk]]) 20:59, 20 February 2026 (UTC)
:I think you're kind of right, but it's a weird situation. Disjunction elimination does not require LEM. I can imagine that we have established some list of ''n'' "possibilities" ''p''0, ''p''1, ..., ''p''''n''. What does it mean that these are the only possibilities? Naturally, it means ''p''0 ∨ ''p''1 ∨ · · · ∨ ''p''''n''. Now, if we eliminate all but the ''k''th possibility, that means we have ¬''p''0, ¬''p''1, ..., ¬''p''''k''-1, ¬''p''''k''+1, ..., ¬''p''''n''. By repeated use of disjunction elimination, this proves ''p''''k'' intuitionistically, so the ''k''th possibility ("whatever remains") is provable ("must be the truth"). The problem with this approach is proving the original disjunction. How did we show to begin with that one of those ''n'' possibilities must hold? To do that intuitionistically requires actually proving one of those statements to begin with. And since only one of them is true, we must have already proved ''p''''k'', rendering this argument pointless. Still, it technically is valid. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 14:20, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

These guys sure are some professors of logic (I'm not sure if they own any doghouses, is what I mean). [[User:Fephisto|Fephisto]] ([[User talk:Fephisto|talk]]) 21:07, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

As and when the Explanation gets written (I imagine that someone's right in the middle of that now), it must be noted that Sherlock Holmes's self-proclaimed "Deductive reasoning" is really {{w|Abductive reasoning}}. (I actually blame Sir Arthur, rather than Sherlock (or 'narrator' Watson), for that error... But then he also believed in fairies, so obviously he's less than perfectly rational.) [[Special:Contributions/81.179.199.253|81.179.199.253]] 21:17, 20 February 2026 (UTC)
:Well, nobody did do anything with it, in the last hour or so, so I scrawled something pretty basic for others to ruthlessly dismember and 'remember' in their own prefered fashion. [[Special:Contributions/81.179.199.253|81.179.199.253]] 22:27, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

I think its pretty nice how this comics number is a countdown from 3. [[User:Xkdvd|Xkdvd]] ([[User talk:Xkdvd|talk]]) 22:57, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

By the way, meant to say earlier... just today (well, the day just before the midnight just gone), I spent a few moments trying to help someone find a single glove. They'd looked various places, and I ''went out to look in the car'' (twice, actually, because first I just checked the 'normal' places, footwells, door-pockets... then realised I hadn't actually checked the glove-compartment itself (which I don't think I've ever used to store gloves, of course, but I'd have looked silly if I hadn't gone back and checked it once it had occured to me) so out I went again) in order to ''not'' find the glove. Cue, later, the revelation that it had been in a bag (in the house) all along. And this was all mere hours ''before'' Randall published this comic. So, as we all used to say on the now defunct Fora, "<abbr title="Get Out Of My Head, Randall">GOOMHR</abbr>!" [[Special:Contributions/81.179.199.253|81.179.199.253]] 00:24, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

It's also possible to miss an item in a space you've searched. For instance, as a 12- or 13-year-old I once concluded that something (I forget what it was) must not be in my room, because I'd partitioned the rectangular box defined by the walls, floor and ceiling and searched each of the partitions. It turned out to be outside that box but still inside my room, because it was on the windowsill. [[User:Promethean|Promethean]] ([[User talk:Promethean|talk]]) 00:39, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

I actually did find it in the car though.--[[Special:Contributions/2604:3D09:84:4000:6FFB:F472:7679:FF75|2604:3D09:84:4000:6FFB:F472:7679:FF75]] 02:34, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

Reminds me of this from Math Hysteria by Ian Stewart: 'As I have often stated, when you have eliminated the impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable ... remains improbable,' said Holmes, deflated. 'There's probably something altogether different going on, and you've missed it. But don't quote me on that,' he warned. [[User:Arcorann|Arcorann]] ([[User talk:Arcorann|talk]]) 09:23, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

If it's not in the car, it's in the cdr. --[[Special:Contributions/2A02:3100:25A0:9400:6CEB:97FF:FE5B:8BDC|2A02:3100:25A0:9400:6CEB:97FF:FE5B:8BDC]] 11:06, 21 February 2026 (UTC)
: Yeth. {{unsigned ip|174.130.97.11|14:10, 21 February 2026}}

Talk:3201: Proof Without Content

2026-01-31T22:31:34Z

EebstertheGreat:

First. Would be funny to have an explanation along the lines of "It is possible to give an explanation with no content. Here's how:" [[User:R128|R128]] ([[User talk:R128|talk]]) 17:44, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Proof without Content seems to be a play of words for [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_without_words]Proof without Words

The comic pokes fun at a common situation found in mathematics books. The students sees a statement with a very short proof that doesn't make sense since it's been summarized in a way that is helpful for people already familiar with the theorem. For instance: "prime numbers larger than 2 are odd". Proof: "even numbers are divisible by 2". The student is expected to know that a number divisible by 2 is not prime, but that's most likely something that comes up later in the same book, or sometimes not explained at all.
In the comic the "short" proof is taken to the absurd level of being completely empty. What mathematical statement can be proven with a completely empty proof? The fact that there exists comics which have statements with empty proofs. It is both a joke about difficult to understand proof in math books and also a meta-mathematics joke as the proof is talking about itself.
The title text pokes even more fun at maths books where many important theorems are stated and are given to the students as useful facts but with no proof, stating that demonstrating the truth of the statement is so easy it is "left as an exercise for the reader". This common scenario frustrates students because in some cases the "exercise" is extremely difficult to do.
The only "proof without content of a conjecture without content" is a blank page altogether, which clearly exists, so the statement is true, even if meaningless.
:I don't recall that problem with such a proof. Usually the statement about primes being odd comes after giving the definition of prime and composite numbers. From that, being divisible by 2 clearly makes a number composite. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 19:31, 30 January 2026 (UTC)
::You must be very smart. [[Special:Contributions/2600:1700:2120:5880:C885:5DAF:EFD8:EADF|2600:1700:2120:5880:C885:5DAF:EFD8:EADF]] 22:12, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

I really do not get that title text. I put an attempt at understanding it down but it may have gone over my head [[User:R128|R128]] ([[User talk:R128|talk]]) 17:58, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

The comic demonstrates a proof without content, but is it a convincing proof? [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 19:33, 30 January 2026 (UTC)
:If it is, then yes. QED. ;) [[Special:Contributions/81.179.199.253|81.179.199.253]] 21:14, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

I think the tautological nature of the proof could be better explained. If the blank image is interpreted as a correct proof, it proves the notion that a blank image can prove a conjecture. [[Special:Contributions/2600:4041:2E5:B900:6C41:5AFB:89D1:F216|2600:4041:2E5:B900:6C41:5AFB:89D1:F216]] 22:11, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Isn't this proof using circular reasoning? The proof is only convincing if the conjecture that an empty proof can be convincing is correct. [[Special:Contributions/73.222.207.213|73.222.207.213]] 23:26, 30 January 2026 (UTC)
:Yeah, it is a circular argument. Maybe that’s part of the joke? [[User:Logalex8369|Logalex8369]] ([[User talk:Logalex8369|talk]]) 01:39, 31 January 2026 (UTC)
::I say it's only circular reasoning if it's circular reasoning. [[Special:Contributions/81.179.199.253|81.179.199.253]] 02:01, 31 January 2026 (UTC)
:Yes, it really begs the question... [[Special:Contributions/136.47.216.1|136.47.216.1]] 03:42, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

This space provably left blank [[User:Hcs|Hcs]] ([[User talk:Hcs|talk]]) 09:13, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

The only problem I see here is that the "conjecture" should be called "theorem". In a mathematical paper, statements for which you are about to present a proof are called "theorems," not "conjectures." Conjectures are statements made without proof which the author expects to be true and provable. I would expect something like "'''Theorem 1.1'''. ''There is an empty proof of a non-vacuous theorem.''" Then it would be followed by an empty line, then "'''Proof.'''" another empty line, and finally nothing. (That said, this isn't really a proof of anything. If I assert that it is not a proof, how can you demonstrate that I am wrong? Only if I accept that it is a proof does it become a proof. It's one of those natural language paradoxes like "this statement is true.") [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 22:31, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Talk:3165: Earthquake Prediction Flowchart

2025-11-08T05:16:52Z

EebstertheGreat:

Gettin pretty sick of the "citation needed" joke appearing in early drafts of our explanations. It's not clever to just say that at random. [citation needed] [[Special:Contributions/69.5.140.194|69.5.140.194]] 03:14, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

It turns out I suddenly find myself... needing to know the plural of apocalypse. -- Riley Finn, Buffy the Vampire Slayer ... [[User:Jordan Brown|Jordan Brown]] ([[User talk:Jordan Brown|talk]]) 03:28, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

The return of the flowchart! --'''''[[User:DollarStoreBa'al|DollarStoreBa'al]][[User Talk:DollarStoreBa'al|Converse]] 03:57, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

As early as [https://doi.org/10.1785/BSSA0640051363 1974], there was substantial evidence that earthquakes at least in Southern California were unpredictable. To be more precise, the paper found that if you remove aftershocks, the distribution of earthquakes appeared to follow a Poisson distribution. This is the distribution expected from a "memoryless" process where each event is independent of any earlier event, and where earthquakes have a constant probability of occurring, making them completely impossible to predict.

It may be that not all earthquakes everywhere really work this way, but in the past 50 years, evidence has accumulated only to support this hypothesis. No progress whatsoever has been made in predicting earthquakes, only in reasons to believe they fundamentally cannot be predicted (at least without a lot of inaccessible information regarding strain deep within the earth). [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 05:16, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

2798: Room Temperature

2025-10-27T05:55:46Z

EebstertheGreat: very belated update, unsurprisingly the study turned out to be bunk

{{comic
| number = 2798
| date = July 5, 2023
| title = Room Temperature
| image = room_temperature_2x.png
| imagesize = 299x352px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = They're also refusing to fund my device that demonstrates uncontrolled hot fusion.
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic, [[Cueball]] presents a room-temperature {{w|Semiconductor|semiconductor}}, consisting of layered silicon crystals. He enthusiastically describes the properties of his "discovery", namely that it can be tweaked to amplify or switch the flow of electric currents, but his audience is not impressed. This might be because silicon crystal semiconductors are already widely in use as a {{w|Semiconductor_device|key component of electronic systems}}. Silicon {{w|Semiconductor_device_fabrication|semiconductor manufacturing}} is, in simplest terms, adding materials to a flat wafer made of silicon crystal, often in a process that adds an entire layer of material, then removing the unwanted areas through various etching methods. Development of these processes began in the 1960s.

It appears that Cueball has confused semiconductors with {{w|Superconductivity|superconductors}} - materials that have no electrical resistance, meaning the flow of electrons is not slowed down at all (resistance can be thought of as the electrical equivalence of friction). Superconducting properties are extremely desirable since they allow for the lossless flow of electric current, as opposed to regular conductors like copper which have a low but non-zero resistance so the electric current decreases over time and distance, and this may also lead to superconductors having interesting magnetic properties. However, the known superconductors only work at extremely low temperatures close to 0 K, so their practical use is very limited. The discovery of superconductors that work above the boiling point of nitrogen (77 K or -196 °C) was a big deal because it meant that relatively cheap liquid nitrogen could be used as coolant rather than liquid helium. The comic probably references the then-recent controversy around alleged superconducting properties of carbonaceous sulfur hydride and nitrogen-doped lutetium hydride under extreme pressures. A team at the University of Rochester published two papers in the journal Nature, the first for C–S–H at 267 GPa which was later retracted after failed attempts at replication, and the second for Lu–N–H at just 1 GPa, which was later replicated. This article too was later retracted after further study. Other scientists criticized the methodology of the early studies as being unable to confirm superconductivity.

These pressures would have been too high to be practical for most engineering purposes anyway, but the discovery would still progress the study of superconductivity. The discovery of a superconductor at standard temperature and pressure would be extremely surprising and could revolutionize electricity transmission, among other things, and dramatically reduce the cost of technologies like magnetic levitation and high-resolution nuclear magnetic resonance imaging.

In the title text, Cueball talks about a device that produces “uncontrolled {{w|Nuclear_fusion|hot fusion}}” which is also not met with enthusiasm. Again, this is likely due to the fact that it has already been discovered and used - in the form of {{w|Thermonuclear weapon|hydrogen bombs}}. This is likely why no one wants to fund the device - not only is it not novel, but it is {{w|Operation Ivy|extremely dangerous}}; though clearly he also hasn't excited those people who typically ''want'' something dangerous. ''Controlled'' hot fusion could be useful as an {{w|Fusion_power|alternative power source}} to nuclear reactors (which currently use nuclear ''fission''); however, {{w|Tokamak|current implementations}} still require more energy than they create. Cueball probably confused this with ''cold'' fusion, i.e. nuclear fusion that takes place at temperatures much, much lower than the millions of degrees required for "regular" hot fusion. There are {{w|Muon-catalyzed_fusion|reputable ways}} of achieving this (all of which require vast amounts of energy), but "cold fusion" has become the epitome of bad science since two scientists claimed, with much media attention, to have achieved cold nuclear fusion by doing an {{w|Cold_fusion|electrolysis of palladium in heavy water}}. The results could not be replicated by other scientists and the experiment was widely criticized for its many flaws, most importantly that the only indication of nuclear fusion was excess heat, with no detection of actual fusion byproducts.

High(er)-temperature super-conductivity might be the key to more effortlessly initiating and maintaining low(er)-temperature fusion, through very concentrated magnetic fields, but so far their respective temperature ranges are too different to use them in combination, and whether this will ever be possible remains subject to speculation.

It should be noted that both "discoveries" presented in the comic were in fact very big and important discoveries back in their day. The proposal that nuclear fusion is what powers stars earned {{w|Hans_Bethe|Hans Bethe}} the Nobel prize in Physics, and semiconductors are what allow modern electronic devices to be so small, as their properties make it possible to selectively steer the flow of electrical current, {{w|Integrated_circuit|even over an extremely small area}}.

==Transcript==
:[A single frame with a table in the middle. A device consisting of multiple components and electrical wires is on the table. A Cueball stands to the left of the table with hands open, and facing him, Ponytail and another Cueball stand to the right of the table.]
:Cueball: My layered silicon crystals can amplify or switch current while sitting right here on the table!
:Ponytail: Uh huh.
:Another Cueball: I see.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:No one is impressed by my discovery of room-temperature semiconductors.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Physics]]

Talk:1196: Subways

2025-05-18T17:34:41Z

EebstertheGreat:

I think the comic is making fun of the ridiculous scale-inaccuracies found in public transport plans, including subway plans, which make it hard to estimate actual distances and travel times. {{unsigned ip|‎130.60.152.125|08:15, 8 April 2013‎ (UTC)}}
:Well that's because you live in America. They are inaccurate because it makes them easier to read: you should already know the distances between the stops. [[User:Beanie|Beanie]] ([[User talk:Beanie|talk]]) 12:03, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

I think it's deffently a factor. <that one editor who always forgets to login> {{unsigned ip|82.16.27.115 |08:35, 8 April 2013‎ (UTC)}}
: (Let's try again, dodgy internet link, here, and someone's editing in parallel it seems.) I don't personally find the scale-inaccuracies ridiculous. Take a scale-consistent map of a "city-and-its-suburbs" and it's way too busy/cramped in the centre and very sparse at the fringes. Personally I like the way that [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Moscow_metro_map_en_sb.svg Moscow] treated this problem. But my favourite is of course the classic London Underground maps. Or, for fun, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Bear_%28lithograph%29 this variant] (image link available there, but I've already got a copy on my wall anyway). In fact, what ''I'' take from Randall's Subways image is something akin to what I like about this latter. Instead of playing with identity, playing with connectivity. Anyone want to add the Tube/Paris Metro/Berlin U&S-Bahn, etc, onto the edges of Randall's effort? ;) [[Special:Contributions/178.99.244.212|178.99.244.212]]
:'Deffently.' I don't think you have a say here if you spell the word 'definitely' that badly. [[User:Beanie|Beanie]] ([[User talk:Beanie|talk]]) 12:05, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Evocative (perhaps far too?) of the frontispiece of [http://www.amazon.com/Transit-Maps-World-Mark-Ovenden/dp/0143112651 "Transit Maps of the World"]. A stylized representation of all of the world's subway maps connected together.
[[Special:Contributions/199.167.121.226|199.167.121.226]] 18:38, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

What does it mean "(with respect to geography)"? As a non US citizen I don't know what is odd about this map. Is this actually how the lines connect up? Are these real stations/lines? Can you really go from san fransisco to new york on subway? {{unsigned ip|31.221.13.140|09:19, 8 April 2013‎ (UTC)}}
:Of course not. These are all different subway systems, only connected on this map because their official individual maps use the same colors for different lines. I expect this explanation will be updated to list all the different systems seen here, including Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) and the New York Subway. [[Special:Contributions/75.37.205.50|75.37.205.50]] 09:30, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
::"I expect this explanation will be updated to list all the different systems seen here" As a New Yorker, I can say that while most of the map is quite accurate, some lines cannot be named because each color belongs to multiple lines (with some exceptions) and Randall has taken some serious liberties at the connections to other systems. (E.g. there is no blue line with one end in Hoboken and the other end at 34th Street, as shown on this map) [[User:Bdemirci|Bdemirci]] ([[User talk:Bdemirci|talk]]) 12:17, 8 April 2013 (UTC) EDIT: That blue line might be part of the NJ Transit, but including a New Jersey line in with the Subway is quite heretical. [[User:Bdemirci|Bdemirci]] ([[User talk:Bdemirci|talk]]) 12:25, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
:::That blue line is part of PATH, a subway between NJ and NYC. It's not part of NJ Transit; it's run by the Port Authority, an agency created by a bi-state compact between NY and NJ. And its official map does indeed use blue for the line from hoboken to 33rd street. [[Special:Contributions/66.202.132.250|66.202.132.250]] 13:57, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
::::[Insert standard New Yorker response about how we're not expected to know anything having to do with New Jersey, and that Path and NJ Transit are all the same crap blah blah blah]. Regardless, is it any less heretical? [[User:Bdemirci|Bdemirci]] ([[User talk:Bdemirci|talk]]) 07:28, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
:::I heard they're starting to talk about extending the 7 to Secaucus... [[Special:Contributions/128.220.159.17|128.220.159.17]] 15:35, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
:Also, the comic is using an extremely loose definition of "subway". (Chicago and Cleveland, for example, do not have anything that would fit a normal, dictionary definition of the word. And no, what they do have is certainly not connected in any case -- unless you count highways, in which case the map is ridiculously incomplete.) [[User:Jonadab|Jonadab]] ([[User talk:Jonadab|talk]]) 11:17, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
::I don't know about Cleveland, but you're just plain wrong about Chicago. Chicago most definitely has a subway system in the traditional (as well as in the pedantic) sense. [[Special:Contributions/207.229.139.18|207.229.139.18]] 22:58, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
::You're definitely wrong about Cleveland as well, although it's little used and not very practical, there is absolutely a subway system. As for connection between Cleveland and Chicago, other than by highway or by train, yes, obviously they are not connected. But there is in fact a subway system in Cleveland that fits the traditional (and pedantic) sense of the word, even if it is not massively used by locals (other than on St. Patrick's day, and other large events) [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.96|108.162.215.96]] 09:46, 20 July 2016 (UTC)
:::No it does not lmao. Are you talking about like a hundred yards of the red line that goes underground to reach Tower City? Because that is the entire extent of our "subway." What we have is above-ground passenger rail. Most of it is light rail, partially at-grade (green, blue, waterfront), or bus rapid transit (Healthline), but the red line is fully grade-separated heavy rail, the only line we have. But "grade-separated heavy rail" is not subway. Subway means subterranean. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 17:34, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

:It's often hard to realize the distances involved when one is talking about a country or region one is unfamiliar with. In the case of North America, and this semi-fictitious subway system, the distances between the furthest points is about 3,000 miles (about 5,000km); it would generally take about 2 days of highway driving, with no stops, to get from any one end to the opposite other. Randall took real subway maps from different cities, already not to scale, and fictitiously joined them together as if the cities were right next door to each other and really connected. They are not. In most cases, you have to fly, drive, take a bus, or take a regular (non-subway) train if you wanted to go from one city's subway system to another's. [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 14:47, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Hmmm, there is no mention of the 7 or so underground stations in Edmonton, Canada. It is classified as light rail as opposed to heavy rail but still meets the "pedantic rail enthusiasts" definition included under the comic.
Quote: For the pedantic rail enthusiasts, the definition of a subway used here is, with some caveats, "a network containing high capacity grade-separated passenger rail transit lines which run frequently, serve an urban core, and are underground or elevated for at least part of their downtown route." For the rest of you, the definition is "a bunch of trains under a city.[[Special:Contributions/220.239.66.60|220.239.66.60]] 10:10, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
:I suspect the Edmonton, Alberta system got left out for the same reason as the (similarly sized) Buffalo, NY system got left out. The Buffalo system consists of a single line connecting a dozen or so stations below ground and about 5-6 above ground. It fits the "pedantic rail enthusiasts" definition, with the possible exception of being a "network". But more importantly, since it is a single line, I don't think they color-coded it. Without a color-code, where would it hook into Randal's map? [[User:Blaisepascal|Blaisepascal]] ([[User talk:Blaisepascal|talk]]) 14:14, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

In Montreal, the Longueuil station is misspelled as "Longueil". --[[User:Prooffreader|Prooffreader]] ([[User talk:Prooffreader|talk]]) 15:32, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't know the other cities' subway maps well enough, but the NYC map has several jokes in it. The "G" line is listed as having "Random service", which is pretty accurate (it's extremely unreliable). The blue and orange lines in Jamaica (a former independent city now part of the boro of Queens) are listed as coming together in "Kingston", which not in NYC, it's the capital of the island nation of Jamaica. There is a fictional "Puerto Rico Submarine" listed as a complement to the real Staten Island Ferry. The (non-existent) connection from Staten Island NY to DC is listed as the "Robert Moses High speed line", in other words, a freeway such as Robert Moses was known for (presumably I-95, although Moses had nothing to do with that). [[Special:Contributions/66.202.132.250|66.202.132.250]] 13:57, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
:Just realized that the green line extending north from Hoboken to "Green" is supposed to be the Green Line of the {{w|Hudson-Bergen Light Rail}} which has elevated and subway segments (the rest of the system is at-grade). The real line ends at the Tonnelle Avenue parking lot in North Bergen. It only has service during weekdays (not nights). [[Special:Contributions/66.202.132.250|66.202.132.250]] 14:56, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
::I don't think that's supposed to be the HBLR. If it were, the (larger) part that runs south from Hoboken Terminal would be there too. I think that's just a connection he threw in between green-colored lines. NJT, surprisingly enough for an agency of its size, doesn't have any kind of rapid transit service, so I wasn't expecting to see any of NJT on there. (Except *maybe* the Newark Light Rail, formerly known as the Newark City Subway.) [[Special:Contributions/128.220.159.17|128.220.159.17]] 15:35, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
:Strange why the Jay-Z doesn't extend to "Kingston"; they end at Jamaica Center just like the E. Maybe this is a reference to Kingston's actual public transit? I tried looking it up, thinking that maybe Kingston has two subway lines (blue and orange for the E and F), but I got nothing. [[User:Bdemirci|Bdemirci]] ([[User talk:Bdemirci|talk]]) 08:27, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
:Speaking of, Randall missed a connection opportunity here since the Orange line of the MBTA ends at "Forest Hills", just like the M in New York. (Maybe because the F keeps going, and there's no way to tell them apart? Plus, it would take an overlap of the lines to match them up.) [[User:Bdemirci|Bdemirci]] ([[User talk:Bdemirci|talk]]) 22:17, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
::Well, what the Orange Line continues onto *does* end up going to a Forest Hills... one that's even labeled... [[Special:Contributions/128.220.159.17|128.220.159.17]] 15:35, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Looks like Randall goofed with one of his jokes. West Trenton is one of the final stops on one of Philadelphia's passenger rail lines (SEPTA). SEPTA isn't really a subway as it's only underground in the city center. But he happened to draw it in the "Cleveland" area of the map, and ended up connecting it to Boston's Cleveland Circle. That doesn't make sense since there's no west Trenton in Cleveland. [[Special:Contributions/66.202.132.250|66.202.132.250]] 13:57, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
:Philadelphian here. I did a double-take at that one, as I was looking at what Philly's system was hooked up with, then spotted the words "West Trenton" in approximately the same relative position to Philly's subways as it is on the SEPTA map. And then I looked for ways that the West Trenton label might be justified where it is, but I couldn't find any. Also, "SEPTA isn't really a subway" ignores the two real subway lines it does run, plus the subway line run by a separate agency (PATCO) into Philadelphia, plus the subway segment of the trolley lines (which definitely qualify for inclusion if the MBTA Green Line did), all of which are shown. You seem to have been thinking of the commuter rail (Regional Rail) only, which doesn't qualify for the map, period. [[Special:Contributions/128.220.159.17|128.220.159.17]] 15:35, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

The comic leaves out the Newark Light Rail (formerly known as the Newark Subway). It's only one line with about 15 stops, but it does connect with the PATH system (which is in the comic) {{unsigned|JamesCurran|21:21, 8 April 2013‎ (UTC)}}

Good couple of jokes in the Boston area: 1) The real station of Braintree is accompanied by the fictional stations of Bonevine and Skinflower; 2) Ashmont-Mattapan High Speed Line has conveniently become Ashmont-Manhattan High Speed Line; 3) The Green Line extension currently under development has been rerouted to Canada; 4) The Cleveland Circle Station has become the departure point for the shuttle to Cleveland. [[Special:Contributions/209.6.46.147|209.6.46.147]] 14:26, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

The downtown area has the Caribbean Metromover. It's not visible on this map because by scale, the Metromover system's tiny; the stops are only a couple blocks apart. Its actual shape is similar to the icon on weather maps for a hurricane but mirrored horizontally. There is no mention of the unused ghost station at Government Center, surprisingly. [[Special:Contributions/75.95.79.214|75.95.79.214]] 20:32, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of a town called Sunnydale in the USA.
However, whilst researching whether this was a pun to the Buffy Television series it turned out the metro station named Sunnydale actually exists: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunnydale_Avenue_Station ...
[[User:Kaa-ching|Kaa-ching]] ([[User talk:Kaa-ching|talk]]) 15:44, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

The map shown in this comic is the BART system (Bay Area Regional Transit), not the San Francisco Muni. So, I suspect this is meant as a Buffy reference. Also, Sunnyvale (note the V) is a real town in the SF Bay Area, but it does not have BART service. {{unsigned|Armckoe| 15:50, 8 April 2013‎ (UTC)}}
:Nope, Randall conflates both Muni and BART in this (which is what the whole comic is, really...) On the western part of the SF map, the purple is the the L-Taraval, the Green is the M-OceanView , the blue is the N-Judah, the Red appears to be the T-Third, the orange the J-Church. On the eastern side, tho, the chart looks more BART-ish. Hmmm, I'm going to have to take the N-Judah to the end of the line some day (or at least farther along.) I've always wanted to go back to Vancouver. -> [[Special:Contributions/64.7.70.234|64.7.70.234]] 04:49, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
:: (The Muni route map is [http://transit.511.org/static/providers/maps/SF_712200722226.pdf here]) -> [[Special:Contributions/64.7.70.234|64.7.70.234]] 04:49, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
:: I don't like how he merged in the Muni lines though. The Muni map (Not Randal's, I mean the real one in the stations) is not accurate to the actual geography of the lines, it is more of an indication of the relative direction the lines run. Also, the Muni map isfar more zoomed in than the Bart map. Both these factors caused Randal's map to have some oddities, like having the Sunnydale station south east of the airport (And somewhere in the bay I would guess).[[Special:Contributions/24.5.180.33|24.5.180.33]] 08:06, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Curious that the Sunnydale line connects to San Francisco instead of Los Angeles, considering that the latter is actually depicted in the show and is the setting for the Angel spinoff. [[Special:Contributions/71.211.186.75|71.211.186.75]] 00:56, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
: Sunnydale is a real exit along the Muni 'T' line. Also, Buffy's zip code placed here nearish San Jose and Santa Cruz (actually sort of closer to San Jose). This made UC Santa Cruz a possibility for the college they depicted her attending. [[Special:Contributions/24.5.180.33|24.5.180.33]] 08:06, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure what prevented the St. Louis MetroLink from making the cut. There are 2 lines (Red and Blue - yes, it's only two, but isn't that still a network?). It's got grade separation in the urban core and other high-traffic areas, it's high-traffic, runs frequently (every 10-20 minutes) and is underground in downtown St. Louis. The only reason I can think of is insufficient grade-separation, but Randall doesn't define a threshold for that. {{unsigned ip|66.148.130.2|16:44, 8 April 2013 (UTC)}}

Pittsburgh Light Rail, or "The T", currently has only 2 lines as well, and parts of it are above ground, but I still would have liked to see it make the cut. It gets heavy usage in downtown Pittsburgh. {{unsigned ip| 24.154.252.235 |19:53, 8 April 2013‎ (UTC)}}

The "Morgantown WV Automated Line is clearly a reference to the WVU Personal Rapid Transit system. The PRT goes underground for all of about 15', but the whole lower half is elevated. It's also nice that the area attributed to it is approximately the route the PRT does take. An interesting side note - the PRT is not rails. Its a wheeled system that runs on pavement. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgantown_Personal_Rapid_Transit Having said that, I'd also like to echo that the Pittsburgh and Newark subways should have been included. I suspect a v 2.0 in the future. {{[[Special:Contributions/98.236.92.146|98.236.92.146]] 23:34, 8 April 2013 (UTC)|hewhocaves}}

Atlanta's subway map is found at http://www.itsmarta.com/rail-schedules-or-route.aspx [[Special:Contributions/134.24.147.160|134.24.147.160]] 13:53, 9 April 2013 (UTC)Max

I just noticed that the plane icon for the MIA airport is a paper airplane as opposed for the typical icon used for the other airports. Is this a reference to something? [[Special:Contributions/107.205.37.99|107.205.37.99]] 18:39, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

:You must not have left the house during all of 2007. I envy you. http://youtu.be/ewRjZoRtu0Y 22:18, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

:Sounds like a reference to the song Paper Planes by M.I.A. (sometimes written MIA), aka Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam. I think it is her most popular (in a Billboard sense) so far and has charted in countries scattered all over the world. [[Special:Contributions/129.176.151.14|129.176.151.14]] 18:06, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

The Seattle monorail is not a loop, so the "Springfield Monorail" is not a reference to it. Also, Randall neglected to include Seattle's own subway that connects downtown to the airport. [[Special:Contributions/50.46.145.200|50.46.145.200]] 05:33, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

I liked seeing something actually acknowledge the existence of the Baltimore Metro Subway. It's one of the best-kept transit secrets in Baltimore - a number of lifelong Baltimoreans I know were quite surprised to learn that Baltimore has an actual subway. (The existence of its light rail is much better known.) The green belt by Greenbelt (a Washington Metro station) was a nice touch - there's really no other natural way to connect the Greenbelt and Johns Hopkins stations without forming a loop like that anyway. I'm not sure how pleased Owings Mills will be at suddenly having West Philly one stop away though... [[Special:Contributions/128.220.159.17|128.220.159.17]] 15:35, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

:Are you serious, they grew up there and don't know about it? Where do they live? I guess the Johns Hopkisn station is pretty obscure, and they'd have to never see the other two or so and not live in the northwest but still, don't they have friends or family or acquaintences or TV or talk to people or like trivia at all? To tell the truth one of the first things a normal New Yorker would do upon reaching a new city is see what their subway map's like. One line (almost a half of a line, it ends like 1.7 stops past the city center) and a light rail, that's underwhelming. {{unsigned ip|108.27.91.16|21:22, 12 April 2013‎ (UTC)}}

Seems like Randall also flubbed the location of YVR in the Vancouver system. Yes, it's the YVR/Richmond line, but Richmond is the one that goes straight down and YVR branches off to the west.[[Special:Contributions/174.6.48.164|174.6.48.164]] 03:22, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

'''Laughs in Moscow Metro'''
XAXAXAXAXAXAXAXAXAX They have SPb-Moscow connection jokes here too! [[Special:Contributions/141.101.95.118|141.101.95.118]] 04:54, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Talk:3074: Push Notifications

2025-04-10T02:53:49Z

EebstertheGreat:

So...this is the April Fool's comic, if I'm not mistaken... Oh ye of little faith! [[Special:Contributions/172.71.26.106|172.71.26.106]] 20:00, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

I turned this on thinking it would just be a few every so often but I quickly realized how this is xkcd and it doesn't "joke". I had to turn this off because it disrupted my schoolwork by popping up every fricking 5 minutes

Apparently my employer (or ublock) is keeping me from experiencing the full effect of any notifications. All I get is "An *actual* error has occurred. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.173|162.158.91.173]] 20:52, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
:Yeah, I'm confused too. I've tried Chrome and got nothing. I've tried Edge and got effectively nothing. I progressed one message further, but nothing showed up. No notifications, popups, or whatever. And I have never installed an add-on for Edge. Edge did give me access to the game over screen by disabling notifications, but when I tried to re-enable them, nothing happened.
:
:Is this a mobile-only thing? [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 02:51, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

What the heck are the "Zoom Notification" ones, with just a pair of numbers? Now that I've been sitting with this for a little bit, they're by far the most common notifications, and the most mysterious. What is "zoom"ing or should be zoomed-in-on or whatever, and what do the two numbers signify? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.22.75|172.68.22.75]] 20:35, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
:I think they're coordinates. So far (x,y) has had x from 4 fo 73 (that I've seen) and y from 2 to 28. That gives a tad over 2000 possible combinations, but omething tells me there won't be more than 500 or so in total. Quite a few y=24 (not yet adjacent by x), and any given x has 0 to 3 different y partners (so far). They ''do'' repeat (I'm not recording how many times, but I'm scatterplotting what I get). The ones prefixed with "oh look!" are tightly clustered in x=6..13 and y=4..11, so far, with no non-"oh look!" ones there, so I'm plotting them in a different marker. I ''suspect'', after many many more Zoom Notifications, I'll be left with (enough of) a pixelated image's pixels (of two types, background colour excluded), or else I'm doing it wrong and I should be drawing lines between the dots, but I never managed to grab them all, so I'm relying on it being a random "spraygun droplets" sort of image-reveal. (Still some way to go...) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.241.66|172.71.241.66]] 23:08, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
: Also, Zoom is a video chat app, if you didn't know that. That's the joke. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 02:53, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Made a new page called [[3074: Push Notifications/Table of Notifications]], much like [[1506: xkcloud/List of Permalinks]]. I’m hoping that we can put all of the possible notifications into the table, along with any possible images that go along with it and an explanation (if necessary). '''[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]][[User talk:42.book.addict|Talk to me!]]''' 21:26, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
:I think it might be a good idea to make the table something more like source/name/notification, because there are chains of notifications where the name changes, like the How Many Times Can You Click This? notification. --[[User:Magicalus|Magicalus]] ([[User talk:Magicalus|talk]]) 23:19, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
::Might even want to track the URL that the notification leads to in the cases where it opens a new tab. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.142.57|172.71.142.57]]
:Did you mean a page much like [[1506:_xkcloud/List_of_Permalinks]]? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.175.171|162.158.175.171]] 01:25, 10 April 2025 (UTC)
:: Weird, someone changed that. I just reverted it. --[[User:Jacky720|Jack]] ([[User talk:Jacky720|t]]|[[Special:Contributions/Jacky720|c]]) 02:07, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

I clicked on the silence notifications at a cost button a lot and it set Cueball's PC on fire?

I found what is presumably the source code (?) of the comic through the transcript. It’s all JS pages. No idea what they mean (I’m not good with code), but I’m sure that there are some on here that can help dissect it. '''[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]][[User talk:42.book.addict|Talk to me!]]''' 21:50, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
:https://xkcd.com/3074/marconi/manifest.json
:https://xkcd.com/3074/marconi/static/js/42.4f5b21b3.js
:https://xkcd.com/3074/marconi/static/js/index.js?v=1

: I found this list of states in there, saved to the "iU" variable: intro, wordgame, gameover, biglaptop, boat, default, floating, longdesk, missing, nekotree, nekotree2, nekowater, nodesk, onfire, peek, shark, spinning, squirrel, squirreldesk, squirrelplant, standing, sword, tallchair, tentacle, water, wizard, bigplant, catchair, catonhead, compiling, floor, plant, reverse. Presumably, this is all the images we're looking for. I'll get back to you if I identify what chooses them or all their actual filepaths. --[[User:Jacky720|Jack]] ([[User talk:Jacky720|t]]|[[Special:Contributions/Jacky720|c]]) 00:43, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

I have a sneaking suspicion the Zoom Notifications are sketching out an image of some sort
(Update: after plotting like 60 of them no apparent pattern is to be found) [[User:SkiesShaper|SkiesShaper]] ([[User talk:SkiesShaper|talk]]) 22:24, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
: I've plotted 397 and it seems to be forming some kind of animal. Maybe a cat, given the comic theme? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.35.119|172.68.35.119]] 23:24, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
:That could make sense yeah - there is definitely an organic sort of pattern emerging from the points I've been plotting out [[User:SkiesShaper|SkiesShaper]] ([[User talk:SkiesShaper|talk]]) 00:35, 10 April 2025 (UTC)
: I'm pretty sure it's a turtle. I have 311 points so far and while it isn't clear, it looks like a turtle. [[User:IMW|IMW]] ([[User talk:IMW|talk]]) 01:51, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Apparently one of the notifications is: "The Earth is spinning at a rate of 1 rpd" This is true if you round it, but not exact. The time it takes to rotate is called a sidereal day, and there's one extra sidereal day a year. Basically, there's one solar day removed in a year, because the Earth's motion around the sun cancels it out. Think of it with a tidally locked planet. It spins around once a year, but the sun never moves. Really there's 1.0027379 rotations per day. [[User:DanielLC|DanielLC]] ([[User talk:DanielLC|talk]]) 23:02, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

This is the most chaotic comic I've seen in a while. Part of me wants to keep notifications on to see what happens, and part of me wants to turn it all off and throw my phone in a lake [[User:Alcatraz ii|Alcatraz ii]] ([[User talk:Alcatraz ii|talk]]) 00:40, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

I am making a sheet with the cordinates: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/133jGfOM6EVuEco4j2NumOAOv6pEealyZpbDoMkESXvs/edit?usp=sharing
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.81|108.162.216.81]] 01:31, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Talk:3074: Push Notifications

2025-04-10T02:51:59Z

EebstertheGreat:

So...this is the April Fool's comic, if I'm not mistaken... Oh ye of little faith! [[Special:Contributions/172.71.26.106|172.71.26.106]] 20:00, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

I turned this on thinking it would just be a few every so often but I quickly realized how this is xkcd and it doesn't "joke". I had to turn this off because it disrupted my schoolwork by popping up every fricking 5 minutes

Apparently my employer (or ublock) is keeping me from experiencing the full effect of any notifications. All I get is "An *actual* error has occurred. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.173|162.158.91.173]] 20:52, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
:Yeah, I'm confused too. I've tried Chrome and got nothing. I've tried Edge and got effectively nothing. I progressed one message further, but nothing showed up. No notifications, popups, or whatever. And I have never installed an add-on for Edge. Edge did give me access to the game over screen by disabling notifications, but when I tried to re-enable them, nothing happened.
:
:Is this a mobile-only thing? [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 02:51, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

What the heck are the "Zoom Notification" ones, with just a pair of numbers? Now that I've been sitting with this for a little bit, they're by far the most common notifications, and the most mysterious. What is "zoom"ing or should be zoomed-in-on or whatever, and what do the two numbers signify? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.22.75|172.68.22.75]] 20:35, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
:I think they're coordinates. So far (x,y) has had x from 4 fo 73 (that I've seen) and y from 2 to 28. That gives a tad over 2000 possible combinations, but omething tells me there won't be more than 500 or so in total. Quite a few y=24 (not yet adjacent by x), and any given x has 0 to 3 different y partners (so far). They ''do'' repeat (I'm not recording how many times, but I'm scatterplotting what I get). The ones prefixed with "oh look!" are tightly clustered in x=6..13 and y=4..11, so far, with no non-"oh look!" ones there, so I'm plotting them in a different marker. I ''suspect'', after many many more Zoom Notifications, I'll be left with (enough of) a pixelated image's pixels (of two types, background colour excluded), or else I'm doing it wrong and I should be drawing lines between the dots, but I never managed to grab them all, so I'm relying on it being a random "spraygun droplets" sort of image-reveal. (Still some way to go...) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.241.66|172.71.241.66]] 23:08, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Made a new page called [[3074: Push Notifications/Table of Notifications]], much like [[1506: xkcloud/List of Permalinks]]. I’m hoping that we can put all of the possible notifications into the table, along with any possible images that go along with it and an explanation (if necessary). '''[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]][[User talk:42.book.addict|Talk to me!]]''' 21:26, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
:I think it might be a good idea to make the table something more like source/name/notification, because there are chains of notifications where the name changes, like the How Many Times Can You Click This? notification. --[[User:Magicalus|Magicalus]] ([[User talk:Magicalus|talk]]) 23:19, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
::Might even want to track the URL that the notification leads to in the cases where it opens a new tab. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.142.57|172.71.142.57]]
:Did you mean a page much like [[1506:_xkcloud/List_of_Permalinks]]? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.175.171|162.158.175.171]] 01:25, 10 April 2025 (UTC)
:: Weird, someone changed that. I just reverted it. --[[User:Jacky720|Jack]] ([[User talk:Jacky720|t]]|[[Special:Contributions/Jacky720|c]]) 02:07, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

I clicked on the silence notifications at a cost button a lot and it set Cueball's PC on fire?

I found what is presumably the source code (?) of the comic through the transcript. It’s all JS pages. No idea what they mean (I’m not good with code), but I’m sure that there are some on here that can help dissect it. '''[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]][[User talk:42.book.addict|Talk to me!]]''' 21:50, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
:https://xkcd.com/3074/marconi/manifest.json
:https://xkcd.com/3074/marconi/static/js/42.4f5b21b3.js
:https://xkcd.com/3074/marconi/static/js/index.js?v=1

: I found this list of states in there, saved to the "iU" variable: intro, wordgame, gameover, biglaptop, boat, default, floating, longdesk, missing, nekotree, nekotree2, nekowater, nodesk, onfire, peek, shark, spinning, squirrel, squirreldesk, squirrelplant, standing, sword, tallchair, tentacle, water, wizard, bigplant, catchair, catonhead, compiling, floor, plant, reverse. Presumably, this is all the images we're looking for. I'll get back to you if I identify what chooses them or all their actual filepaths. --[[User:Jacky720|Jack]] ([[User talk:Jacky720|t]]|[[Special:Contributions/Jacky720|c]]) 00:43, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

I have a sneaking suspicion the Zoom Notifications are sketching out an image of some sort
(Update: after plotting like 60 of them no apparent pattern is to be found) [[User:SkiesShaper|SkiesShaper]] ([[User talk:SkiesShaper|talk]]) 22:24, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
: I've plotted 397 and it seems to be forming some kind of animal. Maybe a cat, given the comic theme? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.35.119|172.68.35.119]] 23:24, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
:That could make sense yeah - there is definitely an organic sort of pattern emerging from the points I've been plotting out [[User:SkiesShaper|SkiesShaper]] ([[User talk:SkiesShaper|talk]]) 00:35, 10 April 2025 (UTC)
: I'm pretty sure it's a turtle. I have 311 points so far and while it isn't clear, it looks like a turtle. [[User:IMW|IMW]] ([[User talk:IMW|talk]]) 01:51, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Apparently one of the notifications is: "The Earth is spinning at a rate of 1 rpd" This is true if you round it, but not exact. The time it takes to rotate is called a sidereal day, and there's one extra sidereal day a year. Basically, there's one solar day removed in a year, because the Earth's motion around the sun cancels it out. Think of it with a tidally locked planet. It spins around once a year, but the sun never moves. Really there's 1.0027379 rotations per day. [[User:DanielLC|DanielLC]] ([[User talk:DanielLC|talk]]) 23:02, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

This is the most chaotic comic I've seen in a while. Part of me wants to keep notifications on to see what happens, and part of me wants to turn it all off and throw my phone in a lake [[User:Alcatraz ii|Alcatraz ii]] ([[User talk:Alcatraz ii|talk]]) 00:40, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

I am making a sheet with the cordinates: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/133jGfOM6EVuEco4j2NumOAOv6pEealyZpbDoMkESXvs/edit?usp=sharing
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.81|108.162.216.81]] 01:31, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Talk:3055: Giants

2025-02-26T03:49:34Z

EebstertheGreat:

Anyone know why "the Man in the Moon" has square brackets around it? Stylistic choice, or clever reference? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.254.43|172.71.254.43]] 19:38, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

:I suspect it's to make it clear that it's all one block of text, otherwise it might be read as separate objects on each line. [[User:IntangibleMatter|IntangibleMatter]] ([[User talk:IntangibleMatter|talk]]) 20:01, 24 February 2025 (UTC)
::I thought that too but then Jolly Green should be in brackets as well. I think it's because Man in the Moon doesn't have "giant" after it. The rest all assume "giant" after (gas giant, etc.).[[Special:Contributions/162.158.63.81|162.158.63.81]] 20:07, 24 February 2025 (UTC)Pat
:::I think that the difference between these two cases is just a matter of available space. The space around "Jolly/Green" makes it clear that the two words go together, whereas "The/Man in/the Moon" would be crammed together even if the three lines were supposed to be distinct, unless the font was a lot smaller. The brackets remove that ambiguity. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 21:36, 24 February 2025 (UTC)
:Given how commonly this community makes up answers, and how very little information there is on this, I suspect the correct answer to this question to not emerge here, but maybe somebody can make an argument that is actually convincing. It's certainly notably different and I didn't think much of it until seeing it mentioned. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.63.28|162.158.63.28]] 20:33, 24 February 2025 (UTC)
:I think it's because unlike all the other entries in the diagram, it is not appropriate to append the word "Giant" to the end of it. Like, it's the full name of a particular giant, rather than a "type" of one as otherwise implied by the title of the chart. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.7.194|172.69.7.194]] 22:38, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

Alas, if only the Norse had referred to Ymir and his descendants as "Ice Giants" instead of "Frost Giants", we might have had another contender for that central space. [[User:MeZimm|MeZimm]] ([[User talk:MeZimm|talk]]) 20:35, 24 February 2025 (UTC)
:Oh, let's not get hung up on what things are correctly named – the renaming of the Iron Man to the Iron Giant has always seemed very clumsy, but, alas, seems to have stuck.[[User:Yorkshire Pudding|Yorkshire Pudding]] ([[User talk:Yorkshire Pudding|talk]]) 11:05, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Been a while since Randall's enthusiasm for Buns (rabbits) made an appearance in the comic! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.130.216|172.70.130.216]] 05:36, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Classifying the Atacama Giant and Cardiff Giant as 'Geological / Planetary' seems pretty dubious - requires an unusually broad interpretation of one or other of those terms.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.163.109|172.70.163.109]] 09:57, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
:I didn't see this when doing so, but the intro explanation's use of "geological" needed editing ('maybe-quoted') to encompass the MITM's more accurately ''selenological'' nature, and (being lunar) it also really isn't "planetary", either.
:Assuming that "planetary" is the fallback for rock-like stuff that isn't properly Earthly, it's a questionable fallback given that the Moon is... only a moon! At best, it's "a moon of a planet", but then the semantic alternatives are limited (a moon of a ''dwarf-planet'', is the only alternative I can currently think of, until we also see 'moons' of artificial constructs given a planet-like status).
:But I also can't think of a better reduction/refinement (for ourselves, or that Randall might have better used for his current self-selected set), so contented myself with employing minor punctuated vaguity. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.4|172.70.90.4]] 14:25, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
:: In planetary science, [https://www.planetary.org/worlds/what-is-a-planet the moon is a planet]. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 03:47, 26 February 2025 (UTC)

Poor André is once again left out [[User:Pmeisel|Pmeisel]] ([[User talk:Pmeisel|talk]]) 14:11, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
: New York didn't get a mention either, even though [https://www.space.com/michael-strahan-blue-origin-ns-19-photos#:~:text=On%20Dec.,their%20epic%20mission%20in%20pictures.&text=The%20NS-19%20crew. at least one of them] has been to space.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.58|172.71.178.58]] 17:27, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

May iron giant be a reference to {{w|iron star|iron stars}} that may exist (if protons do not decay) c. 101500 years from now? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.194.113|172.71.194.113]] 15:47, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
: No, it's a reference to the character in the book and movie who came from and could fly in space. Thus he is both not real and (fictionally) in space. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 03:49, 26 February 2025 (UTC)

Talk:3055: Giants

2025-02-26T03:47:31Z

EebstertheGreat:

Talk:3044: Humidifier Review

2025-01-31T01:28:41Z

EebstertheGreat:

Somehow, the text here makes me think of the air-source heat pump equivalent, i.e. ''Why shouldn't it be the case that humidifiers condense outside air and suck the water out of it, and then pump that water into the conditioned space and re-disperse it?'' Of course, the obvious answer is that doing so would be frightfully expensive and entirely unnecessary given the cost of that kind of condensation compared to the cost of water. And, of course, the capital cost for the minor plumbing to install a domestic water line to the humidifier is going to be far smaller than the capital cost of a heat pump apparatus (or whatever) to generate condensation outdoors and then pump it into the conditioned space. [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 00:13, 30 January 2025 (UTC)
:Also it would still need that amount of water, just that the operator doesn't need to add it manually. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 12:43, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

This reminds me of the whole thing with the VTuber Sakura Miko where she was using a humidifier without knowing she had to fill the tank with water for at least a year [[Special:Contributions/172.70.223.184|172.70.223.184]] 01:10, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Related to that, just a week ago Sharp announced a humidifier collaboration with Sakura Miko, and as part of the PR they made a formal apology for "Not being able to use magic to make a waterless humidifier" {{unsigned ip|198.41.236.162|02:01, 30 January 2025}}

I'm waiting for the HydroPro High-Efficiency Electric Kettle™ which is connected to a heat pump to heat your tea water. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.170.192|172.71.170.192]] 04:39, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

: ''High-Efficiency Electric Kettle™ which is connected to a heat pump to heat your tea water'' You jest; but in the US we get hot water at the sink faucet. There is a push to do it all with heat-pumps, save a hundred bucks a year! (They say more, but I've compared our use.) But the heatpumps are $2K. A dumb resistor tank is $500. Payback is well in excess of 5 years. And it would make my cold cellar even colder, thus damper. --[[User:PRR|PRR]] ([[User talk:PRR|talk]]) 06:17, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

:: Just install a dehumidifier. And feed the water that the dehumidifier into the water heater. Infinite hot water! Also, enormous electric bills. Also legionnaire's disease. [[User:RegularSizedGuy|RegularSizedGuy]] ([[User talk:RegularSizedGuy|talk]]) 06:22, 30 January 2025 (UTC)
::: All dehumidifiers and all humidifiers must be connected together for the ultimate harmony! (If there turns out to be a net need/excess, we can work out what to do... We probably have a whole load of piping leading all over the planet, by this time, so we can find the most optimal source/sink.) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.33|172.70.162.33]] 13:32, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Another device which is often getting negative reviews for not breaking laws of physics is car. Not only that, EU laws for 2035 are basically making against the EU law for a new car to not break laws of physics. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 09:08, 30 January 2025 (UTC)
: The only two transportation options that do not either break the laws of physics or ultimately prove either unfeasible or useless against carbon dioxide spiking and resulting anthropogenic climate change have five toes on each one. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.42.87|162.158.42.87]] 15:34, 30 January 2025 (UTC)
:: Cycling burns about half the calories per mile as walking. Which one has the lower overall carbon footprint depends on a lot of factors, including the carbon created for food production, bicycle production, the lifetime and maintenance requirements for the bike, the health benefits leading to a longer life (and hence more carbon production) for the walker/rider, etc. But if you already have a bike, it's probably more efficient to ride than it is to walk. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.169|162.158.62.169]] 17:59, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Zero stars:

Dried out my house when I was already dehydrated

- BButton1869
[[User:PotatoGod|PotatoGod]] ([[User talk:PotatoGod|talk]]) 20:42, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure conservation of mass is the right law here. It would be possible to increase humidity without using water or violating the conservation of mass, such as by burning hydrogen. The relevant law here is the conservation of ''molecular quantity''. Except . . . that's not a law (hence my hydrogen combustion counterexample). What's going on here is that you cannot change the amount of water ''without a chemical reaction'', essentially by definition. So any humidifier that operates in a purely mechanical manner without reacting any chemicals will "conserve water" in this sense.

In the real world, every humidifier works this way, and it would rarely make sense to do it any other way. In fact, you are more likely to see oxygen made from water (e.g. in a submarine or space station) than vice-versa. However, if you have a natural gas furnace, that will produce water, and in principle, there's no reason that produced water could not be fed into a humidifier, thus saving on the water bill. Highly efficient furnaces capture the water without letting it out the flu, not because they want to salvage the water, but to increase efficiency. Still, the water is there, so this isn't a physically or even practically impossible demand. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 01:28, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

Talk:3027: Exclusion Principle

2024-12-21T16:38:10Z

EebstertheGreat:

It should be noted, that amusingly, since the quantum gravity has yet to be full explained thanks to the fact that gravity affects, and that for all we know, Exclusion Principle may be just as valid, if not more so, to be on the list as Gravity (even though Exclusion Principle should not, generally, be on this list.) {{unsigned|LilithRose|06:48, 21 December 2024}}

== Polymagnetic topologies as "color" charge, strong vs weak, etc? ==

I'm increasingly under the impression that these forces & principles, are each an expression of complex electromagnetic interactions? I've never quite understood why they're viewed as separate forces, instead of distinct-but-related expressions of a single type of force across complex topologies.

Particularly, I'm unclear why quark\gluon "color" interactions are seen as anything other than topologically-asymmetric fields interlocking; it just looks like the behavior of polymagnet fields, to me. (By the way, I'm glad there's now a common term, "polymagnetic", for the patterned fields that I'm sure many of us assembled while playing with tiny neodymium magnets & wire, as kids! Arranging multiple cores for a smaller, denser field, & observing that the patterns could interlock, felt like major 'Aha!' moments for me, at the time.)

I was so frustrated by my own feeling of "this complex thing I know very little about, really seems to have a very basic underlying principle that's being widely misconstrued", that [https://www.perplexity.ai/search/i-m-increasingly-under-the-imp-Q83bSr8pRXqMf64_VxKMZQ I've petitioned a mindless bot to hear my case.] (You'd have to scroll at least about halfway down, to get to any prompts even slightly interesting.) I'm probably wasting ''everyone's'' time with this, but it has been bothering me, more & more for ''decades,'' & my reading so far hasn't lessened that.

Why is everyone so insistent that these 'other' forces aren't magnetism? Seems like quite literally ''everything'' is magnetism, to me. Besides a formal education in the matter, what the heck am I missing, here?

[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 15:38, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

:I don't know what you mean by "complex topologies." Which topology? The reason we know the strong and weak interactions are not the electromagnetic interaction is that they have completely different gauge symmetries, among other reasons. The electromagnetic interaction has local symmetry group U(1), and the strong interaction has SU(3). Behaviorally-speaking, they are completely different in almost every respect, affecting different sets of particles, having different strengths, having different potentials, different ranges, carried by different fields, etc. Just as an example, an electron doesn't interact via the strong force ''at all.''

:It is likely that at extremely high energies, the electromagnetic, weak, and strong interactions are all unified. A theory describing this hypothetical union is called a grand unified theory or GUT, and detecting this experimentally is a major objective of modern physics. The unified "electroweak" interaction has already been observed at lower energies. But that doesn't mean the weak interaction is "just magnetism" or that electromagnetism is "just weak." They are both a consequence of a broken symmetry. The fully symmetric grand unified field would not resemble any one of the interactions that we see at lower energies but would be a symmetric combination of all of them. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 16:38, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Talk:2982: Water Filtration

2024-09-08T08:04:00Z

EebstertheGreat:

On the activated carbon filter, that's a double entendre, referencing both activated charcoal filters often used in filtration systems and the nearby neutron source, which is radioactivity activating the carbon. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.254.23|172.71.254.23]] 04:32, 7 September 2024 (UTC)Corsac

There are a bunch of processes shown that are real, but not actually used in water filtration. For example, electrolysis is used to make hydrogen and oxygen gas, and reverse electrolysis is used in fuel cells to produce electricity, but the electricity cost of doing these steps to purify a useful amount of water would be prohibitive. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.14|162.158.159.14]] 06:18, 7 September 2024 (UTC)
:On the other hand, it would be a kind of "extra-intense distillation". We already basically have been "distilling water", as I see it, with the autoclave/condenser pairing that would certainly leave any remaining dissolved minerals or particulates behind. By splitting then recombining the component elements (and some basic gas-chromatography process, not shown) then you'd inarguably get water out that's about as pure as you can hope for in even the most {{w|The Waters of Mars|paranoid fantasies}} about the need for clean water.
:...of course, here it's not even the ''most'' energetic attempt to further 'refine' the components of "watery matter", with the assumed luxury of having energy (and indeed water) to burn... [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.219|172.69.194.219]] 06:39, 7 September 2024 (UTC)
:Yes; I'm wondering if we should be a bit more specific than just "real" vs. "fake". Some of the processes would work, but wouldn't make the water purer; some are impractical but feasible; some aren't possible at all. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 16:10, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Regarding condensers: Condensers are a real method of purifying water, although perhaps not commonly used to demineralize household well water. I frequently buy "purified" water that has been distilled which is simply boiling the water and then condensing the steam into pure water. This is great for use in tea pots or egg cookers or humidifiers to avoid mineral buildup inside the pots. [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 14:35, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Regarding adding the well-water back in at the end: "Purified" water is often sold in the baby aisle for use in mixing baby formula, but the labels indicate that minerals have been readded to the water, which of course means it is no longer pure, and would not be useful if I want to avoid mineral buildup in a tea pot. [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 14:35, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

This comic made me realize how to fund space exploration: selling "artisinal space water" to gullib- I mean, discerning rich people. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.246.151|172.69.246.151]] 15:48, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

I have silt, iron, manganese, and microbes in my well.

In a real life, the first step will be mechanical filters: frog-screens, leaf nets, sand or paper media. In my well-water this takes most of the yuck out (as brown sludge).

Home-scale UV treatment is commonly sold (and apparently used; spares available) for spot-treating rural well water. Industrial UV exists for very expensive 'pure water' which must not make anybody sick. ALL water gets germs; UV may have less side-effect than Chlorine or Bromine.

Condensing (and distilling!) are standard household appliances for DIY distilled water. 'Activated' Carbon elements are VERY widely sold for taking taste/smell out of tap water.

"Water softening" (several types) is bog-standard technology out beyond the city mains.
:Please sign your comments. And yes, it is. But not immediately before filtering by reverse osmosis. Reverse osmosis should remove almost all solutes, so the resulting pH should be very close to 0 and the concentration of no chemical except water should be significant. Water softening before or after is unnecessary. Don't get me wrong; RO is not perfect. But water softening is only ever necessary to remove large amounts of minerals that can leave scale, and that isn't an issue with high-purity water. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 08:03, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Of the radioactive treatments, Radon is not mentioned; surely this kills a few germs?
[[User:PRR|PRR]] ([[User talk:PRR|talk]]) 19:08, 7 September 2024 (UTC)
:Using radon would be a bad idea. Even if one got all of the radon out afterwards (e.g. by {{w|sparging}}), it would leave behind radioactive daughter products, as well as the lead at the end of the decay sequences. Granted, {{w|Radithor|radium-enriched water}} was a commercial product, back in the day, but... still a bad idea. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 21:58, 7 September 2024 (UTC)
::Yeah, the philosophy tended to be "if it fluoresces, it impresses!", in the {{w|Radium fad|pseudoscientific quackery}} of the time... [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.183|172.69.79.183]] 23:15, 7 September 2024 (UTC)
:Wait ... you have filters which turn frogs to brown sludge? Is that legal? -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 05:24, 8 September 2024 (UTC)
So much that I didn't notice in my first forty minutes looking at the comic while thinking "uhmm wut no! ! !" Y'all are why I come here especially when I think I thought I understood it and didn't need it explained. BTW? Are some for which the explain cannot be complete. The user interactive recent one with squirrels, fans, balls and things that made it kinda a pinball game but most assuredly not (mostly) come to mind. Thank you all. (Edited for clarity}[[Special:Contributions/172.70.43.54|172.70.43.54]] 04:19, 8 September 2024 (UTC)
[[Special:Contributions/172.70.39.34|172.70.39.34]] 04:28, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Talk:2940: Modes of Transportation

2024-06-01T06:07:51Z

EebstertheGreat:

I'd say a bicycle is way less dangerous than a car [[Special:Contributions/172.68.192.196|172.68.192.196]] 21:36, 31 May 2024 (UTC) (para 1/4)
:Considering only the two vehicles themselves, I would probably agree with you but this comic is about convenience and danger of various means of transport. Wouldn't you agree that using a bicycle for transport in crowded city traffic is rather more dangerous to the cyclist than using a car is to the driver? {{unsigned ip|172.69.60.138|21:46, 31 May 2024}}
:It depends on whether you're comparing worst case injuries versus injury rate. Since airliners are considered one of the safest, I think it's injury rate. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 22:07, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
:I'd say a bicycle is less dangerous than a unicycle, but apparently walking<unicycle<car<bicycle. No metric I can think of matches that order, neither danger in a vacuum, danger in a self-environment, danger in a car environment, or danger to others in any environment. I'm quite confused. --[[Special:Contributions/172.70.114.29|172.70.114.29]] 05:29, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
::On a per-passenger-mile basis, walking is over ten times more dangerous than driving, and trains are about four times as dangerous as planes. So this comic can't be about risk of death per mile. It must be something more like risk of death per hour, which is extremely low for unicycles since people don't usually ride them in life-threatening situations outside of circuses. Similarly, travelling to and from work on a pogo stick every day would be quite dangerous, but in practice, people hardly ever die on a pogo stick. So it depends how you measure it. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 06:07, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Most deaths are either due to involved cars or people doing races or stunts. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.192.196|172.68.192.196]] 21:36, 31 May 2024 (UTC) (para 2/4)

I would not count "died because plane crashed onto road" into car dangers, as I would not count F1 driver death into the same bucket as car commuters. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.192.196|172.68.192.196]] 21:36, 31 May 2024 (UTC) (para 3/4)

So I would do the same for bikes. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.192.196|172.68.192.196]] 21:36, 31 May 2024 (UTC) (para 4/4)

It's not actually true that a hot air balloon has only one possible direction of travel. It seemed relevant so I added a couple of sentences to the explanation. I suspect Randall is aware of this of course, being a weather nerd. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.69|162.158.74.69]] 00:28, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

So which modes of transports belong in the white band between the "Zone of specialty and recreational vehicles" and the Hot air balloons? I would suggest the Autogyro (see [[1972:_Autogyros|#1972]]) between the skis and the hot air balloon. Any other suggestions? [[User:Frog23|Frog23]] ([[User talk:Frog23|talk]]) 22:44, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

I came here to find out what a sign-error is, but the description assumes I already know. {{unsigned ip|162.158.74.69|22:58, 31 May 2024}}

Are American hot air balloonists commonly fond of taking sniper rifles up with them? [[User:Kev|Kev]] ([[User talk:Kev|talk]]) 23:11, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Dangerous to whom is relevant. Yes, cars are less dangerous to the driver than bicycles and pedestrians, but that is because the main threat to bicyclists and pedestrians is cars. If you count victim deaths in addition to perpetrator deaths, then cars are the least safe vehicle. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.99.30|172.71.99.30]] 01:56, 1 June 2024 (UTC)Regret

Are scooters really more convenient than bikes or does Randall just think they are cooler? Please discuss. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.58.128|172.69.58.128]] 04:17, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Talk:2908: Moon Armor Index

2024-04-23T05:45:41Z

EebstertheGreat:

Can someone hurry up/w the explanation?[[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.162|162.158.159.162]] 22:43, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
:Did it :) --[[User:1234231587678|1234231587678]] ([[User talk:1234231587678|talk]]) 00:16, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

According to https://sl.bing.net/kR6wrqrekg0 it would be 43.1 meters. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.174.117|172.70.174.117]] 23:17, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Bing was wrong, it screwed up the units [[Special:Contributions/172.70.38.181|172.70.38.181]] 23:39, 18 March 2024 (UTC)!

Anyone figure out if this takes the recently-discovered moons into account? I'd expect as much but it would make a good addition to the explanation. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.131.155|172.70.131.155]] 01:39, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
:The new moon around Uranus is 8 km in diameter, and the moons around Neptune are 23 km and 14 km in diameter. The inventory of outer moons is believed to be complete down to 2 km for Jupiter, 3 km for Saturn, 8 km for Uranus, and 14 km for Neptune. And the total combined mass of smaller moons (e.g. in Saturn's rings) is also constrained.

:All these moons are round, and thus approximately ball-shaped. The volume of a 3-ball with radius r₀ is 4⁄3 πr₀³. Uranus and Neptune are also approximately ball-shaped with radii of 25,559 km and 15,299 km, respectively. (I don't know exactly how these radii are defined, but I assume optically. Uranus and Neptune don't have solid surfaces.) The volume of a spherical shell is just the difference of the outer and inner spheres, so 4⁄3 π(R³−r³) if the outer radius is R and the inner radius is r. These volumes are equal if the whole moon is converted into a spherical shell. So for Uranus, we have 4⁄3 πr₀³ = 4⁄3 π(R³−r³), where r₀ is the radius of the moon, r is the radius of Uranus, and R−r is the thickness of the shell. Solving gives R−r = ³√(r₀³+r³)−r. Plugging in r₀ = 8 km and r = 25,559 km gives R−r = 0.26 mm. If we laid it on top of the other moons instead of the "surface" of Uranus itself, it would make practically no difference. Doing the same calculation for each newly-discovered moon of Neptune gives thicknesses of 17 mm and 3.9 mm (for a total of 21 mm).

:In other words, they are tiny rounding errors. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 03:17, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
::Not for Pluto, it seems... small planet, huge moon. [[User:Transgalactic|Transgalactic]] ([[User talk:Transgalactic|talk]]) 21:30, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

I like that turning the Moon into a spherical shell coating the Earth is not definitely stated to be impossible with current technology. There's so much hedging going on I feel like I'm trapped in a maze in ''The Shining.'' [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 03:17, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

The formula used seems to give the instantaneous technical distance, but in reality, there would be a rate of change of the surface area of the planet as each layer of thickness x was added. Does anyone know if this is significant with the distances we are talking, or does it just turn out to be a rounding error? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.0.254|172.68.0.254]] 03:34, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
:For most, I suspect it is indeed the roundingest of rounding errors. Obviously, Earth+Moon and Pluto+(Charon+the others) would be the most ''out'', but subtending difference of area at (say) sea-level radius and sea-level plus 43km doesn't sound like much to account for.
:A=4πr², so Adif of A2-A1 would be (4πr2²)-(4πr1²) or 4π(r2²-r1²) ((which looks like you could work it out as a pythogorean calculation, i.e. model a new line-length that would go at a tangent out from r1 until it hits the endpoint of the r2 radius elsewhere ... but that's probably not useful!)).
:Given Earth at a normal 6371km (between equatorial and polar radii, to simplify as a true sphere), Earth+Moon therefore 6371+43 (using figure stated by comic), that gives ...if I've done it right... now an extra 7 million km² on top of the roughly 510 million that it normally has. An increment of 5%, by the time you start spreading your arbitrarily thin final layer (so approximate back to being 2.5% extra by volume, without actually using Eebster's alternate direct shell-volume calculation or doing an integration).
:Pluto (saying 44km of layering, as slightly more than Earth's 'pile', on its far smaller radius) isn't that much more 'off'. It would increase the surface by about 8% (so says my mental arithmatic, at least) so maybe 4% more volume than a "flat surface raised up prismatically".
:(Not quite the same as "wrap a string around a tennis ball, add an inch to its length, what is its additional radius? / wrap a string around the Earth, add an inch ..." sort of thing, due to the extra dimensionality involved, but I don't feel like doing the full algebraic differentiations necessary to establish the trend of departure.).
:It certainly initially looks like the '≈'ing of the result holds fairly well under even the two most extreme examples (cases of particularly large moons-by-volume). And, at a certain point, a planet's (single largest) moon cannot be made bigger without drifting into double-planet territory (indeed, Pluto/Charon may be considered double-dwarfs!), and then, soon after, you're switching their roles around and dismantling the 'planet' (really a moon) to armour the 'moon' (now the planet). So that probably suggests we're at our limit, with twin-binary capping our one-satellite scenarios, until you get into 'busy' N-ary systems with many not-insignificant moons but somehow an identifiable 'main body' planet in the midst of them.
:I don't think "armour the Sun with all the planets (''and'' their moons), dwarf-planets, minor-planets, random detritus, etc" will strain that relationship. Top of my head estimate is that it'd be nowhere near as high as Earth/Pluto examples, if the Oort cloud isn't oddly massive in total. But someone can correct me if I've goofed or overly hand-waved something. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.118|172.69.195.118]] 06:35, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
::If you start with a ball of radius r₀, then its volume is V = 4/3πr₀³, its surface area is 4πr₀², and the derivative of its radius with respect to its volume (and thus its mass, to within a constant, roughly), is dr/dV evaluated at r₀, or 1/(4πr₀²). So a linear approximation is r = r₀ + v/(4πr₀²), where v is the added volume. On the other hand, the exact calculation is v = 4/3π(r³–r₀³), giving r = ³√(r₀³+3v/(4π)). This has the following MacLaurin series:
::
::r = r₀ + v/(4πr₀²) + v²/(16π²r₀⁵) + O(v³)
::
::The r₀⁵ in the denominator is not as high order as the v² in the numerator, so if the cube root of v is similar in size to r₀, then this is not a good approximation. But as long as the moons are collectively much less massive than the planet, then it shouldn't matter. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 05:45, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm glad there are at least links to them, but shouldn’t there be at least ONE sentence HERE on explainxkcd saying what the heck the last five ‘worlds’ are? I’d bet that’s what most people needing an explanation come here to find out! and all there are are links. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.186.98|162.158.186.98]] 09:59, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
:I added a sentence about the trans-Neptunian dwarf planets. But I don't know why Randall left out Makemake, Orcus and Sedna... any hypotheses? [[User:Transgalactic|Transgalactic]] ([[User talk:Transgalactic|talk]]) 12:20, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
::I don't know this for a fact, but is it possible that those objects have no known moons to contribute any armor thickness? [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 13:06, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
:::Makemake has a small moon. Orcus has a fairly large moon relative to is size, similar to Pluto. I'm slightly bitter that Salacia is here guven that astronomers don't even consider it a dwarf planet. Orcus is also much more interesting. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.64.133|172.68.64.133]] 08:07, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Imagining (especially) the gas planet examples, and some sort of mechanical means (partly overlapping plates of 'moon armour', that can slide over each other, remaining gas-tight?) allowing free vertical moment, I'm wondering how much the shell could contain and actually compress the predominantly atmospheric mass below it. Not being in orbit (perhaps give it the nominal gas-cloud spin), having chosen the amount of atmosphere it sits upon it'll not really be held up by the previously uncapped atmosphere, but as it falls inwards it must eventually pressurise the volume within until it equalises against the hermetic (and magically balanced, to not crumple and fold inwards irregularly) shielding material... [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.21|172.69.194.21]] 16:14, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Now, the real challenge is doing it quickly - that is, on noticing danger, armor the planet, then dearmor and rebuild the moon when danger passes. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 20:00, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

I thought I was being very clever when I added the gravitational compression effects, because some tiny moons have a low density, and some of them aren't remotely as solid as the Earth's Moon because they only formed from separate rocks quite recently. But then someone applied this thought to the planet itself, where I feel (without any motivation to do the math) that such effects should be utterly negligible 5 billion years after the solar system's formative period... (though, who knows what else Pluto/Charon hold in store??) So: I'm not sure if the bit in brackets about the minuscule gravitational compression effect on the host planet should stay in the explanation. [[User:Transgalactic|Transgalactic]] ([[User talk:Transgalactic|talk]]) 21:30, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Since as far as we currently know, there is no life on the other planets, isn't rather biocentric to suggests that the preservation of life is relevant to protecting the planet earth? (Intended as humor, if you didn't get it.) [[User:Inquirer|Inquirer]] ([[User talk:Inquirer|talk]]) 00:22, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

I wasn't aware that Phobos and Deimos are so tiny. Neat! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.111.45|172.70.111.45]] 13:58, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
:Of those we know, Phobos is listed at somewhere around 80th-or-more by size (and Deimos 90th-or-more), depending upon what you count as a moon (and any more discoveries we may be making). Both smaller than Pluto's largest two-or-three satellites (Charon, if you count it as such, plus Hydra and Nix), and and a significant number of major asteroids. At some point, we're going to be more certain whether they were actually originally Mars-crossing asteroids/similar that ended up captured, or a different origin. All indeed interesting, if it piques your interest. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.61|172.69.194.61]] 15:26, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

How thick would the armor be around the Sun, if the rest of the Solar System's mass, including the Oort Cloud, were used? Before it turns to plasma, that is. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.39.42|172.70.39.42]] 18:45, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
:Let's try and use the Munrovian approximation:
:*Solar surface: 6.09×1012 ''or'' 6.078×1012 km² (I get at least two different figures, depending on where on wikipedia I look)
:*System Volume:
:**Sun is 1.412×1018 ''or'' 1.409×1018 km³, for reference, but we don't actually count that. It contains 99.86% of the mass, but complex density pigeonholing makes that not any easy fact to derive from.
:**I can add up to 2.387×1015 volume from the largest objects (down to 400km in radius), after that is extreme guesswork, even of what objects we might not know of.
:***Which means that 0.17% of the system's volume (so far counted) is not in the Sun, in case you're interested.
:**What we don't know enough about, I'm not sure we can easily estimate...
:*Volume/Surface=393ish km
:**The first 235km is Jupiter (assuming we can do this with all that gas)
:**Add the other three gas giants, we get to 392km
:**The next 30 bodies contribute a little over 419m, of which Earth is 178m, Venus the next 153m, Mars 27m, from then on it very quickly becomes pocket-change (4.4cm, the last on my list)
:**I doubt we can do that much more with the cumulative <400km objects, and Kuiper and Oort objects (so far uncounted) might not help significantly.
:**The "new Planet 9" (post-Lovell 'Planet X') might do a ''little'' bit more, if it exists. It's supposed to be Super-Earth size, by those who think it's there to be found (and, if it isn't perhaps the same missing mass (and volume) is there in a lot of snaller trans-Neptunian objects, so still worth quoting). That's perhaps 8-64 times Earth's volume, adding 1.5-11km to this particular estimate of Sun-armour.
:I'm a little surprised it was that much, actually, I expected it to be thinner just from thinking about how the Sun had so much surface to spread the planets over. But it looks like I underestimated the gas-giant contribution, until I got my hands on hard numbers. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.175|172.71.242.175]] 21:25, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

Talk:2912: Cursive Letters

2024-03-27T21:28:54Z

EebstertheGreat:

That Q is pretty easy to read, but a lot of people write it in a way that looks more like 2. That Q always throws me off. The 2 goes close to the bottom left, neither cool nor legible. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 21:28, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Talk:2908: Moon Armor Index

2024-03-19T03:19:14Z

EebstertheGreat:

Talk:2908: Moon Armor Index

2024-03-19T03:17:16Z

EebstertheGreat:

Talk:2907: Schwa

2024-03-16T02:50:05Z

EebstertheGreat:

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)

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 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)

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)

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)

2041: Frontiers

2024-03-07T06:16:17Z

EebstertheGreat: I moved the joke so two of these wouldn't appear on the same line. A citation really is needed here.

{{comic
| number = 2041
| date = September 3, 2018
| title = Frontiers
| image = frontiers.png
| titletext = Star Trek V is a small part of the space frontier, but it’s been a while since that movie came out so I assume we’ve finished exploring it by now.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic refers to four remaining “final frontiers” of human discovery, according to popular usage—perhaps analyzed using an Internet search engine. It seems to imply that other fields of research aren’t a challenge anymore.

Outer '''space''' is so vast in size that it’s impossible for humans to discover even just the stars in our galaxy within a lifetime, as astronomers estimate that there are 100 to 400 billion stars in the {{w|Milky Way}}. Space travel is also very difficult and expensive.

'''The oceans''' are very deep. The vast majority of the deeper oceans hasn’t been visited by humans, and there is still much we don’t know about the living beings in the deep sea. Around 95% of the oceans haven't been explored and mapped by humans.{{citation needed}}

'''The human mind''' is not only very complex, but also often seems irrational, which makes it harder to investigate. Its relation to the brain is also somewhat mysterious: {{w|philosophy of mind}} is split on whether the mind is ultimately material (materialism) or immaterial (dualism/idealism). Further, certain philosophical systems have trouble explaining its relation to the body, in what is termed the {{w|mind–body problem}}.

'''Alaska''' is the state of largest area in the U.S., and also the most sparsely populated. Many places in Alaska have only been partially explored to this day. Randall was probably inspired by the TV series ''{{w|Alaska: The Last Frontier}}'', which plays off of the state’s official nickname of “The Last Frontier”.

The humor from this comic comes from the fact that Alaska seems comparably of less important than the other “Final Frontiers”. It is not as hard or expensive to explore as the ocean bottom and outer space, and it is much smaller. While one's own human mind is much more easily accessible than the other three locations, its nature is a substantial frontier in human knowledge. Furthermore, minds other than one’s own are very hard to access.

The title text refers to the movie ''{{w|Star Trek V: The Final Frontier}}'', released in 1989. “Final frontier” is a recurring motif in the ''Star Trek'' franchise (coming from the opening narration for ''{{w|Star Trek: The Original Series}}''), and is used to describe the exploration of outer space, which remains a notable frontier to humans, both in real life and within ''Star Trek''. [[Randall]], however, jokingly posits that the frontier to be explored is the film itself, and assumes that, because this movie has been out for a while—nearly thirty years—it ought to be fully and comprehensively explored by now.

==Transcript==
:[In a single framed picture a hand drawn rhomboid is shown. At the inside a few small arrows pointing to the four sides. The text in the middle reads:]
:Human achievement so far

:[Text above the top left side:]
:Space
:[Text above the top right side:]
:The oceans
:[Text below the bottom left side:]
:The human mind
:[Text below the bottom right side:]
:Alaska

:[Caption below the frame:]
:Final remaining “frontiers,” according to popular usage

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Science]]

Talk:2041: Frontiers

2024-03-07T06:15:25Z

EebstertheGreat: /* "Around 95% of the oceans haven't been explored and mapped by humans." */ new section

What about Missouri though?

== "Around 95% of the oceans haven't been explored and mapped by humans." ==

Is there a source for this fact? It isn't even clear what the sentence is saying. Is this a fraction of the surface of the ocean? The ocean floor? The water column? What counts as "exploring" a part? Do you just have to see it from a distance, or go there yourself, and if so, how close do you have to get? Will a ship that's twice as wide explore twice as much ocean per mile? That doesn't seem reasonable. How will we know when we are done exploring the ocean?

Also, if that does refer to some actual figure, it's probably out of date by now anyway. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 06:15, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Talk:2844: Black Holes vs Regular Holes

2023-10-20T21:50:41Z

EebstertheGreat:

FIRST! hehehe [[User:SomeoneIGuess|someone, i guess]] ([[User talk:SomeoneIGuess|talk]]) 17:05, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
 
Alright, working on transcript now. [[User:SomeoneIGuess|someone, i guess]] ([[User talk:SomeoneIGuess|talk]]) 17:08, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
: Done! [[User:SomeoneIGuess|someone, i guess]] ([[User talk:SomeoneIGuess|talk]]) 17:16, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
:: Transcripts should really not be markup-tables, ideally. I know some (that describe tables) are, but you really need to set it all out in 'Transcript markup', such as:
:: [A table with three columns, the column headers are:] ... ... ...
:: [Row:] ...thing which the row says... [Black hole:] ...foo... [Normal hole:] ...bar...
:: ...etc
:: You need to think about how a screen-reader might interact with this text. Not all can 'deconstruct' an HTML table and make as much sense as a good description.
:: Although kudos for you for typing the text in, which the rest of the description should at least pad out fairly easily. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.131|172.69.79.131]] 18:46, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Also got some of the explanation in, but i don't know too much. if anyone can improve on it please go ahead [[User:SomeoneIGuess|someone, i guess]] ([[User talk:SomeoneIGuess|talk]]) 17:33, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

[[User:DougM|DougM]] ([[User talk:DougM|talk]]) 18:05, 20 October 2023 (UTC) I think I disagree with his assessment that regular holes are not a result of the big bang. Convince me regular holes would exist without it?

The LHC caused a regular hole by being built deep in the ground. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.200.142|172.70.200.142]] 18:08, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

"Regular" holes? Like square? Or perhaps strictly periodic in nature? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.131|172.69.79.131]] 18:36, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Everyone knows that SERN used the LHC to create Kerr black holes to make jelly. Randall must be an agent of the Organization if he's trying to hide it. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.132|172.70.90.132]] 18:57, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

"Fatal to get a big one in your body"? Even medium-sized black hole is significanly bigger than human body, how would it fit inside? That said, being even just near any black hole is fatal: if it's not big enough to eat you, it's small enough to release dangerous amount of radiation. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 21:20, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

:Not necessarily if it's small enough. We don't know what would happen to a black hole of Planck mass. If it's stable, then it wouldn't really affect you, because it would be unable to radiate and also unable to accrete matter gravitationally. It would orbit the Earth as a WIMP doing practically nothing. Even if it's unstable and evaporates while releasing a colossal amount of energy (about 1.2 × 10¹⁶ TeV), it might not be a problem, because the particles might be moving too fast to transfer any meaningful amount of energy to your body. They would basically just pass right out of you with no effect. But of course we don't really know. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 21:50, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

2835: Factorial Numbers

2023-09-30T02:39:34Z

EebstertheGreat: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2835
| date = September 29, 2023
| title = Factorial Numbers
| image = factorial_numbers_2x.png
| imagesize = 628x481px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = So what do we do when we get to base 10? Do we use A, B, C, etc? No: Numbers larger than about 3.6 million are simply illegal.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a VARIABLE-BASED BOT BEING ESCORTED OUT OF THE COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT BY SECURITY - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic is based on the {{w|factorial number system}}, which is a way of writing integers or real numbers using {{w|factorial|factorials}} instead of powers. Unlike the 'proper' version of this system, [[Randall]]'s version does not include the rightmost digit that adds no information, since it is always 0.

A factorial is a product of the first few positive integers. For instance, four factorial, written '4!', means 4×3×2×1 = 24. These can be used to write numbers in a strange way.

Normally, numbers are represented in a positional system with a constant base, especially base ten. This means that each digit in a number has a place value based on its position, and that value is a power of ten. For instance, the number 137 usually means 1×10² + 3×10¹ + 7×10⁰, i.e. one hundred, three tens, and seven units. We say that the 1 is in the hundreds place, the 3 in the tens place, and the 7 in the ones place (or units). The same number could be written in base sixteen as 89, meaning 8×16¹ + 9×16⁰, i.e. eight sixteens and nine units. The 8 is in the sixteens place, and the 9 is in the ones place. In a "factorial base," instead of each digit being multiplied by an escalating power of some constant base, each digit is multiplied by an escalating factorial. So that same number could be written 10221, meaning 1×5! + 0×4! + 2×3! + 2×2! + 1×1!. We could say there is a 1 in the 120s place, a 0 in the 24s place, a 2 in the 6s place, another 2 in the 2s place, and a 1 in the ones place.

In normal base-n notation, n digits are used, running from 0 to n–1. For instance, in base ten, we use the ten digits {0,...,9}. In base sixteen, we need sixteen digits, so we use {0,...,9,A,...,F}. But in factorial base, we need up to n+1 different digits to express all n-digit numbers. For instance, with just two digits, we can express both one-digit numbers 0 and 1. We can also express some larger numbers like 10 = two and 11 = three, but we can't express 20 = four or 21 = five. As a result, Randall jokes that since we only have ten digits {0,...,9}, we can only express numbers with up to nine digits, making larger numbers "illegal." Randall believes that would make the largest "legal" factorial base number 987654321 = 9×9!+8×8!+7×7!+6×6!+5×5!+4×4!+3×3!+2×2!+1×1!, which in base ten is 3,628,799 (which he calls "about 3.6 million"). In fact, adding one to this number gives 1000000000, which still doesn't require any digits larger than 9. The first number that cannot be represented this way with the ten symbols {0,...,9} comes right after 9987654321, which in decimal equals 36,287,999

In the comic, the top example represents 3×720 + 5×120 + 3×24 + 0×6 + 1×1, after calculating each factorial accordingly, which gives the decimal value of 2835, [[2835|this comic's number]].



For completion of the examples shown in the panel, the numbers up to 200 in this variable base are:

1=1
2=10
3=11
4=20
5=21
6=100
7=101
8=110
9=111
10=120
11=121
12=200
13=201
14=210
15=211
16=220
17=221
18=300
19=301
20=310
21=311
22=320
23=321
24=1000
25=1001
26=1010
27=1011
28=1020
29=1021
30=1100
31=1101
32=1110
33=1111
34=1120
35=1121
36=1200
37=1201
38=1210
39=1211
40=1220
41=1221
42=1300
43=1301
44=1310
45=1311
46=1320
47=1321
48=2000
49=2001
50=2010
51=2011
52=2020
53=2021
54=2100
55=2101
56=2110
57=2111
58=2120
59=2121
60=2200
61=2201
62=2210
63=2211
64=2220
65=2221
66=2300
67=2301
68=2310
69=2311
70=2320
71=2321
72=3000
73=3001
74=3010
75=3011
76=3020
77=3021
78=3100
79=3101
80=3110
81=3111
82=3120
83=3121
84=3200
85=3201
86=3210
87=3211
88=3220
89=3221
90=3300
91=3301
92=3310
93=3311
94=3320
95=3321
96=4000
97=4001
98=4010
99=4011
100=4020
101=4021
102=4100
103=4101
104=4110
105=4111
106=4120
107=4121
108=4200
109=4201
110=4210
111=4211
112=4220
113=4221
114=4300
115=4301
116=4310
117=4311
118=4320
119=4321
120=10000
121=10001
122=10010
123=10011
124=10020
125=10021
126=10100
127=10101
128=10110
129=10111
130=10120
131=10121
132=10200
133=10201
134=10210
135=10211
136=10220
137=10221
138=10300
139=10301
140=10310
141=10311
142=10320
143=10321
144=11000
145=11001
146=11010
147=11011
148=11020
149=11021
150=11100
151=11101
152=11110
153=11111
154=11120
155=11121
156=11200
157=11201
158=11210
159=11211
160=11220
161=11221
162=11300
163=11301
164=11310
165=11311
166=11320
167=11321
168=12000
169=12001
170=12010
171=12011
172=12020
173=12021
174=12100
175=12101
176=12110
177=12111
178=12120
179=12121
180=12200
181=12201
182=12210
183=12211
184=12220
185=12221
186=12300
187=12301
188=12310
189=12311
190=12320
191=12321
192=13000
193=13001
194=13010
195=13011
196=13020
197=13021
198=13100
199=13101
200=13110

Note the apparent gap at 24 (4!) and 120 (5!) - apparent for those of us who are used to decimal numbers.



==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon. - Would be best done entirely without wikitables. And actually describe the police/security intervention going on. But there'll be plenty of editors passing this way soon enough...}}
:Variable-base Factoradic™ numbers

:{|
|Base 7||Base 6||Base 5||Base 4||Base 3||Base 2
|-
|3||5||3||0||1||1
|}

:Left side

:{| class="wikitable"
|Base 10||Factoradic
|-
|1||1
|-
|2||10
|-
|3||11
|-
|4||20
|-
|5||21
|-
|6||100
|-
|7||101
|-
|
|-
|21||311
|-
|22||320
|-
|23||321
|}

:Right side

:{| class="wikitable"
|Base 10||Factoradic
|-
|24||1,000
|-
|25||1,001
|-
|
|-
|5,038||654,320
|-
|5,039||654,321
|-
|5,040||1,000,000
|-
|
|-
|999,998||266,251,210
|-
|999,999||266,251,211
|-
|1,000,000||266,251,220
|-
|1,000,001||266,251,221
|}

:Cueball: Small numbers like seven or nineteen shouldn't use big numerals like "7" or "9".
:Cueball: I mean, "9" is the biggest numeral we have! It should be reserved for '''''big''''' numbers.
:Cueball: Small numbers should be written with small numerals like "1" or "2".
:Cueball: That's why my variable-base system uses...Hey! No, listen!

:Factorial numbers are the number system that sounds most like a prank by someone who's about to be escorted out of the math department by security.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Characters with hats]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Self-reference]]

2835: Factorial Numbers

2023-09-30T02:35:24Z

EebstertheGreat: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2835
| date = September 29, 2023
| title = Factorial Numbers
| image = factorial_numbers_2x.png
| imagesize = 628x481px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = So what do we do when we get to base 10? Do we use A, B, C, etc? No: Numbers larger than about 3.6 million are simply illegal.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a VARIABLE-BASED BOT BEING ESCORTED OUT OF THE COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT BY SECURITY - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic is based on the {{w|factorial number system}}, which is a way of writing integers or real numbers using {{w|factorial|factorials}} instead of powers. Unlike the 'proper' version of this system, [[Randall]]'s version does not include the rightmost digit that adds no information, since it is always 0.

A factorial is a product of the first few positive integers. For instance, four factorial, written '4!', means 4×3×2×1 = 24. These can be used to write numbers in a strange way.

Normally, numbers are represented in a positional system with a constant base, especially base ten. This means that each digit in a number has a place value based on its position, and that value is a power of ten. For instance, the number 137 usually means 1×10² + 3×10¹ + 7×10⁰, i.e. one hundred, three tens, and seven units. We say that the 1 is in the hundreds place, the 3 in the tens place, and the 7 in the ones place (or units). The same number could be written in base sixteen as 89, meaning 8×16¹ + 9×16⁰, i.e. eight sixteens and nine units. The 8 is in the sixteens place, and the 9 is in the ones place. In a "factorial base," instead of each digit being multiplied by an escalating power of some constant base, each digit is multiplied by an escalating factorial. So that same number could be written 10221, meaning 1×5! + 0×4! + 2×3! + 2×2! + 1×1!. We could say there is a 1 in the 120s place, a 0 in the 24s place, a 2 in the 6s place, another 2 in the 2s place, and a 1 in the ones place.

In normal base-n notation, n digits are used, running from 0 to n–1. For instance, in base ten, we use the ten digits {0,...,9}. In base sixteen, we need sixteen digits, so we use {0,...,9,A,...,F}. But in factorial base, we need up to n+1 different digits to express all n-digit numbers. For instance, with just two digits, we can express both one-digit numbers 0 and 1. We can also express some larger numbers like 10 = two and 11 = three, but we can't express 20 = four or 21 = five. As a result, Randall jokes that since we only have ten digits {0,...,9}, we can only express numbers with up to nine digits, making larger numbers "illegal." Randall believes that would make the largest "legal" factorial base number 987654321 = 9×9!+8×8!+7×7!+6×6!+5×5!+4×4!+3×3!+2×2!+1×1!, which in base ten is 3,628,799 (which he calls "about 3.6 million"). In fact, adding one to this number gives 1000000000, ehich still doesn't require any digits larger than 9. The first number that cannot be represented this way with the ten symbols {0,...,9} comes right after 9987654321, which in decimal equals 36,288,000.

In the comic, the top example represents 3×720 + 5×120 + 3×24 + 0×6 + 1×1, after calculating each factorial accordingly, which gives the decimal value of 2835, [[2835|this comic's number]].



For completion of the examples shown in the panel, the numbers up to 200 in this variable base are:

1=1
2=10
3=11
4=20
5=21
6=100
7=101
8=110
9=111
10=120
11=121
12=200
13=201
14=210
15=211
16=220
17=221
18=300
19=301
20=310
21=311
22=320
23=321
24=1000
25=1001
26=1010
27=1011
28=1020
29=1021
30=1100
31=1101
32=1110
33=1111
34=1120
35=1121
36=1200
37=1201
38=1210
39=1211
40=1220
41=1221
42=1300
43=1301
44=1310
45=1311
46=1320
47=1321
48=2000
49=2001
50=2010
51=2011
52=2020
53=2021
54=2100
55=2101
56=2110
57=2111
58=2120
59=2121
60=2200
61=2201
62=2210
63=2211
64=2220
65=2221
66=2300
67=2301
68=2310
69=2311
70=2320
71=2321
72=3000
73=3001
74=3010
75=3011
76=3020
77=3021
78=3100
79=3101
80=3110
81=3111
82=3120
83=3121
84=3200
85=3201
86=3210
87=3211
88=3220
89=3221
90=3300
91=3301
92=3310
93=3311
94=3320
95=3321
96=4000
97=4001
98=4010
99=4011
100=4020
101=4021
102=4100
103=4101
104=4110
105=4111
106=4120
107=4121
108=4200
109=4201
110=4210
111=4211
112=4220
113=4221
114=4300
115=4301
116=4310
117=4311
118=4320
119=4321
120=10000
121=10001
122=10010
123=10011
124=10020
125=10021
126=10100
127=10101
128=10110
129=10111
130=10120
131=10121
132=10200
133=10201
134=10210
135=10211
136=10220
137=10221
138=10300
139=10301
140=10310
141=10311
142=10320
143=10321
144=11000
145=11001
146=11010
147=11011
148=11020
149=11021
150=11100
151=11101
152=11110
153=11111
154=11120
155=11121
156=11200
157=11201
158=11210
159=11211
160=11220
161=11221
162=11300
163=11301
164=11310
165=11311
166=11320
167=11321
168=12000
169=12001
170=12010
171=12011
172=12020
173=12021
174=12100
175=12101
176=12110
177=12111
178=12120
179=12121
180=12200
181=12201
182=12210
183=12211
184=12220
185=12221
186=12300
187=12301
188=12310
189=12311
190=12320
191=12321
192=13000
193=13001
194=13010
195=13011
196=13020
197=13021
198=13100
199=13101
200=13110

Note the apparent gap at 24 (4!) and 120 (5!) - apparent for those of us who are used to decimal numbers.



==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon. - Would be best done entirely without wikitables. And actually describe the police/security intervention going on. But there'll be plenty of editors passing this way soon enough...}}
:Variable-base Factoradic™ numbers

:{|
|Base 7||Base 6||Base 5||Base 4||Base 3||Base 2
|-
|3||5||3||0||1||1
|}

:Left side

:{| class="wikitable"
|Base 10||Factoradic
|-
|1||1
|-
|2||10
|-
|3||11
|-
|4||20
|-
|5||21
|-
|6||100
|-
|7||101
|-
|
|-
|21||311
|-
|22||320
|-
|23||321
|}

:Right side

:{| class="wikitable"
|Base 10||Factoradic
|-
|24||1,000
|-
|25||1,001
|-
|
|-
|5,038||654,320
|-
|5,039||654,321
|-
|5,040||1,000,000
|-
|
|-
|999,998||266,251,210
|-
|999,999||266,251,211
|-
|1,000,000||266,251,220
|-
|1,000,001||266,251,221
|}

:Cueball: Small numbers like seven or nineteen shouldn't use big numerals like "7" or "9".
:Cueball: I mean, "9" is the biggest numeral we have! It should be reserved for '''''big''''' numbers.
:Cueball: Small numbers should be written with small numerals like "1" or "2".
:Cueball: That's why my variable-base system uses...Hey! No, listen!

:Factorial numbers are the number system that sounds most like a prank by someone who's about to be escorted out of the math department by security.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Characters with hats]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Self-reference]]

Talk:2835: Factorial Numbers

2023-09-30T01:55:42Z

EebstertheGreat:

Number systems aren't real math, at least not serious math. They're an affectation. 99.9% of math is number-system-independent, so nobody should care about them. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.46.108|172.70.46.108]] 22:30, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

: Of course it's "real math." There aren't that many applications, but so what? Math isn't about applications. Besides, there are some. Maybe not specifically for factorial base, but for some place systems. The only thing "dirty" about decimal is the arbitrariness of ten. Considering place systems in general is just considering special kinds of sums. Certainly, "serious" mathematicians are interested in proving numbers normal in specific bases, or in every base. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 01:55, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

I thought this was a complete joke, until coming here. The "factorial number system" exists?! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.90.249|162.158.90.249]] 22:38, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

I wanted to add a link to a converter, but the one I found is https://www.dcode.fr/factorial-base which is quite ugly with lots of adds and a bit counter-intuitive.--[[User:Pere prlpz|Pere prlpz]] ([[User talk:Pere prlpz|talk]]) 23:42, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

This needs simplifying a bit. Came here because I had no idea what was going on, and after a quick scroll through the prose, the main thing I learned was "it's 'cause you're dumb". May be true but I still don't get what Randall's factorial system is....[[User:Alcatraz ii|Alcatraz ii]] ([[User talk:Alcatraz ii|talk]]) 01:25, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

Factorial base also allows to finitely represent all rational numbers - no constant base is capable of that! [[Special:Contributions/172.68.238.76|172.68.238.76]] 01:55, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2566: Decorative Constants

2023-08-20T03:18:35Z

EebstertheGreat:

I don't have any idea what to put in the actual description, but whoever does should probably note that r(in) - r(out) equals zero, not one. And multiplying by a constant 0 absolutely changes the value! [[User:GreatWyrmGold|GreatWyrmGold]] ([[User talk:GreatWyrmGold|talk]]) 21:59, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
: rout and rin are different values. The subscripts represent different instances of the same variable at different point. In the same way, you might calculate something happening over a time interval tend - tstart . [[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.77|172.69.71.77]] 23:02, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
::Yes for sure they are two different values. On the other hand if μ is not 1 then the it is not just decorative! D on the other hand is just a proportionality constant, which may have a value other than 1. I have tried to put something in the explanation here. Quite a bit. Do not really now anything about Drag, so just took it from the wiki page. Also I hope someone can explain the formula in the image, as I'm sure it is just something about the flow, that would relate it to a drag equation. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 23:41, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Note that the title text is pretty much word-for-word a repeat from Randall's book *How To*. In Chapter 11: *How to Play Football*, he misuses the drag equation, and mentions this fact in more depth, in a footnote. Bit of trivia! --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.134.79|162.158.134.79]] 23:13, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
:Nice, I will have to check up on that. Thanks. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 23:41, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
:Can confirm this, the book mentions that the "traditional tribute to Euler and Bernoulli" comes from Frank White's ''Fluid Mechanics'' textbook. [[User:Clam|Clam]] ([[User talk:Clam|talk]]) 01:08, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
:: There it is, page 266 in the 1986 2nd edition: "They both have a factor ½ as a traditional tribute to Bernoulli and Euler, and both are based on the projected area..." https://books.google.com/books?id=wGweAQAAIAAJ&q=traditional -- [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.5|172.70.162.5]] 02:13, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
:::Great thanks have included both references in the explanation. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:32, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
:Wait, wouldn't the values be twice as big (rather than half as big) if you left off the 1/2? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.69.154|141.101.69.154]] 12:43, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
::No. If 1/2Cd = Constant, then the new constant would be half as big as Cd since Cd=2x constant. You would just put in the 1/2 in the new version of Cd, so the new Cd is half as big as the old, and the final result the same.--[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:44, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Of course, the c^2 im e=mc^2 is just as decorative, when using natural units where c=1.... [[Special:Contributions/172.68.50.171|172.68.50.171]] 00:29, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
: And the resulting equation is then just e=m - or m=e which is beautiful and profound. "Mass is Energy". Without the complications, you stop thinking of it as a PROCESS for converting one into the other and get the more profound point that Mass and Energy are the exact same thing. [[User:SteveBaker|SteveBaker]] ([[User talk:SteveBaker|talk]]) 03:33, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
: I respectfully disagree. The c² isn't decorative; mc² is a measure of energy and m is not. e=mc², like f=ma, still works even if you change the size of any of the basic units (of length, time, mass) from which the units of energy and force are derived. As I see it, an equation that ties you to any definition of unit size is less profound, not more. [[User:Tom239|Tom239]] ([[User talk:Tom239|talk]]) 17:21, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
:: To the sort of person who (thoughtfully) uses c=1, this feels a bit like saying that the "f" is profound in dist=sqrt[x^2+y^2+(z/f)^2], where of course I've measured xy-distances in miles and z-distances in feet, so f=5280ft/mi. Yes, it's entirely possible to choose different units for different coordinates, and if you're very accustomed to that then the conversion factors can be deeply important for your understanding of the system (and provide extra flexibility in your choice of units: you can easily use "f=1760yd/mi" if you'd prefer). But there's still a very well-defined sense in which sqrt[x^2+y^2+z^2] is the more fundamental equation, and the "f" is an unnecessary complication (however convenient it may be). Whether I'd call it "decorative"... I'm not sure. But I don't see this "f" as profound. [[User:Steuard|Steuard]] ([[User talk:Steuard|talk]]) 17:59, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

I think the 1/2 in the drag equation is intuitive. I understand that it is technically superfluous, but F=Pd*A and Pd=1/2*rho*u^2 so the 1/2 carries over intuitively. {{unsigned ip|172.70.98.15}}
:Agrees I had this written down in an early version of the explanation but that was edited out. Maybe I will put it in again.--[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:44, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Drag coefficients could just as easily be half as big. This is true but how is their being unitless relevant? It's more about how defining constants is partially arbitrary. [[User:Lev|Lev]] ([[User talk:Lev|talk]]) 08:07, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
:If Cd had a unit, say it was an energy which represented some relevant value for a given material, then it would not be correct to say that it was half as much, just because 1/2 came into the equation. But if it has no units, then it is just a constant saying something about the material, and then the 1/2 could in principle be absorbed without changing anything. But as stated above 1/2 actually has physical meaning in the way it enters the equation. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:44, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

:It doesn't make any difference. For instance, Coulomb's law works fine whether we write it F = -q1q2/(4πε0r2) or F = -kq1q2/r2. Similarly, if we had a factor of 2 in the gas law for some reason, that would just change the values of the gas constants.

I've seen the double-struck capital "D" used commonly as a symbol for the Domain of a function (While the double-struck "R" was used for the range in that context) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.63.243|162.158.63.243]] 21:16, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
:Any use of double-struck or bold capital R to mean something besides the set of real numbers can be considered nonstandard, like using + to represent a non-commutative function or using a fraktur lowercase c to represent anything other than the cardinality of the continuum. It happens of course, but it's not any kind of standard. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 03:18, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Does anybody know enough math to figure out what that equation is supposed to do? I really want to delete that tag.[[User:New editor|New editor]] ([[User talk:New editor|talk]]) 19:13, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

:The r terms are used in describing things like water treatment plants or dialysis machines, where you're trying to use fluid flow to regulate some solute. If fluid balance is large, it means the "tank" is going to empty or dry out. I guess T is the rate at which this happens. Not really a math thing, more of an engineering thing, seems to me.

==Count down clock==
See [[Countdown in header text]]. Discussion has been moved here [[Talk:Countdown_in_header_text]]. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:10, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Talk:2799: Frankenstein Claim Permutations

2023-07-08T04:02:13Z

EebstertheGreat:

Expanding on [[1589: Frankenstein]], clearly. [[User:Trimeta|Trimeta]] ([[User talk:Trimeta|talk]]) 03:17, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

The last permutation is a garden path sentence that starts off talking about the TV show ''Doctor Who''. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.175|162.158.62.175]] 03:21, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

:The title text seems straightforward enough to me, anyways: "No, the doctor (who creates Mary Shelley (in Frankenstein's novel)) doesn't have a name." Not much of a garden path sentence at all. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.34.187|172.70.34.187]] 03:43, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

The best part of this comic is that every last one of these claims is wrong. In the original novel, Victor Frankenstein is an obsessive undergrad, notably with no medical degree. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.151.35|172.71.151.35]] 03:54, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

You could argue rather that Walton and Saville were the names of the authors. The monster Shelly created was named Victor von Frankenstein. The tragic hero was unnamed. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 04:02, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2031: Pie Charts

2023-07-08T02:15:49Z

EebstertheGreat:

I wonder if it is a coincidence that this came out the same week as Android Pie [[User:Zachweix|Zachweix]] ([[User talk:Zachweix|talk]]) 15:34, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

[[User:Zachweix|Zachweix]] [[Special:Diff/161046|seems]] to want to share this link: [https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/FOX-News-Chart-Fails-Math-73711092.html Fox News] --[[User:NeatNit|NeatNit]] ([[User talk:NeatNit|talk]]) 16:56, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
:What's wrong with the link? The link in that page is exactly the type of pie chart to which he is referring [[User:Zachweix|Zachweix]] ([[User talk:Zachweix|talk]]) 16:57, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

:: But that's the wrong place to put it. I'm not even sure that it fits anywhere in the article, but it ''definitely'' doesn't fit in the "who created this page" part of the "this page is incomplete" tag. --[[User:NeatNit|NeatNit]] ([[User talk:NeatNit|talk]]) 17:18, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

::: Wrong just in the sense that it's a temporary place, but I think it adds to the humor of referring to Fox News in the "who created this page" piece. It might be appropriate to add it to a section of real world examples of published pie charts that fail the "mostly 100%" test (aside from trivial rounding errors). [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 20:40, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

That's not a hyperbolic plane. It's more like a cone, but with more than 360 degrees instead of less. I don't know the proper term for it. It has curvature zero everywhere except the center, which is a singularity. [[User:DanielLC|DanielLC]] ([[User talk:DanielLC|talk]]) 19:00, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
:Agreed. This has nothing to do with the hyperbolic plane. That image does have some saddle points, and maybe that's where the idea came from. A hyperbolic plane is sort of like a space where every point is a saddle point, not just some points. You can't draw it. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 01:26, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Any explanation of the title text? An example of the clipart would be great. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.47.54|172.68.47.54]] 00:26, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

:I wouldn't take it too literally. Clipart is just easy to use, cheap-looking iconography. I highly doubt there's clipart of cosmologists. You could just put in little stick figures saying like "the curvature of the space here is unusual" and you'd get the same effect. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.147|162.158.62.147]] 17:08, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

I don't think there is a method to the madness guys, it looks like he just took an editor's warp tool and held it in place. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.59.24|172.68.59.24]] 14:35, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

#Edward Tufte on Pie Charts
Maybe we should also mention what the dodfather of visualization has to say on pie charts:
Edward Tufte gives the pie chart a more succinct and decisive treatment in "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information":
''A table is nearly always better than a dumb pie chart; the only worse design than a pie chart is several of them, for then the viewer is asked to compare quantities located in spatial disarray both within and between charts [...] Given their low density and failure to order numbers along a visual dimension, pie charts should never be used.'' (Tufte: "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information", quoted by https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2991062 )

(previous editor did not sign) My favourite missapplied chart is a doughnut chart (which is a piechart without of the center comes from one of Germanys big automobile clubs. They made a campaign about how dangerous it is to use a phone in the car, and part of it was a statistic wher ethey would find out, at various places (red light, motorway, city trafic or country roads) what percentage of people would use their cell phone. They summarized it in a doughnut chart which does not make any sense: https://www.mobil.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/%C3%9Cbersicht-Verkehrsz%C3%A4hlung-2016-Mobil-in-Deutschland-e.V-1-724x1024.jpg [[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 16:29, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
:It took me a while to figure this one out. I kept thinking it was representing data on two axes, like some sort of combined pie chart/polar area diagram. Like a spie chart, but working in some different, unfathomable way. But no, the radial dimension means nothing, it's just used to help clarify the borders. They took a bunch of percentages of different groups, then put them together in a bar chart, decided they didn't like how the bars looked, and told Excel to turn it into a pie chart. So it added the percentages to get a total, then divided each data point by that, and used the results to make a completely meaningless pie. It's like discovering that skim milk is 0.5% fat, whole milk is 3.5%, and cream is 36% fat: adding them up gives 40, so you make a pie chart where skim milk is 1/80 of a circle, whole milk is 7/80, and cream is 72/80. And then you gave each sector a random radius and shade of green. So, so, so dumb. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 02:15, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Come on guys, the blue slice is CLEARLY the intersection of the red and yellow slices. It all makes perfect sense once you realize that. His pie chart isn't wrong, it's just a Venn-Pie-o-gram [[Special:Contributions/172.69.50.4|172.69.50.4]] 00:51, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

2031: Pie Charts

2023-07-08T01:51:23Z

EebstertheGreat: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2031
| date = August 10, 2018
| title = Pie Charts
| image = pie_charts.png
| titletext = If you can't get your graphing tool to do the shading, just add some clip art of cosmologists discussing the unusual curvature of space in the area.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Pie_chart|Pie Charts}} graph proportions as "slices" of a circle, like a pie that you cut into slices. The circle, or Pie, represents the whole sum of the slices, or 100% of the data. As such, if the data represented by the slices is expressed as percentages, the total of all the slices, by definition, must total 100%. This comic introduces a new technique for getting around that rule by "warping" the circle to allow more than 100% of the data to exist in the graph. Thus the total amount of 130% is represented with a shape that bends out of plane in order to fit a 30% larger area into the footprint of a circle.

This shape does not aid in understanding the figures. At best, it serves to highlight a methodical error. Pie charts are intended to represent nonoverlapping fractions of a whole. If the entire pie does not represent the whole, and each sector a disjoint piece, then the pie chart is misleading and may be impossible to draw. A different type of chart should be used.

Percentages that add up to more than 100% are often a sign that a math error has occurred, whether a typo somewhere or a sloppy case of taking numbers from different sources. However, they can arise naturally in cases where each item can belong to more than one group, such as [[wikipedia:approval voting|approval voting]] (40% of the people like green 45% like red etc., however there may be some that like both green and red). In such cases, a more accurate depiction would have some form of overlap of the pie pieces, not a warping of the space which they occupy. For instance, for 2 colors, Red and Green, the pie chart could have four sectors: approval of both R and G, of just R, of just G, and of neither R nor G. These will necessarily add to 100%, since they exhaust all logical possibilities. If this is impossible or confusing, a completely different representation should be used, such as a bar chart. An exception can occur if the percentages of the pieces have been rounded for readability—the percentages do indeed sum to 100, but after they are each rounded individually, the rounded numbers can sum to a slightly different value. This is still appropriate for a pie chart, and when charts like this are published, a small notice is sometimes published beneath it explaining the discrepancy due to rounding. If each group is rounded to the nearest 1%, with 0.5 rounded up, then the maximum possible sum of rounded percentages is (100+⌊n/2⌋)%, where n is the number of groups and ⌊•⌋ is the floor function. For instance, with groups of size 0.5%, 0.5%, 0.5%, and 98.5%, they would round up to 1%, 1%, 1%, and 99%, for a sum of 102% = (100+4/2)%.

Percentages don't ''need'' to add up to 100% to be correct. For example, if ten people wear blue t-shirts and ten wear red t-shirts, then 50% of them wear each color for a total of 100%. Now if one of each joins the group, 55% of the ''original'' population wears each color, for a total of 110%, as the total population risen by 10%. That said, this change should be represented by something like a bar graph, not by pie chart. If percentages are represented by a pie chart, the assumption is that the total should be 100%, independently of the math behind it.

In this case, the right image appears to be what happens when you cut the pie chart segments out of fabric, stitch them together, and let the resultant fabric flop around a bit.

The title text presents an alternative if shading is not possible, namely to excuse the percentage inaccuracy with scientists discussing curvature of space.

==Transcript==
:[Two colored circles are shown. The circle on the right is warped and bent in shape and shows some shadows from the middle to the outer edges, like a round piece of cloth with wrinkles going out from the center.]

:[The left pie chart:]
:Wrong:
:45% (red)
:15% (blue)
:30% (yellow)
:40% (green)

:[The right warped and bent pie chart with shadows:]
:Right:
:45% (red)
:15% (blue)
:30% (yellow)
:40% (green)

:[Caption below the frame:]
:How to make a pie chart if your percentages don't add up to 100

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Cosmology]] 
[[Category:Pie charts]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]

2031: Pie Charts

2023-07-08T01:49:46Z

EebstertheGreat: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2031
| date = August 10, 2018
| title = Pie Charts
| image = pie_charts.png
| titletext = If you can't get your graphing tool to do the shading, just add some clip art of cosmologists discussing the unusual curvature of space in the area.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Pie_chart|Pie Charts}} graph proportions as "slices" of a circle, like a pie that you cut into slices. The circle, or Pie, represents the whole sum of the slices, or 100% of the data. As such, if the data represented by the slices is expressed as percentages, the total of all the slices, by definition, must total 100%. This comic introduces a new technique for getting around that rule by "warping" the circle to allow more than 100% of the data to exist in the graph. Thus the total amount of 130% is represented with a shape that bends out of plane in order to fit a 30% larger area into the footprint of a circle.

This shape does not aid in understanding the figures. At best, it serves to highlight a methodical error. Pie charts are intended to represent nonoverlapping fractions of a whole. If the entire pie does not represent the whole, and each sector a disjoint piece, then the pie chart is misleading and may be impossible to draw. A different type of chart should be used.

Percentages that add up to more than 100% are often a sign that a math error has occurred, whether a typo somewhere or a sloppy case of taking numbers from different sources. However, they can arise naturally in cases where each item can belong to more than one group, such as [[wikipedia:approval voting|approval voting]] (40% of the people like green 45% like red etc., however there may be some that like both green and red). In such cases, a more accurate depiction would have some form of overlap of the pie pieces, not a warping of the space which they occupy. For instance, for 2 colors, Red and Green, the pie chart could have four sectors: approval of both R and G, of just R, of just G, and of neither R nor G. These will necessarily add to 100%, since they exhaust all logical possibilities. If this is impossible or confusing, a completely different representation should be used, such as a bar chart. An exception can occur if the percentages of the pieces have been rounded for readability—the percentages do indeed sum to 100, but after they are each rounded individually, the rounded numbers can sum to a slightly different value. This is still appropriate for a pie chart, and when charts like this are published, a small notice is sometimes published beneath it explaining the discrepancy due to rounding. If each group is rounded to the nearest 1%, with 0.5 rounded up, then the maximum possible sum of rounded percentages is (100+⌊n⌋/2)%, where n is the number of groups and ⌊•⌋ is the floor function. For instance, with groups of size 0.5%, 0.5%, 0.5%, and 98.5%, they would round up to 1%, 1%, 1%, and 99%, for a sum of 102% = (100+4/2)%.

Percentages don't ''need'' to add up to 100% to be correct. For example, if ten people wear blue t-shirts and ten wear red t-shirts, then 50% of them wear each color for a total of 100%. Now if one of each joins the group, 55% of the ''original'' population wears each color, for a total of 110%, as the total population risen by 10%. That said, this change should be represented by something like a bar graph, not by pie chart. If percentages are represented by a pie chart, the assumption is that the total should be 100%, independently of the math behind it.

In this case, the right image appears to be what happens when you cut the pie chart segments out of fabric, stitch them together, and let the resultant fabric flop around a bit.

The title text presents an alternative if shading is not possible, namely to excuse the percentage inaccuracy with scientists discussing curvature of space.

==Transcript==
:[Two colored circles are shown. The circle on the right is warped and bent in shape and shows some shadows from the middle to the outer edges, like a round piece of cloth with wrinkles going out from the center.]

:[The left pie chart:]
:Wrong:
:45% (red)
:15% (blue)
:30% (yellow)
:40% (green)

:[The right warped and bent pie chart with shadows:]
:Right:
:45% (red)
:15% (blue)
:30% (yellow)
:40% (green)

:[Caption below the frame:]
:How to make a pie chart if your percentages don't add up to 100

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Cosmology]] 
[[Category:Pie charts]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]

2031: Pie Charts

2023-07-08T01:44:26Z

EebstertheGreat:

{{comic
| number = 2031
| date = August 10, 2018
| title = Pie Charts
| image = pie_charts.png
| titletext = If you can't get your graphing tool to do the shading, just add some clip art of cosmologists discussing the unusual curvature of space in the area.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Pie_chart|Pie Charts}} graph proportions as "slices" of a circle, like a pie that you cut into slices. The circle, or Pie, represents the whole sum of the slices, or 100% of the data. As such, if the data represented by the slices is expressed as percentages, the total of all the slices, by definition, must total 100%. This comic introduces a new technique for getting around that rule by "warping" the circle to allow more than 100% of the data to exist in the graph. Thus the total amount of 130% is represented with a shape that bends out of plane in order to fit a 30% larger area into the footprint of a circle.

This shape does not aid in understanding the figures. At best, it serves to highlight a methodical error. Pie charts are intended to represent nonoverlapping fractions of a whole. If the entire pie does not represent the whole, and each sector a disjoint piece, then the pie chart is misleading and may be impossible to draw. A different type of chart should be used.

Percentages that add up to more than 100% are often a sign that a math error has occurred, whether a typo somewhere or a sloppy case of taking numbers from different sources. However, they can arise naturally in cases where each item can belong to more than one group, such as [[wikipedia:approval voting|approval voting]] (40% of the people like green 45% like red etc., however there may be some that like both green and red). In such cases, a more accurate depiction would have some form of overlap of the pie pieces, not a warping of the space which they occupy. For instance, for 2 colors, Red and Green, the pie chart could have four sectors: approval of both R and G, just R, just G, and neither, shich will necessarily add to 100%. If this is impossible or confusing, a completely different representation should be used, such as a bar chart. An exception can occur if the percentages of the pieces have been rounded for readability—the percentages do indeed sum to 100, but after they are each rounded individually, the rounded numbers can sum to a slightly different value. This is still appropriate for a pie chart, and when charts like this are published, a small notice is sometimes published beneath it explaining the discrepancy due to rounding. If each group is rounded to the nearest 1%, with 0.5 rounded up, then the maximum possible sum of rounded percentages is (100+⌊n⌋/2)%, where n is the number of groups and ⌊•⌋ is the floor function. For instance, with groups of size 0.5%, 0.5%, 0.5%, and 98.5%, they would round up to 1%, 1%, 1%, and 99%, for a sum of 102% = (100+4/2)%.

Percentages don't ''need'' to add up to 100% to be correct. For example, if ten people wear blue t-shirts and ten wear red t-shirts, then 50% of them wear each color for a total of 100%. Now if one of each joins the group, 55% of the ''original'' population wears each color, for a total of 110%, as the total population risen by 10%. That said, this change should be represented by something like a bar graph, not by pie chart. If percentages are represented by a pie chart, the assumption is that the total should be 100%, independently of the math behind it.

In this case, the right image appears to be what happens when you cut the pie chart segments out of fabric, stitch them together, and let the resultant fabric flop around a bit.

The title text presents an alternative if shading is not possible, namely to excuse the percentage inaccuracy with scientists discussing curvature of space.

==Transcript==
:[Two colored circles are shown. The circle on the right is warped and bent in shape and shows some shadows from the middle to the outer edges, like a round piece of cloth with wrinkles going out from the center.]

:[The left pie chart:]
:Wrong:
:45% (red)
:15% (blue)
:30% (yellow)
:40% (green)

:[The right warped and bent pie chart with shadows:]
:Right:
:45% (red)
:15% (blue)
:30% (yellow)
:40% (green)

:[Caption below the frame:]
:How to make a pie chart if your percentages don't add up to 100

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Cosmology]] 
[[Category:Pie charts]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]

Talk:2031: Pie Charts

2023-07-08T01:26:31Z

EebstertheGreat:

I wonder if it is a coincidence that this came out the same week as Android Pie [[User:Zachweix|Zachweix]] ([[User talk:Zachweix|talk]]) 15:34, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

[[User:Zachweix|Zachweix]] [[Special:Diff/161046|seems]] to want to share this link: [https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/FOX-News-Chart-Fails-Math-73711092.html Fox News] --[[User:NeatNit|NeatNit]] ([[User talk:NeatNit|talk]]) 16:56, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
:What's wrong with the link? The link in that page is exactly the type of pie chart to which he is referring [[User:Zachweix|Zachweix]] ([[User talk:Zachweix|talk]]) 16:57, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

:: But that's the wrong place to put it. I'm not even sure that it fits anywhere in the article, but it ''definitely'' doesn't fit in the "who created this page" part of the "this page is incomplete" tag. --[[User:NeatNit|NeatNit]] ([[User talk:NeatNit|talk]]) 17:18, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

::: Wrong just in the sense that it's a temporary place, but I think it adds to the humor of referring to Fox News in the "who created this page" piece. It might be appropriate to add it to a section of real world examples of published pie charts that fail the "mostly 100%" test (aside from trivial rounding errors). [[User:N0lqu|-boB]] ([[User talk:N0lqu|talk]]) 20:40, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

That's not a hyperbolic plane. It's more like a cone, but with more than 360 degrees instead of less. I don't know the proper term for it. It has curvature zero everywhere except the center, which is a singularity. [[User:DanielLC|DanielLC]] ([[User talk:DanielLC|talk]]) 19:00, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
:Agreed. This has nothing to do with the hyperbolic plane. That image does have some saddle points, and maybe that's where the idea came from. A hyperbolic plane is sort of like a space where every point is a saddle point, not just some points. You can't draw it. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 01:26, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Any explanation of the title text? An example of the clipart would be great. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.47.54|172.68.47.54]] 00:26, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

:I wouldn't take it too literally. Clipart is just easy to use, cheap-looking iconography. I highly doubt there's clipart of cosmologists. You could just put in little stick figures saying like "the curvature of the space here is unusual" and you'd get the same effect. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.147|162.158.62.147]] 17:08, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

I don't think there is a method to the madness guys, it looks like he just took an editor's warp tool and held it in place. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.59.24|172.68.59.24]] 14:35, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

#Edward Tufte on Pie Charts
Maybe we should also mention what the dodfather of visualization has to say on pie charts:
Edward Tufte gives the pie chart a more succinct and decisive treatment in "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information":
''A table is nearly always better than a dumb pie chart; the only worse design than a pie chart is several of them, for then the viewer is asked to compare quantities located in spatial disarray both within and between charts [...] Given their low density and failure to order numbers along a visual dimension, pie charts should never be used.'' (Tufte: "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information", quoted by https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2991062 )

(previous editor did not sign) My favourite missapplied chart is a doughnut chart (which is a piechart without of the center comes from one of Germanys big automobile clubs. They made a campaign about how dangerous it is to use a phone in the car, and part of it was a statistic wher ethey would find out, at various places (red light, motorway, city trafic or country roads) what percentage of people would use their cell phone. They summarized it in a doughnut chart which does not make any sense: https://www.mobil.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/%C3%9Cbersicht-Verkehrsz%C3%A4hlung-2016-Mobil-in-Deutschland-e.V-1-724x1024.jpg [[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 16:29, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

Come on guys, the blue slice is CLEARLY the intersection of the red and yellow slices. It all makes perfect sense once you realize that. His pie chart isn't wrong, it's just a Venn-Pie-o-gram [[Special:Contributions/172.69.50.4|172.69.50.4]] 00:51, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

2798: Room Temperature

2023-07-07T01:30:53Z

EebstertheGreat: /* Explanation */ added new discovery

{{comic
| number = 2798
| date = July 5, 2023
| title = Room Temperature
| image = room_temperature_2x.png
| imagesize = 299x352px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = They're also refusing to fund my device that demonstrates uncontrolled hot fusion.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a ROOM-TEMPERATURE FUSION REACTOR. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

In this comic, Cueball presents a room-temperature {{w|Semiconductor|semiconductor}}, consisting of layered silicon crystals. He enthusiastically describes the properties of his "discovery", namely that it can be tweaked to amplify or switch the flow of electric currents, but his audience is not impressed. This might be because silicon crystal semiconductors are already widely in use as a {{w|Semiconductor_device|key component of electronic systems}}. Silicon {{w|Semiconductor_device_fabrication|semiconductor manufacturing}} is, in simplest terms, adding materials to a flat wafer made of silicon crystal, often in a process that adds an entire layer of material, then removing the unwanted areas through various etching methods. Development of these processes began in the 1960s.

It appears that Cueball has confused semiconductors with {{w|Superconductivity|superconductors}} - materials that have no electrical resistance, meaning the flow of electrons is not slowed down at all (resistance can be thought of as the electrical equivalence of friction). Superconducting properties are extremely desirable since they allow for the lossless flow of electric current, as opposed to regular conductors like copper which have a low but non-zero resistance so the electric current decreases over time and distance, and this may also lead to superconductors having interesting magnetic properties. However, the known superconductors only work at extremely low temperatures close to 0 K, so their practical use is very limited. The discovery of superconductors that work above the boiling point of nitrogen (77 K or -196 °C) was a big deal because it meant that relatively cheap liquid nitrogen could be used as coolant rather than liquid helium. The comic probably references the recent controversy around alleged superconducting properties of carbonaceous sulfur hydride and nitrogen-doped lutetium hydride under extreme pressures. A team at the University of Rochester published two papers in the journal Nature, the first for C–S–H at 267 GPa which was later retracted after failed attempts at replication, and the second for Lu–N–H at just 1 GPa, which was later replicated. These pressures are too high to be practical for most engineering purposes, but the discoveries are still progress in the study of superconductivity. The discovery of a superconductor at standard temperature and pressure would be extremely surprising and could revolutionize electricity transmission, among other things, and dramatically reduce the cost of technologies like magnetic levitation and high-resolution nuclear magnetic resonance imaging.

In the title text, Cueball talks about a device that produces “uncontrolled {{w|Nuclear_fusion|hot fusion}}” which is also not met with enthusiasm. Again, this is likely due to the fact that it has already been discovered and used - in the form of {{w|Thermonuclear weapon|hydrogen bombs}}. This is likely why no one wants to fund the device - not only is it not novel, but it is {{w|Operation Ivy|extremely dangerous}}{{cn}}; though clearly he also hasn't excited those people who typically ''want'' something dangerous. ''Controlled'' hot fusion could be useful as an {{w|Fusion_power|alternative power source}} to nuclear reactors (which currently use nuclear ''fission''); however, {{w|Tokamak|current implementations}} still require more energy than they create. Cueball probably confused this with ''cold'' fusion, i.e. nuclear fusion that takes place at temperatures much, much lower than the millions of degrees required for "regular" hot fusion. There are {{w|Muon-catalyzed_fusion|reputable ways}} of achieving this (all of which require vast amounts of energy), but "cold fusion" has become the epitome of bad science since two scientists claimed, with much media attention, to have achieved cold nuclear fusion by doing an {{w|Cold_fusion|electrolysis of palladium in heavy water}}. The results could not be replicated by other scientists and the experiment was widely criticized for its many flaws, most importantly that the only indication of nuclear fusion was excess heat, with no detection of actual fusion byproducts.

High(er)-temperature super-conductivity might be the key to more effortlessly initiating and maintaining low(er)-temperature fusion, through very concentrated magnetic fields, but so far their respective temperature ranges are too different to use them in combination, and whether this will ever be possible remains subject to speculation.

It should be noted that both "discoveries" presented in the comic were in fact very big and important discoveries back in their day. The proposal that nuclear fusion is what powers stars earned {{w|Hans_Bethe|Hans Bethe}} the Nobel prize in Physics, and semiconductors are what allow modern electronic devices to be so small, as their properties make it possible to selectively steer the flow of electrical current, {{w|Integrated_circuit|even over an extremely small area}}.

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

:[A single frame with a table in the middle. A device consisting of multiple components and electrical wires is on the table. A Cueball stands to the left of the table, and facing him, Ponytail and another Cueball stand to the right of the table.]
:Cueball: My layered silicon crystals can amplify or switch current while sitting right here on the table!
:Ponytail: Uh huh.
:Another Cueball: I see.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:No one is impressed by my discovery of room-temperature semiconductors.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Physics]]

Talk:2788: Musical Scales

2023-06-23T06:29:49Z

EebstertheGreat:

The page says it was last edited about four hours from now. I'm wondering wether the lineage of in the hall... is worth mentioning. ie Grieg composed it for an Ibsen play. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.175.178|172.70.175.178]] 23:06, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
:(It's server time. Which is set as UTC. Currently matches central European summer time, I guess, but is one hour behind me (using BST in ordinary life), but matches me nicely when I'm back on GMT. If I read you right, I'm guessing you're on the US east-coast TZ (or equivalent, elsewhere in the Americas), and if you're on DST right now you'll find you have to mentally adjust by ''five'' whenever you're not. I imagine that logged-in people can configure dynamic time displays to local time (for themselves), but 'hard written records like on these signatures probably aren't converted 'live' (no good way to not mess up with false-changes/false-nonchanges) so there's probably no point doing that anyway. Just realise that you need to remember that it's an offset of four/five/whatever-it-might-be for your current time and place and rejoice that (with a spherical Earth, not somehow unified under one global political system that can tell all people to work with ever stranger hours of daylight, therefore with necessarily disjointed timezones) at least there's no possibility of falling off the 'edge' and perhaps into the jaws of the world-serpent. There are plenty of other problems, but not that! ...and no doubt there was discussion as to whether to align with Randall's habitual locale, instead, but more people know how to convert between their local UTC±whatever and straight UTC (or don't have to) than might be expected to reliably cross convert between two different ± values, correctly and accounting for whether either or both are DST at the moment. So I don't just say I'm happy with the situation because (for half a year) it matches my own TZ, I think it's just best all round. And doubtless various Europeans think so too (especially the other half of the year!). With apologies to Kiwis, Hawaiians and everyone else for the minor (but predictable) time-shifts they pretty kuch always have to consider, but still would even if you were happily aligned by circumstance... ;) ) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.220|141.101.98.220]] 09:42, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

::No, central European summer time is TWO hours away from UTC. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 20:06, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
::The UTC times are usually 4 hours ahead of me, and I'm Eastern, the first North American time zone, same as New York City and Miami (i.e. now it's just past midnight, on the West coast of North America it's just past 9pm). Usually I find my friends in U.K. are 5 hours away from me (and my time zone is always listed as -5), my family in Europe tend to be 6, but I think that changes with Daylight Savings (we ALMOST got rid of the stupid useless Daylight Savings last year, I'm hoping for this year). UTC always seems to resolve to the middle of the ocean, I always wonder why UTC exists at all, why not go with Greenwich Mean Time in such cases??? So, yeah, the "last edit" was probably just before your comment, and you're in the same time zone as me. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:22, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
:::UTC==GMT (for all practical purposes), i.e. Greenwich-zeroed, straight down the Prime Meridian (solar time) and UK-wide time when not we're not on BST==UTC+1. East Coast US is 5 hours from us, ''except'' for the week or three when either the entry or the exit from DST (I forget which one, but it ''is'' just the one or other) is not the same weekend for both UK and US, so we're disjointed by an hour (I think it reduces to 4 hours, but it's been a while since I needed to know that to avoid disturbing anyone's sleep/lunch). However, UTC definitely isn't in the ocean (well, not the main bits) like you seem to say. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.169|172.70.85.169]] 05:25, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
::::No, UTC=/=GMT, they're an hour apart, usually. Whenever I check. That's why it doesn't make sense. I'm not sure if it cuts into the western part of Africa, but if not that entire time zone is ocean (which may be the point, to not favour anybody). GMT, a.k.a. the time in England, is 5 hours from me, time for my friends in England are 5 hours ahead of me in Eastern, and any time I have to set my time zone it's listed as "GMT -5", usually along with one of the major cities in this time zone (like New York, Miami, Montreal, Toronto). UTC is 4, as proven by my 22 minutes past midnight comment being marked as 4:22am. EVERY time I check where 4 hours is, it's the middle of the ocean. Since it sounds like you're in the GMT zone, did you not comment at 6:25am? Two things are for sure: I'm "GMT -5" and UTC is +4 for me, making it GMT -1. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:05, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
::::: {{w|Greenwich Mean Time}}=={{w|Coordinated Universal Time}}+0. I ''would'' be in GMT zone but (like your other friends, here) I'm technically in {{w|British Summer Time}} right now, which is +1 to either of those two. I commented then at 5:25 GMT/UTC, but it was actually 6:25 BST. Midnight+22 minutes in your timezone is 4:22am UTC/GMT right now(/then). Because whilevyou are UTC-5 for half the year, you are UTC-4 right now with DST shifting ''you'' Eastwards, into the ocean, effectively, like it shoves me 'eastwards' (into the time that Paris/etc would have, if it wasn't for {{w|Central European Time}} places now being {{w|Central European Summer Time}} at +2...).
:::::: See my reply below, :) Though I thought GMT was simply the name for the time zone in England. My time zone being officially GMT -5 and UTC being GMT -1 by comparison seems to say you're incorrect? I swear, every country needs to just drop this Daylight Savings crap, it just causes confusion, it serves no practical purpose. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:20, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
::::::: Your mistake is in believing that GMT is ''ever'' anything other than UTC+0. And it's not DST causing confusion, because GMT never includes any DST adjustment. That's what BST is for. c.f. your(?) own EST and EDT. "London time" (or "UK..."/"English..." or whatever region/town you wish to label) varies by moving between +0 and +1 offsets on top of UTC/GMT, identically.
::::::: The complaints about DST (in my country and yours) are well known, but different issues. Indeed, some people would prefer that we do one last "spring on" one year but then never "fall back" again. Then Greenwich (the place) ''might'' never again be at UTC, but I suspect that GMT will remain equivalent to UTC but now we'd be on British Standard Time (UTC+1/GMT+1) all year, rather than British Summer Time (likewise) for only about half of it.
::::::: Or there are those who always wanted to just miss ''one'' 'fall back' to then align ourselves with CET/CEDT of the large swathe of Central Europe (and most places that we would cross the Channel/North Sea/Bay Of Biscay to reach), but that doesn't remove DST and as for moving towards Germany/France/etc, I suspect people would either hate that or find it now pointless since the B-word was initiated. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.83|172.71.242.83]] 21:34, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

::::: GMT and UTC are basically synonyms, but both are only 'correct' time for England (and Wales, Scotland, NI, IoM, Channel Islands, non-British Ireland and the non-British Portugal; but ''not'' Gibraltar and of course other OTs ...except maybe an Antarctic base or two) for the non-DST half of the year. Wait six months, check time.is (or your favourite method of finding times in other places) and you'll be 5 hours adrift from UTC+0 and GMT. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.66|172.70.91.66]] 06:32, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
:::::: Ah, but if you take the stance of "Daylight Savings is crap", from that viewpoint it's summer that the time is correct and proper, what would be the official time for each timezone. Meaning OFFICIALLY, GMT is an hour ahead of UTC. :) It's just during winter it happens to sync up (since presumably UTC does not observe Daylight Savings Time). DST is designed for winter, to adjust the daylight to more compatible hours during the winter, to save candle usage (shows how irrelevant and out of date this practice is), the winter time is the one that would be ditched if all the countries got their acts together and dismissed this DST silliness. When the practice is dropped, GMT will be permanently an hour ahead of UTC. Hence my comments of UTC being in the middle of the ocean. :) Last year when the countries were discussing it, the plan was to just not do the Fall Back last November and stay on summer time. Also, I can't check in 6 months because hopefully by then this nonsense will be abolished. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 05:09, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
::::::: No, GMT (although replaced as a standard by UTC) is always the same as UTC, for our purposes at least. It is not the same as UK local time which varies by summer/winter. Iceland does not have daylight savings and is constantly on UTC so we could talk about Reykjavík time instead. {{unsigned ip|162.158.111.223|07:08, 20 June 2023}}
:::::::: Strictly speaking, Greenwich Mean Time is defined astronomically, while Universal Coordinated Time is defined atomically. Leap seconds are used to keep atomic and astronomical time in synch, but between leap seconds, they can differ by as much as 0.9 seconds. They currently differ by about 0.2 seconds. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 06:29, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
Now I have to re-listen to In the Hall…; I think there are some errors here.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.146.212|172.71.146.212]] 01:23, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Can someone make a midi of Hall of the Mountain King but with an exponential time scale to "compensate" for the log transform? I want to hear a version that both starts and ends at 200 bpm. Is there any music that actually uses mathematically varying tempos? [[User:Quantum7|Quantum7]] ([[User talk:Quantum7|talk]]) 06:35, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
: I can't make a midi but I can make an mp3: https://voca.ro/17QJDbYxNnlh [[User:Viliml|Viliml]] ([[User talk:Viliml|talk]]) 20:25, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Ein belegtes Brot mit Schinken, ein belegtes Brot mit Ei...(Germans will understand.) [[Special:Contributions/198.41.242.94|198.41.242.94]] 06:50, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
: das sind zwei belegte Brote, eins mit Schinken und eins mit Ei. [[User:Bischoff|Bischoff]] ([[User talk:Bischoff|talk]]) 07:28, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
:: und dazu eisgekühlter Bommerlunder, Bommerlunder eisgekühlt. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.163|172.69.33.163]] 05:29, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
:: But what does that have to do with dead pants?? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.26.254|172.71.26.254]] 13:36, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
:: I don't really understand much German, and my Dutch is too weak to compensate, so I used my translator... :) (NOW I recognize some words, LOL!) I suspect that's the German equivalent to the English saying "Six of one, half a dozen of the other", :) Basically "Eh, either way works". [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:30, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
::: It is a song by Die Toten Hosen that gets quicker and higher for each repeat until you can't sing anymore, https://www.dietotenhosen.de/diskographie/songs/eisgekuehlter-bommerlunder

Why "mistakenly"? Sure there are some-half notes in there, but it's generally linear in the sense that every 7 steps correspond to a doubling of the frequency no matter where you start from {{unsigned ip|172.68.51.197|07:30, 13 June 2023}}
::For the line spacing it doesn't matter much. A true linear-scale staff which takes half-steps into account would have spacings of 0.9, 1.8, 4 and 8. The one glaring discrepancy is that on a true linear scale, the note E5 (659 Hz) would be closer to F5 (698 Hz) than to D5 (587 Hz). [[User:Rick4|Rick4]] ([[User talk:Rick4|talk]]) 14:29, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Most sheet music is not truly linear in time to begin with. It's pseudo-logarithmic but in the sense that the shorter notes (8ths and 16ths and heaven forbid 32nds for us da**ed drummers) are given MORE space relative to the (fixed) size of the note heads compared to quarter, half, and full notes. This then affects the on-page length of measures: measures with faster notes are longer (as measurable with a small ruler) than those with longer/slower notes, even though -- assuming a fixed tempo -- their play speed (time duration) stays the same. And then you get modifiers like "rit(ardando)", "rall(entando)", "accel(erando)", "piu mosso", "meno mosso", and the like which modify tempo and throw the whole page-space-to-time relation out the window as if the page of sheet music itself (or the audience) sped to near-light speeds. Randall's going off the deep end trying to make this insane notation fit into fixed science rules; best to leave it to us crazy musicians and just enjoy the music. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.65.46|172.69.65.46]] 10:44, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

"Randall seems to have mistakenly assumed" what? no, the entire point of the comic is that Randall knows standard staves do *not* represent a linear increase in frequency. A treble clef is centered on G4, which has a frequency of 392 Hz, F4 has a frequency of 349, and E4 has a frequency of 330. The drawn stave has one line between E4 and F4, corresponding to a jump of about 19 Hz. Two lines between F4 and G4, and we're assuming a linear scale, so that's about right to get to 392. The size of the games grows geometrically, as you expect. Again, this is the entire point of the comic.

:That's not what it says, though. It says he may have assumed it's a linear increase in *pitch*, and therefore a *exponential* increase in frequency.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.2|172.70.86.2]] 08:40, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

::is that not correct? Doesn't an equal temperament scale exactly mean that it is a linear increase in pitch? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.114.240|172.70.114.240]] 16:11, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

:::An equal temperament scale means there's a linear increase in pitch by half-step/semitone, correct. However, any Western scale or mode regardless of quality will only include 7 notes, while there are 13 when including accidentals; the quality is determined by which notes are adjacent or separated by an accidental, or in other words if they are separated by one half-step or two. *However*, since standard notation uses other symbols to indicate deviation from the expected frequency and not separate lines, I'd argue that such would be the approach taken in a world where this sheet music was used. Therefore, I'd say this whole paragraph is unnecessary and misguided. Randall is taking a standard piece of sheet music and warping the scales of the axes, nothing more. He's not trying to make a valid, coherent new system of notation, he's making a graph joke. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.125|162.158.159.125]] 17:27, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

::::But the point is that not only is his 'mistake' version 'wrong' (non-standard), but his remedy would result in notation that was 'wrong' as well, on both 'axes'.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.49|172.70.85.49]] 08:37, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

::::I'm not following. Don't the lines in a staff indicate equal spaced whole steps (between consecutive lines) or half-steps (between lines and spaces)? What is the "mistake" that randall is alleged to have made, and have we agreed that it is infact a mistake or not? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.58|162.158.158.58]] 04:01, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

:::::They do not. Each line in a staff is either a half step or whole step above the space below it, depending on the key. For example, C major has the notes C, D, E, F, G, A, B with no sharps or flats. Each one gets a line or a space between lines on the staff. But the interval between C and D is a whole step, while the interval between E and F is a half step. In equal temperament tuning, every half step has the same ratio, so the ratio in a full step is its square. On a log plot, that would mean the full steps would be twice as wide as the half steps, but they are in fact the same width. It gets even more complicated when you consider accidentals. For instance, D and D♭ are a half step apart but occupy the same line. Meanwhile, B and C♭ are enharmonically equivalent (i.e. the same pitch in equal temperament tuning), but they occupy different parts of the staff. And of course, double accidentals just make things worse. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 15:12, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

All this musical theory talk is giving me a headache. I think I'll go put on some Zappa, RUSH, and Tool albums to relax. [[User:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For]] ([[User talk:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|talk]]) 02:25, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

The first 1:40 of this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-Lt5fRNgO8 [[Special:Contributions/162.158.222.37|162.158.222.37]] 08:03, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2788: Musical Scales

2023-06-17T15:12:18Z

EebstertheGreat:

The page says it was last edited about four hours from now. I'm wondering wether the lineage of in the hall... is worth mentioning. ie Grieg composed it for an Ibsen play. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.175.178|172.70.175.178]] 23:06, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
:(It's server time. Which is set as UTC. Currently matches central European summer time, I guess, but is one hour behind me (using BST in ordinary life), but matches me nicely when I'm back on GMT. If I read you right, I'm guessing you're on the US east-coast TZ (or equivalent, elsewhere in the Americas), and if you're on DST right now you'll find you have to mentally adjust by ''five'' whenever you're not. I imagine that logged-in people can configure dynamic time displays to local time (for themselves), but 'hard written records like on these signatures probably aren't converted 'live' (no good way to not mess up with false-changes/false-nonchanges) so there's probably no point doing that anyway. Just realise that you need to remember that it's an offset of four/five/whatever-it-might-be for your current time and place and rejoice that (with a spherical Earth, not somehow unified under one global political system that can tell all people to work with ever stranger hours of daylight, therefore with necessarily disjointed timezones) at least there's no possibility of falling off the 'edge' and perhaps into the jaws of the world-serpent. There are plenty of other problems, but not that! ...and no doubt there was discussion as to whether to align with Randall's habitual locale, instead, but more people know how to convert between their local UTC±whatever and straight UTC (or don't have to) than might be expected to reliably cross convert between two different ± values, correctly and accounting for whether either or both are DST at the moment. So I don't just say I'm happy with the situation because (for half a year) it matches my own TZ, I think it's just best all round. And doubtless various Europeans think so too (especially the other half of the year!). With apologies to Kiwis, Hawaiians and everyone else for the minor (but predictable) time-shifts they pretty kuch always have to consider, but still would even if you were happily aligned by circumstance... ;) ) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.220|141.101.98.220]] 09:42, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

::No, central European summer time is TWO hours away from UTC. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 20:06, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
::The UTC times are usually 4 hours ahead of me, and I'm Eastern, the first North American time zone, same as New York City and Miami (i.e. now it's just past midnight, on the West coast of North America it's just past 9pm). Usually I find my friends in U.K. are 5 hours away from me (and my time zone is always listed as -5), my family in Europe tend to be 6, but I think that changes with Daylight Savings (we ALMOST got rid of the stupid useless Daylight Savings last year, I'm hoping for this year). UTC always seems to resolve to the middle of the ocean, I always wonder why UTC exists at all, why not go with Greenwich Mean Time in such cases??? So, yeah, the "last edit" was probably just before your comment, and you're in the same time zone as me. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:22, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
:::UTC==GMT (for all practical purposes), i.e. Greenwich-zeroed, straight down the Prime Meridian (solar time) and UK-wide time when not we're not on BST==UTC+1. East Coast US is 5 hours from us, ''except'' for the week or three when either the entry or the exit from DST (I forget which one, but it ''is'' just the one or other) is not the same weekend for both UK and US, so we're disjointed by an hour (I think it reduces to 4 hours, but it's been a while since I needed to know that to avoid disturbing anyone's sleep/lunch). However, UTC definitely isn't in the ocean (well, not the main bits) like you seem to say. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.169|172.70.85.169]] 05:25, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
::::No, UTC=/=GMT, they're an hour apart, usually. Whenever I check. That's why it doesn't make sense. I'm not sure if it cuts into the western part of Africa, but if not that entire time zone is ocean (which may be the point, to not favour anybody). GMT, a.k.a. the time in England, is 5 hours from me, time for my friends in England are 5 hours ahead of me in Eastern, and any time I have to set my time zone it's listed as "GMT -5", usually along with one of the major cities in this time zone (like New York, Miami, Montreal, Toronto). UTC is 4, as proven by my 22 minutes past midnight comment being marked as 4:22am. EVERY time I check where 4 hours is, it's the middle of the ocean. Since it sounds like you're in the GMT zone, did you not comment at 6:25am? Two things are for sure: I'm "GMT -5" and UTC is +4 for me, making it GMT -1. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:05, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
::::: {{w|Greenwich Mean Time}}=={{w|Coordinated Universal Time}}+0. I ''would'' be in GMT zone but (like your other friends, here) I'm technically in {{w|British Summer Time}} right now, which is +1 to either of those two. I commented then at 5:25 GMT/UTC, but it was actually 6:25 BST. Midnight+22 minutes in your timezone is 4:22am UTC/GMT right now(/then). Because whilevyou are UTC-5 for half the year, you are UTC-4 right now with DST shifting ''you'' Eastwards, into the ocean, effectively, like it shoves me 'eastwards' (into the time that Paris/etc would have, if it wasn't for {{w|Central European Time}} places now being {{w|Central European Summer Time}} at +2...).
::::: GMT and UTC are basically synonyms, but both are only 'correct' time for England (and Wales, Scotland, NI, IoM, Channel Islands, non-British Ireland and the non-British Portugal; but ''not'' Gibraltar and of course other OTs ...except maybe an Antarctic base or two) for the non-DST half of the year. Wait six months, check time.is (or your favourite method of finding times in other places) and you'll be 5 hours adrift from UTC+0 and GMT. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.66|172.70.91.66]] 06:32, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Now I have to re-listen to In the Hall…; I think there are some errors here.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.146.212|172.71.146.212]] 01:23, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Can someone make a midi of Hall of the Mountain King but with an exponential time scale to "compensate" for the log transform? I want to hear a version that both starts and ends at 200 bpm. Is there any music that actually uses mathematically varying tempos? [[User:Quantum7|Quantum7]] ([[User talk:Quantum7|talk]]) 06:35, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
: I can't make a midi but I can make an mp3: https://voca.ro/17QJDbYxNnlh [[User:Viliml|Viliml]] ([[User talk:Viliml|talk]]) 20:25, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Ein belegtes Brot mit Schinken, ein belegtes Brot mit Ei...(Germans will understand.) [[Special:Contributions/198.41.242.94|198.41.242.94]] 06:50, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
: das sind zwei belegte Brote, eins mit Schinken und eins mit Ei. [[User:Bischoff|Bischoff]] ([[User talk:Bischoff|talk]]) 07:28, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
:: und dazu eisgekühlter Bommerlunder, Bommerlunder eisgekühlt. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.163|172.69.33.163]] 05:29, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
:: But what does that have to do with dead pants?? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.26.254|172.71.26.254]] 13:36, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
:: I don't really understand much German, and my Dutch is too weak to compensate, so I used my translator... :) (NOW I recognize some words, LOL!) I suspect that's the German equivalent to the English saying "Six of one, half a dozen of the other", :) Basically "Eh, either way works". [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 04:30, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Why "mistakenly"? Sure there are some-half notes in there, but it's generally linear in the sense that every 7 steps correspond to a doubling of the frequency no matter where you start from {{unsigned ip|172.68.51.197|07:30, 13 June 2023}}
::For the line spacing it doesn't matter much. A true linear-scale staff which takes half-steps into account would have spacings of 0.9, 1.8, 4 and 8. The one glaring discrepancy is that on a true linear scale, the note E5 (659 Hz) would be closer to F5 (698 Hz) than to D5 (587 Hz). [[User:Rick4|Rick4]] ([[User talk:Rick4|talk]]) 14:29, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Most sheet music is not truly linear in time to begin with. It's pseudo-logarithmic but in the sense that the shorter notes (8ths and 16ths and heaven forbid 32nds for us da**ed drummers) are given MORE space relative to the (fixed) size of the note heads compared to quarter, half, and full notes. This then affects the on-page length of measures: measures with faster notes are longer (as measurable with a small ruler) than those with longer/slower notes, even though -- assuming a fixed tempo -- their play speed (time duration) stays the same. And then you get modifiers like "rit(ardando)", "rall(entando)", "accel(erando)", "piu mosso", "meno mosso", and the like which modify tempo and throw the whole page-space-to-time relation out the window as if the page of sheet music itself (or the audience) sped to near-light speeds. Randall's going off the deep end trying to make this insane notation fit into fixed science rules; best to leave it to us crazy musicians and just enjoy the music. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.65.46|172.69.65.46]] 10:44, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

"Randall seems to have mistakenly assumed" what? no, the entire point of the comic is that Randall knows standard staves do *not* represent a linear increase in frequency. A treble clef is centered on G4, which has a frequency of 392 Hz, F4 has a frequency of 349, and E4 has a frequency of 330. The drawn stave has one line between E4 and F4, corresponding to a jump of about 19 Hz. Two lines between F4 and G4, and we're assuming a linear scale, so that's about right to get to 392. The size of the games grows geometrically, as you expect. Again, this is the entire point of the comic.

:That's not what it says, though. It says he may have assumed it's a linear increase in *pitch*, and therefore a *exponential* increase in frequency.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.86.2|172.70.86.2]] 08:40, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

::is that not correct? Doesn't an equal temperament scale exactly mean that it is a linear increase in pitch? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.114.240|172.70.114.240]] 16:11, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

:::An equal temperament scale means there's a linear increase in pitch by half-step/semitone, correct. However, any Western scale or mode regardless of quality will only include 7 notes, while there are 13 when including accidentals; the quality is determined by which notes are adjacent or separated by an accidental, or in other words if they are separated by one half-step or two. *However*, since standard notation uses other symbols to indicate deviation from the expected frequency and not separate lines, I'd argue that such would be the approach taken in a world where this sheet music was used. Therefore, I'd say this whole paragraph is unnecessary and misguided. Randall is taking a standard piece of sheet music and warping the scales of the axes, nothing more. He's not trying to make a valid, coherent new system of notation, he's making a graph joke. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.125|162.158.159.125]] 17:27, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

::::But the point is that not only is his 'mistake' version 'wrong' (non-standard), but his remedy would result in notation that was 'wrong' as well, on both 'axes'.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.49|172.70.85.49]] 08:37, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

::::I'm not following. Don't the lines in a staff indicate equal spaced whole steps (between consecutive lines) or half-steps (between lines and spaces)? What is the "mistake" that randall is alleged to have made, and have we agreed that it is infact a mistake or not? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.58|162.158.158.58]] 04:01, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

:::::They do not. Each line in a staff is either a half step or whole step above the space below it, depending on the key. For example, C major has the notes C, D, E, F, G, A, B with no sharps or flats. Each one gets a line or a space between lines on the staff. But the interval between C and D is a whole step, while the interval between E and F is a half step. In equal temperament tuning, every half step has the same ratio, so the ratio in a full step is its square. On a log plot, that would mean the full steps would be twice as wide as the half steps, but they are in fact the same width. It gets even more complicated when you consider accidentals. For instance, D and D♭ are a half step apart but occupy the same line. Meanwhile, B and C♭ are enharmonically equivalent (i.e. the same pitch in equal temperament tuning), but they occupy different parts of the staff. And of course, double accidentals just make things worse. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 15:12, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Talk:2788: Musical Scales

2023-06-14T01:12:04Z

EebstertheGreat:

Talk:2788: Musical Scales

2023-06-14T01:11:03Z

EebstertheGreat:

691: MicroSD

2023-06-09T19:53:58Z

EebstertheGreat: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 691
| date = January 20, 2010
| title = MicroSD
| image = microsd.png
| titletext = That card holds a refrigerator carton's worth of floppy discs, and a soda can full of those cards could hold the entire iTunes store's music library. Mmmm.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Secure_Digital|microSD}} is one format of the Secure Digital memory card format, used in digital cameras, cell phones, and other devices. It is very small, only 15×11×1 mm, but can hold large amounts of data. The {{w|US dime}} in contrast has a diameter of 17.91 mm. When this comic was published in January 2010 the maximum capacity for microSD cards was 16GB. The current maximum capacity is 1TB (as of January 2023).

The main character in the comic (on the right) thinks about all the ideas that could be expressed by the data in the microSD card, or in a library. He feels not just reverent and intimidated, but sexually aroused by the thought. As he begins to touch it, his friend is disgusted by what might happen if he uses the card as some kind of sex toy, and does not want to help him locate the card if it gets "lost" inside a body cavity.

The title text seems to be the main character thinking about how much data the card holds, in terms of {{w|floppy disks}} and the {{w|iTunes}} music library, and feeling aroused by these thoughts.

Randall's claims in the title text do check out. A high-density floppy disk with a FAT format holds about 1.4 MB of data, and has dimensions of 90×94×3 mm, for a volume of about 2.5 cm³. A refrigerator carton is the large cardboard box that fridges are delivered in. A typical refrigerator carton may be 1800×700×700 mm, a volume of about 0.9 m³. So a fridge carton could hold about thirty-five thousand 90 mm floppies, or roughly 50GB. This is comparable to the storage on a single microSD card. A soda can (500 ml = 500 cm³) could hold three thousand microSD cards or store 50TB of data (4500TB today). The iTunes store claimed to hold thirty-five million songs in Summer 2016, and allowing for about 2MB per song gives 70 TB of music. But the library would have been smaller in Spring of 2014 when the comic was created. As of January 2023, Apple Music had about 100 million songs, with much larger average file sizes of around 6 MB. That amounts to about 600 TB total, which is still far less than the 3000 TB that could fit in a soda can of microSD cards at the time. So Randall's claim seems to be correct.

There is a what if [http://what-if.xkcd.com/31/ blog entry] related to this topic.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and a friend approach a table.]
:Cueball: Hey, what's up?
:Friend: Shhhhh.
:Cueball: Hrm?
:Friend: There's a microSD card on your table.

:[A 16GB microSD card sits next to an assortment of coins for size reference.]
:Cueball (out of panel): So?
:Friend (out of panel): I dunno, high storage densities freak me out. A whole aisle of library shelves on something smaller than a dime.

:[The two people stand near the table, the friend peering at the coins and card on the table.]
:Friend: Libraries are unnerving enough-millions of ideas surrounding you, towering over you. These cards fill me with that same reverence, that same intimidation.

:[Cueball stands alone.]
:Friend (out of panel): ...that same faint arousal. Maybe I'll just touch it.
:Cueball: If you lose that card I'm NOT helping you find it.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]

2787: Iceberg

2023-06-09T19:34:08Z

EebstertheGreat: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2787
| date = June 9, 2023
| title = Iceberg
| image = iceberg_2x.png
| imagesize = 258x397px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = 90% of the iceberg is hidden beneath the water, but that 90% only uses 10% of its brain, so it's really only 9%.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
The [https://www.agcas.org.uk/write/MediaUploads/Resources/ITG/iceberg_metaphor.pdf Iceberg metaphor] is a famous metaphor sometimes [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31633371/ misattributed to Freud]. It asserts that the majority (often stated as 90%) of an iceberg is below the surface, as a metaphor for the invisible aspects of the thing being compared. For instance, the majority of mass in the universe does not appear to be in the form of ordinary ("baryonic") matter but dark matter or dark energy. Excluding dark energy, dark matter accounts for about 85% of the total mass of the universe. So baryonic matter is like the "tip of the iceberg," visible above the surface, while dark matter is the invisible majority of the iceberg below the surface.

The author deliberately misunderstands the metaphor by taking it literally. He thinks the teacher is saying the part of an iceberg below the surface is literally made of dark matter. He points out that the Titanic sank after its hull hit an iceberg underwater, which wouldn't be possible if it were made of dark matter. Dark matter is not known to interact at all with baryonic matter, except by gravity, and we have only ever detected it gravitationally.

The title text references the myth that we use only 10% of our brain, and we could become more intelligent or powerful by "unlocking" the remaining 90%. If icebergs had brains, and the 90% in the "dark matter" part underwater used only 10% of its brain, while the tip used 100% of its brain, then most of the cognition would occur in the tip. However, the "9%" figure would still be meaningless; it should instead be 9/19 = 47.37%.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Ponytail pointing to a chart depicting an iceberg in the water]

:Off screen voice: But then how did it interact with the ordinary baryonic matter in the Titanic's hull?

:Normal Matter
:Dark Matter

:[Caption below panel:]
:My Hobby: Refusing to understand the iceberg metaphor

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category: Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category: My Hobby]]
[[Category: Physics]]

Talk:691: MicroSD

2023-05-26T04:10:10Z

EebstertheGreat:

Please include definition of refrigerator carton. Also, what is the average storage capacity of a floppy disk?[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.7|108.162.219.7]] 00:08, 19 May 2014 (UTC)
:These days refrigerators come in cartons for safe storage. Also you can open them to store floppy discs, which is a lot easier than trying to load them in soda cans. Especially the unopened ones. {{unsigned|Weatherlawyer}}
:: But what is a refrigerator carton? What do you mean they "come in cartons for safe storage"? What's a carton? Is it a cardboard box that fits a whole refrigerator? A wooden crate? A bunch of pillows surrounding the fridge? What is it?

:: When I do a Google search, I find cardboard boxes with insulating liners designed to hold dry ice, regular ice, or other cold and possibly leaky ingredients, which is not what you said. I think that's what Randall meant. But mostly my searches yield an almost random assortment of cardboard boxes which are coincidentally associated with fridges in some way, which suggests it is a term Randall uses but not one recognized by the general public. Since these are so obscure, the article should probably explain. At a minimum, we need a volume estimate, which we can't really get from the context, since both floppies and SD cards spanned orders of magnitude of storage at the time.[[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 04:01, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
A soda can of then's microSD cards could hold the whole iTunes library then. A soda can of now's microSD cards could hold the whole iTunes library now. I do not see the issue or what seems unreasonable. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.78.76|162.158.78.76]] 02:55, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Changed “January 2021” to “November 2022” as it has remained that the maximum digital storage size commercially mass produced and available for microSD cards is one terabyte. [[User:SilverTheTerribleMathematician|SilverTheTerribleMathematician]] ([[User talk:SilverTheTerribleMathematician|talk]]) 07:26, 8 December 2022 (UTC)
:Excellent —[[User:While False|While False]] ([[User:While False/explain xkcd museum|'''museum''']] | [[User talk:While False|talk]] | [[special:Contributions/While_False|contributions]] | [[special:Log/While_False|logs]] | [[Special:UserRights/While_False|rights]] | [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=User:While_False&printable=yes printable version] | [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=User:While_False&action=info page information] | [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Special:WhatLinksHere/User:While_False what links there] | [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Special:RecentChangesLinked&days=30&from=&target=User%3AWhile_False related changes] | [https://www.google.com Google search] | current time: {{CURRENTTIME}}) 07:38, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Updated to May 2023. As of February, 1.5TB cards have been available. 2TB cards might be available relatively soon, likely in less than 6 months, but we'll see.[[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 04:10, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

691: MicroSD

2023-05-26T04:05:58Z

EebstertheGreat: /* Explanation */ Micron 1.5TB MicroSD cards are available now to the general public. However, I am not remotely convinced that this is what a "refrigerator carton" is.

{{comic
| number = 691
| date = January 20, 2010
| title = MicroSD
| image = microsd.png
| titletext = That card holds a refrigerator carton's worth of floppy discs, and a soda can full of those cards could hold the entire iTunes store's music library. Mmmm.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Secure_Digital|microSD}} is one format of the Secure Digital memory card format, used in digital cameras, cell phones, and other devices. It is very small, only 15×11×1 mm, but can hold large amounts of data. The {{w|US dime}} in contrast has a diameter of 17.91 mm. When this comic was published in January 2010 the maximum capacity for microSD cards was 16GB. The current maximum capacity is 1TB (as of January 2023).

The main character in the comic (on the right) thinks about all the ideas that could be expressed by the data in the microSD card, or in a library. He feels not just reverent and intimidated, but sexually aroused by the thought. As he begins to touch it, his friend is disgusted by what might happen if he uses the card as some kind of sex toy, and does not want to help him locate the card if it gets "lost" inside a body cavity.

The title text seems to be the main character thinking about how much data the card holds, in terms of {{w|floppy disks}} and the {{w|iTunes}} music library, and feeling aroused by these thoughts.

Randall's claims in the title text do check out. A high-density floppy disk with a FAT format holds about 1.4 MB of data, and has dimensions of 90×94×3 mm, for a volume of about 2.5 cm³. A refrigerator carton is the large cardboard box that fridges are delivered in. A typical refrigerator carton may be 1800×700×700 mm, a volume of about 0.9 m³. So a fridge carton could hold about thirty-five thousand 90 mm floppies, or roughly 50GB. This is comparable to the storage on a single microSD card. A soda can (500 ml = 500 cm³) could hold three thousand microSD cards or store 50TB of data (4500TB today). However, the iTunes store claims to hold thirty-five million songs (as of Summer 2016), and allowing for about 2MB per song gives 70 TB of music. The claim that a soda can could hold the iTunes library seems to be unreasonable, but it was reasonable at the time.

There is a what if [http://what-if.xkcd.com/31/ blog entry] related to this topic.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and a friend approach a table.]
:Cueball: Hey, what's up?
:Friend: Shhhhh.
:Cueball: Hrm?
:Friend: There's a microSD card on your table.

:[A 16GB microSD card sits next to an assortment of coins for size reference.]
:Cueball (out of panel): So?
:Friend (out of panel): I dunno, high storage densities freak me out. A whole aisle of library shelves on something smaller than a dime.

:[The two people stand near the table, the friend peering at the coins and card on the table.]
:Friend: Libraries are unnerving enough-millions of ideas surrounding you, towering over you. These cards fill me with that same reverence, that same intimidation.

:[Cueball stands alone.]
:Friend (out of panel): ...that same faint arousal. Maybe I'll just touch it.
:Cueball: If you lose that card I'm NOT helping you find it.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]

Talk:691: MicroSD

2023-05-26T04:01:44Z

EebstertheGreat:

Talk:2768: Definition of e

2023-05-14T03:32:02Z

EebstertheGreat: /* r = n * (2^(1/n) - 1) */

This is of course one way of arriving at the value of e: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_(mathematical_constant)#Compound_interest [[User:Trimeta|Trimeta]] ([[User talk:Trimeta|talk]]) 03:55, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

I do not know who said that Miss Lenhard is after a dollar - but that is so not her![[User:Tier666|Tier666]] ([[User talk:Tier666|talk]]) 09:15, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

One explanation may be that Miss Lenhart is in a Ponzi scheme. Ponzi schemes claim to offer unbelievably high returns that are actually paid by later investors, it will invariably crash, but by the time, the scammers will have vanished with the money. Here, Miss Lenhart effectively offers +172% annual returns, which is way above what a honest bank can offer, and she seems to push the student into investing, which is aligned with the Ponzi scheme goal of getting as many people to invest as possible. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.22.234|162.158.22.234]] 11:25, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

==e^iπ + 1==
'''e''' is an inherent feature of mathematics. The equation e^iπ + 1 = 0 is made of the 5 most important numbers. - [[User:Frankie|Frankie]] ([[User talk:Frankie|talk]]) 13:10, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
:i is not a number, it is the imaginary ''unit''. [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 16:00, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
::i is a number. 1 is also sometimes called ''the unit'' by mathematicians. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.22.105|172.71.22.105]] 21:01, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
:Every number is an inherent feature of mathematics, but I don't think the number e is as special as formulas like this make it appear. What's really significant is the exponential function exp, and the number e is just exp 1. It is therefore similar in significance to √2 or ln 2. Similarly, in the identity you provide, the general form is exp iθ = cos θ + i sin θ, and plugging in θ = π is just one special case. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 02:33, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
:e^ipi is genuinely quite boring. I would prefer e^i2pi = e^0 = 1 because its more immediately apparent that e^ix forms a circle/periodic function[[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.225|172.69.33.225]] 06:29, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Does anyone else see the buttons at the top as being weird? The first comic arrow is split into two buttons separated by a new line. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.38.17|172.70.38.17]] 12:24, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
: Agree. It does not appear on the main comic, just here. [[User:Iggynelix|Iggynelix]] ([[User talk:Iggynelix|talk]])

Maybe the bank was originally owned by Beret Guy? That would explain why it continues to stay in business despite effectively giving away money. It's not suggested anywhere in the comic, but the idea is very much in line with his powers. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.137|162.158.158.137]] 13:40, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

The current explanation is vague regarding the identity of the speaker in the title text, but it seems clear to me that the title text is being said by Miss Lenhart - she's explaining how she came into possession of the bank account in question. Her high school teacher set it up, and then she engineered the takeover so she could continue to use the account after passing the class. [[User:Snuffysam|Snuffysam]] ([[User talk:Snuffysam|talk]]) 16:12, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
:Why would she need to pass the class to use the bank? [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 16:35, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

==r = n * (2^(1/n) - 1)==
This demonstrates a misunderstanding of the way banks, and other financial institutions, quote interest rates. A bank that pays 100% interest rate annually, will pay $1 on 1$: at the end of the first year the balance will be $2.00. That is not (1+100%/n)**n, and is not $2.71, because the interval compounding rate is not 100%/n for n <>1. The interval compounding rate for 100% per annum is r = n * (2^(1/n) - 1). I leave working out the limit as n approaches infinity as an exercise for the reader :) I don't know if math teachers in the USA actually use this example as a math teaching method: if so, they should certainly have a discussion with a 'business studies teacher' or 'business math teacher' about the meaning of the words they are using, because they are doing a disservice to students by misleading them about the meaning of common savings and loan terms of business.
:This would mean there is no difference between interest “compounded annually” vs. “compounded daily”? Also, deleted the last paragraph of the exp. Seems clear to me that the title text speaker is the student in the strip, later relating the very incident illustrated. (And no need for comment on characters’ future business endeavors.) [[User:Miamiclay|Miamiclay]] ([[User talk:Miamiclay|talk]]) 10:58, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
::Unremoved the last para. The teacher deecribed is male, '''Miss''' L is not.{{Citation needed}} But if the suggestion is that the narrating person is Miss L (after the year has passed?), then we have other problems to explain (how she thinks she got it to work, hypercompetent as she is but as impossible the setup is).
::I read it as someone else, off-panel (traditionall Randall's voice, but not in this case?), who is describing a different time and who clearly didn't/doesn't grasp reality (did not get taught/listen that well, at school, seems convinced they did something clever), or can actually ignore the problems (like Beret Guy). But it could do with streamlining. ''Or'' various brief arguments for and against who is saying it, split up. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.161|172.70.162.161]] 12:35, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
:::I initially (mis?)read “his bank” as reflecting not ownership, but where he banked, but you’re probably right. Either way, the whole thing seems both unclear as to the referents and somewhat misconceived - When a bank pays absurdly high rates, the last thing one would want is to acquire it! [[User:Miamiclay|Miamiclay]] ([[User talk:Miamiclay|talk]]) 15:09, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
::The difference between "compounded annually" and "compounded monthly" was/is that "compounded monthly" is computed on the "minimum monthly balance". Savings banks moved to "compounded daily" when computers meant that the work involved wasn't completely unreasonable. With "compounded daily", you get paid interest even if you have one day in the month when the balance was $0.01 and all the other days were $100K.
::If you are buying a 90 day bond, the interest really is quoted as n*90/365 (or n*90/360, or n*90/366 or %90/90, depending on the exchange rules). And if you re-invest, you get more. And you can do the same with over-night money (daily rollover). But that's "re-investment", not "daily-compounding". And the thing is, working out "true cost" is difficult for most people, and most people don't know and haven't thought about what "daily compounding" is, and probably wouldn't understand the math if they do think about it. It's easy to believe that teachers are miss-using the business terms used for ordinary savings accounts, but if so, that's unfortunate.

As it stands, this explanation smacks of [[2623|taking the fictional scenario way too literally]]. It spends a lot of words deconstructing the idea of "100% annual interest", instead of ''explaining the comic''. My interpretation is that we're meant to take the 100% at face value: [[1493|it shouldn't work, but it does]]. -- [[User:Peregrine|Peregrine]] ([[User talk:Peregrine|talk]]) 01:41, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

It's just the difference between measuring interest in APY and APR. A 100% rate compounded every minute has a 172% yield. The teacher must be talking about rate, because that's the only way to get $e at the end. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 03:32, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

2775: Siphon

2023-05-14T02:47:58Z

EebstertheGreat: /* Explanation */ Capillary action is a minor factor in water transport in trees. The pressure gradient in xylem tubes is mostly due to evapotrapnsipration in leaves as well as positive hydraulic pressure in the roots produced in a largely unknown way.

{{comic
| number = 2775
| date = May 12, 2023
| title = Siphon
| image = siphon_2x.png
| imagesize = 310x378px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = ADDITIONAL NOTES: Fixed a bug that caused some rocks to generate virtually infinite heat while just sitting there.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a SIPHONIC WINDS - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Cueball and Megan have a demonstration of a {{w|siphon}}, by which the gravitational force on an upper reservoir of liquid and molecular cohesion move a liquid upward through a tube, traversing a higher peak to reach a lower exit. Randall has also mentioned siphons in [https://what-if.xkcd.com/143/ whatif 143] and in his book, "how to," section "how to make a pool."

Siphons are commonly used in modern society (e.g., most American residential toilets are flushed by siphon action).

Siphons are separate from a similarly counter-intuitive phenomenon of {{w|capillary action}}, where a liquid flows through narrow spaces (even upwards, entirely against gravity) in that a siphon need not be of such small diameter. Capillary action will also move liquid into an initially empty channel, whilst a siphon must be 'primed', by filling the tube, in order to draw liquid over a high point to ultimately always drop down into a lower container. Capillary action is caused by surface tension and attractive forces between the liquid and the walls of the channel; the liquid level will rise until the weight of the column of liquid matches the attractive forces. A siphon requires that the weight of the liquid column on the "higher" side of the channel peak not exceed atmospheric pressure, or else the liquid will split, leaving a {{w|Torricelli's_experiment|partial vacuum}}. Capillary action can lift liquid higher than the maximum height of the "higher" side of a siphon with the same liquid, if the attractive forces are strong enough.

Apparently, even though Cueball and Megan have set up the experiment correctly, the water no longer demonstrates a siphon by flowing from the upper bucket to the lower. Cueball observes in surprise that "it's true," meaning that this is a very recent development, and Megan remarks that it was honestly weird in retrospect that scientists had ever tried to rationalize this admittedly counter-intuitive phenomenon in the first place.

The punchline of the comic is in the caption, which delivers a piece of physics news that the "2023 update to the universe" finally fixed this phenomenon, dubbed "the siphon bug". The joke here is that the entire complex and multifaceted system of {{w|physics}} in and of itself is treated as though it's simply the logic (or perhaps the sometimes unintentional result of various default [[1620: Christmas Settings|configuration options]] combined) to a video game, and that siphoning (rather than being an interesting physical phenomenon worth studying) was nothing more than a bug unintentionally created by the "devs" (whoever that may be). In reality, siphons still very much exist in our universe,{{citation needed}} though {{w|simulation hypothesis|the idea that we live in a computer simulation}} is also prevalent in {{w|the matrix|our modern pop culture}}.

The title text is a reference to [[2115: Plutonium]]. It expands on the joke surrounding the idea of an "Earth dev log" by referencing {{w|nuclear power}}, and how it's apparently another bug that some nuclear elements (notably {{w|uranium}} and {{w|plutonium}}, among others) can be and have been harnessed by humanity in order to continually generate energy (though in decreasingly useful amounts, making it not useful after some length of time, possibly that of several decades), all while the elements themselves are simply sitting there in the core of some {{w|nuclear reactor}}.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[There are two buckets: the one on the left is on a stool and is filled with water, the other on the right is on the ground and has a small amount of water. Cueball is standing on the left and holding a tube between the buckets. No water is flowing through the tube, which appears to have just emptied from both ends. Megan is standing on the right and watching the proceedings.]
:Cueball: Wow, it's true—the water doesn't flow up the tube anymore.
:Megan: Honestly, it's weird that it ever did.
:Megan: Why did we think that was normal?

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Physics news: The 2023 update to the universe finally fixed the "siphon" bug.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Physics]]

Talk:2768: Definition of e

2023-04-28T02:33:25Z

EebstertheGreat: /* e^iπ + 1 */

Talk:1512: Horoscopes

2022-10-12T23:09:22Z

EebstertheGreat: whoops

So funny - especially the title text made me laugh :-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 07:05, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
:Nine months later, it would certainly eliminate the stress of wondering if you were gonna "get lucky" that night. - Equinox [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.120|199.27.128.120]] 16:13, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

The "coriolis effect" in the title text refers to the spin direction of vortices (rotating currents such as cyclones, whirlpools, and water draining from a basin), which is counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern hemisphere. The title text is a joke extending the reversal to the flow of time.
: The spin direction of whirlpools and basins is 'not' determined by the coriolis effect, on this scale its impact is way too small to make a difference. The title text refers to how the coriolis effect is often used to explain phenomena (especially with relation to the hemispheres), even when its wrong. --[[Special:Contributions/198.41.242.5|198.41.242.5]] 08:23, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

If the baby is born 9 months BEFORE they're conceived, would that account for the shift in seasons for the southern hemisphere? Born in March: Northern hemisphere -> conceived in June; Southern hemisphere -> conceived in December. June and December being summer respectively. If that's right, could someone add that to the wiki? [[User:none]]

The events described during which the conception of a person with a given birth month occurred assumes that the parents were in the United States at that time. The seasons would be shifted by six months in the southern hemisphere, and the holidays of the 4th of July (Independence Day -- Aries), Halloween (Cancer, conception in October), Thanksgiving (Leo, conception in November), Mother's Day (Aquarius, conception in May), and the NCAA (college) basketball playoffs ("March Madness" -- Sagittarius) , might either not be celebrated or celebrated on a different day. [[User:The Dining Logician|The Dining Logician]] ([[User talk:The Dining Logician|talk]]) 08:11, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

:Halloween is starting to become common in Brazil, including the "Trick or Treat" stuff. Mother's Day is also celebrated at the same date. And I wouldn't be surprised if Thanksgiving became common here too, if not only for the sales... [[Special:Contributions/188.114.97.151|188.114.97.151]] 19:47, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

"Today, horoscopes are admitted to be pseudoscience." Citation needed. But what rubbish. Horoscopes are not even pseudoscience, so who is it "admitting" they are? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.187|108.162.250.187]] 08:36, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

:Agree, I would like the citation for "today", as there were experiments disproving horoscopes in ancient Rome already (involving two babies born in same time, one rich, one slave). -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 12:48, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

The general trick to horoscopes is make them vague enough that anyone can think they're true, regardless of their sign. --[[User:PsyMar|PsyMar]] ([[User talk:PsyMar|talk]]) 10:34, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
:"You will have an opportunity today, meet someone new and should take care of your finances. Family matters will continue as per the last few days." [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.192|141.101.98.192]] 13:41, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
: It's the {{w|Forer effect}}. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.134|108.162.249.134]] 21:55, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

I propose an addition to the "conceived during someone's wedding" -- it's more common that the conception is actually after the wedding, during the (somewhat expected) consummation by the actual married couple. Thus, "honeymoon babies"! --BigMal // [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.181|108.162.221.181]] 12:53, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
:I read this as being conceived at someone else's wedding - attending weddings often being a trigger for romantic thoughts. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.162|108.162.249.162]] 03:25, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Wait, I though Superman goes back in time not by "going against earths rotation, but simply by going faster than light?[[Special:Contributions/141.101.88.209|141.101.88.209]] 19:53, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

The expected conception column is off, therefore the explanations may be off. Length of a human pregnancy is 38 weeks after conception, or 9 1/2 months, not the 9 months that is commonly portrayed. I'm not sure if Randall took this into account or not. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.133.121|199.27.133.121]] 20:40, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
:This is true, except you must have meant 8½ month not 9½ since 38 weeks is less than 9 month. Actually it is very close to 8,75 month. But anyway you are correct, that all the dates should be fixed to go 38 weeks back, not 9 months!--[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:54, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
::Yep, that is what I meant, sorry [[Special:Contributions/199.27.133.121|199.27.133.121]] 05:26, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
::Updated with the correct dates, but the explanations haven't been proofread to conform with the dates [[Special:Contributions/199.27.133.121|199.27.133.121]] 05:34, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
:::Fixed explanations, then realized you went for 40 weeks, not 38, so changed them to 38 weeks and fixed explanations again ;) [[User:Nealmcb|Nealmcb]] ([[User talk:Nealmcb|talk]]) 17:58, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
::::Even 38 weeks is idealised - I have a niece and nephew who were born 22 weeks after conception (4 years old now and doing well!) And term isn't until 41 weeks (from last menstruation) in France. 38 weeks happens to be a useful average in many parts of the world, but even healthy term pregnancies in USA/UK/Australia(/others?) covers the range of 35-40 weeks from conception. Also, with the rise of babies conceived by IVF, it's no longer quite so obvious what was happening 38-ish weeks before birth! [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.162|108.162.249.162]] 03:30, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
: I've added to this conversation, but I put my addition below since it's so long after the fact. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 23:08, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

No reference to the fact that November babies might be conceived on V day? [[User:Vkapadia|Vkapadia]] ([[User talk:Vkapadia|talk]]) 21:10, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
:V-E day is not celebrated in the U.S. It has far less historical significance to us, since to us it was just an important date in the middle of a war. So the holidays that were included (like July 4 and October 31) make more sense in the U.S. for conception dates, even if they mean nothing internationally. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 23:08, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

The real secret behind horoscopes and Nostradamus, is "vague shift"[[User:YourLifeisaLie|The Goyim speaks]] ([[User talk:YourLifeisaLie|talk]]) 01:36, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

In the second paragraph of the explanation, can we use either "i.e." or "for example," but not both? I don't have a particular preference for one or another; anyone who does is encouraged to make the correction. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.125|173.245.50.125]] 06:32, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

I feel like there was a missed opportunity for Scorpio. Could have mentioned Valentines Day. {{unsigned ip|108.162.219.102}}

Aquarius could also, perhaps sadly/strangely, be prom babies. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.7|108.162.215.7]] 22:29, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

Regarding about Gemini, which coincidentally I am one, doesn't apply to South-East Asian countries like Singapore(where I am born in), where the leaves doesn't change colors the whole year round. Same goes to the rest of the horoscopes as well. Boeing-787lover 13:56, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
: The entire comic appears to be exclusively geared toward Americans. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 23:08, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

Aries and to a lesser extent Cancer: kids went back to school, leaving house empty, or if your parents are in education (incl. college) they'd just started a new semester and met a bunch of new people. [[User:Singlelinelabyrinth|Singlelinelabyrinth]] ([[User talk:Singlelinelabyrinth|talk]]) 19:21, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

== Gestation period ==

The accepted length of a pregnancy in the U.S. is 38 weeks, but this is not true everywhere. In France, for instance, the term is 41 weeks. Both of these are just traditional and not based on precise data. A good study to look to here is Jukic, Baird, Weinberg, McConnaughey, and Wilcox "Length of human pregnancy and contributors to its natural variation." This study is a very belated 2010 follow-up on a 1985 study on the rate of early pregnancy loss by Wilcox et al. They recruited women who had just ceased birth control because they intended to become pregnant. Although the study doesn't specify, they presumably had sex almost ever night, and according to the follow-up, urine samples were collected EVERY MORNING. These samples were tested for the presence of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), and if it was present above the threshold, the women were determined to be pregnant. Not much analysis was done on the question of how long after implantation it takes for hCG levels to rise above that threshold, but my tiny modicum of biological understanding suggests it should be hardly any time at all. The original study used this early-pregnancy data to measure the rate of loss of the fetus very early in pregnancy, controversially finding it to be around 30%.

The follow-up had a different goal. It re-contacted those same women and managed to recruit most (though not all) into a new survey. The goal was to determine which of these women had artificially shortened their pregnancies through cesarean sections or other methods in order to exclude them from the analysis (with measures taken to account for the biases this introduces). The women who were not excluded numbered 120 and had a (corrected) median gestational time (from ovulation to birth) of 38 weeks 2 days. But what is more interesting is that even after excluding premature outliers, this sample of 120 women had a range of 37 days. That means the earliest non-excluded birth was 37 days before the latest birth.

I think this explains why there is so much variation in how different countries treat births and why we never get a precise figure. Even within a single population of women (I think from around North Carolina? They don't say), the range of outcomes is enormous. Still, I think this is strong evidence that the average gestational period is closer to 38 weeks than to 40 weeks (or 41, as the French would have it). But at any rate, I imagine the magic number Randall had in mind was 9 months, figured as 3/4 of a year (i.e. about 274 days, or 39 weeks 1 day). [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 23:08, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

Talk:1512: Horoscopes

2022-10-12T23:08:31Z

EebstertheGreat: /* Added section Gestation period and some comments */

So funny - especially the title text made me laugh :-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 07:05, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
:Nine months later, it would certainly eliminate the stress of wondering if you were gonna "get lucky" that night. - Equinox [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.120|199.27.128.120]] 16:13, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

The "coriolis effect" in the title text refers to the spin direction of vortices (rotating currents such as cyclones, whirlpools, and water draining from a basin), which is counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern hemisphere. The title text is a joke extending the reversal to the flow of time.
: The spin direction of whirlpools and basins is 'not' determined by the coriolis effect, on this scale its impact is way too small to make a difference. The title text refers to how the coriolis effect is often used to explain phenomena (especially with relation to the hemispheres), even when its wrong. --[[Special:Contributions/198.41.242.5|198.41.242.5]] 08:23, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

If the baby is born 9 months BEFORE they're conceived, would that account for the shift in seasons for the southern hemisphere? Born in March: Northern hemisphere -> conceived in June; Southern hemisphere -> conceived in December. June and December being summer respectively. If that's right, could someone add that to the wiki? [[User:none]]

The events described during which the conception of a person with a given birth month occurred assumes that the parents were in the United States at that time. The seasons would be shifted by six months in the southern hemisphere, and the holidays of the 4th of July (Independence Day -- Aries), Halloween (Cancer, conception in October), Thanksgiving (Leo, conception in November), Mother's Day (Aquarius, conception in May), and the NCAA (college) basketball playoffs ("March Madness" -- Sagittarius) , might either not be celebrated or celebrated on a different day. [[User:The Dining Logician|The Dining Logician]] ([[User talk:The Dining Logician|talk]]) 08:11, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

:Halloween is starting to become common in Brazil, including the "Trick or Treat" stuff. Mother's Day is also celebrated at the same date. And I wouldn't be surprised if Thanksgiving became common here too, if not only for the sales... [[Special:Contributions/188.114.97.151|188.114.97.151]] 19:47, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

"Today, horoscopes are admitted to be pseudoscience." Citation needed. But what rubbish. Horoscopes are not even pseudoscience, so who is it "admitting" they are? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.187|108.162.250.187]] 08:36, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

:Agree, I would like the citation for "today", as there were experiments disproving horoscopes in ancient Rome already (involving two babies born in same time, one rich, one slave). -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 12:48, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

The general trick to horoscopes is make them vague enough that anyone can think they're true, regardless of their sign. --[[User:PsyMar|PsyMar]] ([[User talk:PsyMar|talk]]) 10:34, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
:"You will have an opportunity today, meet someone new and should take care of your finances. Family matters will continue as per the last few days." [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.192|141.101.98.192]] 13:41, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
: It's the {{w|Forer effect}}. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.134|108.162.249.134]] 21:55, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

I propose an addition to the "conceived during someone's wedding" -- it's more common that the conception is actually after the wedding, during the (somewhat expected) consummation by the actual married couple. Thus, "honeymoon babies"! --BigMal // [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.181|108.162.221.181]] 12:53, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
:I read this as being conceived at someone else's wedding - attending weddings often being a trigger for romantic thoughts. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.162|108.162.249.162]] 03:25, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Wait, I though Superman goes back in time not by "going against earths rotation, but simply by going faster than light?[[Special:Contributions/141.101.88.209|141.101.88.209]] 19:53, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

The expected conception column is off, therefore the explanations may be off. Length of a human pregnancy is 38 weeks after conception, or 9 1/2 months, not the 9 months that is commonly portrayed. I'm not sure if Randall took this into account or not. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.133.121|199.27.133.121]] 20:40, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
:This is true, except you must have meant 8½ month not 9½ since 38 weeks is less than 9 month. Actually it is very close to 8,75 month. But anyway you are correct, that all the dates should be fixed to go 38 weeks back, not 9 months!--[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:54, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
::Yep, that is what I meant, sorry [[Special:Contributions/199.27.133.121|199.27.133.121]] 05:26, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
::Updated with the correct dates, but the explanations haven't been proofread to conform with the dates [[Special:Contributions/199.27.133.121|199.27.133.121]] 05:34, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
:::Fixed explanations, then realized you went for 40 weeks, not 38, so changed them to 38 weeks and fixed explanations again ;) [[User:Nealmcb|Nealmcb]] ([[User talk:Nealmcb|talk]]) 17:58, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
::::Even 38 weeks is idealised - I have a niece and nephew who were born 22 weeks after conception (4 years old now and doing well!) And term isn't until 41 weeks (from last menstruation) in France. 38 weeks happens to be a useful average in many parts of the world, but even healthy term pregnancies in USA/UK/Australia(/others?) covers the range of 35-40 weeks from conception. Also, with the rise of babies conceived by IVF, it's no longer quite so obvious what was happening 38-ish weeks before birth! [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.162|108.162.249.162]] 03:30, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
: I've added to this conversation, but I put my addition below since it's so long after the fact. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 23:08, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

No reference to the fact that November babies might be conceived on V day? [[User:Vkapadia|Vkapadia]] ([[User talk:Vkapadia|talk]]) 21:10, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
:V-E day is not celebrated in the U.S. It has far less historical significance to us, since to us it was just an important date in the middle of a war. So the holidays that were included (like July 4 and October 31) make more sense in the U.S. for conception dates, even if they mean nothing internationally. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 23:08, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

The real secret behind horoscopes and Nostradamus, is "vague shift"[[User:YourLifeisaLie|The Goyim speaks]] ([[User talk:YourLifeisaLie|talk]]) 01:36, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

In the second paragraph of the explanation, can we use either "i.e." or "for example," but not both? I don't have a particular preference for one or another; anyone who does is encouraged to make the correction. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.125|173.245.50.125]] 06:32, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

I feel like there was a missed opportunity for Scorpio. Could have mentioned Valentines Day. {{unsigned ip|108.162.219.102}}

Aquarius could also, perhaps sadly/strangely, be prom babies. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.7|108.162.215.7]] 22:29, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

Regarding about Gemini, which coincidentally I am one, doesn't apply to South-East Asian countries like Singapore(where I am born in), where the leaves doesn't change colors the whole year round. Same goes to the rest of the horoscopes as well. Boeing-787lover 13:56, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
: The entire comic appears to be exclusively geared toward Americans. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 23:08, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

Aries and to a lesser extent Cancer: kids went back to school, leaving house empty, or if your parents are in education (incl. college) they'd just started a new semester and met a bunch of new people. [[User:Singlelinelabyrinth|Singlelinelabyrinth]] ([[User talk:Singlelinelabyrinth|talk]]) 19:21, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

== Gestation period

The accepted length of a pregnancy in the U.S. is 38 weeks, but this is not true everywhere. In France, for instance, the term is 41 weeks. Both of these are just traditional and not based on precise data. A good study to look to here is Jukic, Baird, Weinberg, McConnaughey, and Wilcox "Length of human pregnancy and contributors to its natural variation." This study is a very belated 2010 follow-up on a 1985 study on the rate of early pregnancy loss by Wilcox et al. They recruited women who had just ceased birth control because they intended to become pregnant. Although the study doesn't specify, they presumably had sex almost ever night, and according to the follow-up, urine samples were collected EVERY MORNING. These samples were tested for the presence of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), and if it was present above the threshold, the women were determined to be pregnant. Not much analysis was done on the question of how long after implantation it takes for hCG levels to rise above that threshold, but my tiny modicum of biological understanding suggests it should be hardly any time at all. The original study used this early-pregnancy data to measure the rate of loss of the fetus very early in pregnancy, controversially finding it to be around 30%.

The follow-up had a different goal. It re-contacted those same women and managed to recruit most (though not all) into a new survey. The goal was to determine which of these women had artificially shortened their pregnancies through cesarean sections or other methods in order to exclude them from the analysis (with measures taken to account for the biases this introduces). The women who were not excluded numbered 120 and had a (corrected) median gestational time (from ovulation to birth) of 38 weeks 2 days. But what is more interesting is that even after excluding premature outliers, this sample of 120 women had a range of 37 days. That means the earliest non-excluded birth was 37 days before the latest birth.

I think this explains why there is so much variation in how different countries treat births and why we never get a precise figure. Even within a single population of women (I think from around North Carolina? They don't say), the range of outcomes is enormous. Still, I think this is strong evidence that the average gestational period is closer to 38 weeks than to 40 weeks (or 41, as the French would have it). But at any rate, I imagine the magic number Randall had in mind was 9 months, figured as 3/4 of a year (i.e. about 274 days, or 39 weeks 1 day). [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 23:08, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

2566: Decorative Constants

2022-01-11T02:56:31Z

EebstertheGreat: /* Explanation */ Sorry for many edits

{{comic
| number = 2566
| date = January 10, 2022
| title = Decorative Constants
| image = decorative_constants.png
| titletext = Arguably, the '1/2' in the drag equation is purely decorative, since drag coefficients are already unitless and could just as easily be half as big. Some derivations give more justification for the extra 1/2 than others, but one textbook just calls it 'a traditional tribute to Euler and Bernoulli.'
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a DECORATIVE BOT - What is the formula representing when removing the two decorative constants? What had Euler and Bernouli done since a decorative constant is a tribute to them? They where math wiz but did they put in such needless constants in their work? Also seems like the 1/2 is not really such an example, just Randall that jokes. - Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This is another one of [[Randall|Randall's]] [[:Category:Tips|Tips]], this time a Math Tip.

He gives an example of a complex looking equation labeled 4-15, but since 𝔻 and μ are "decorative", the equation can be reduced to T = m0(rout - rin). The decorative symbols can be interpreted as constants 𝔻 = μ = 1, in which case the implied operations of multiplication and exponentiation make sense. The 𝔻 is is double-struck ("blackboard bold"). Mathematicians, who are always searching for more symbols, have taken to distinguishing things represented by the same letter by using different fonts, such as d, ''d'', '''d''', '''''d''''', D, ''D'', '''D''', '''''D''''', 𝒹, 𝒟, 𝖉, 𝕯, ∂, 𝕕, and 𝔻. The double-struck font is easier to write on a blackboard than a proper bold letter and often represents a set, such as ℝ for the set of real numbers or ℂ for the set of complex numbers. 𝔻 can represent the unit disk in the complex plane, the set of decimal fractions, or the set of split-complex numbers. μ is the Greek lowercase mu and has many uses in mathematics and science. Here it has a bar, which could indicate a number of things, including the complex conjugate. Intriguingly, μ is the symbol in statistics for the population mean, and the overbar represents the sample mean, so this could represent a random variable which is the average of a sample of means μi of different populations in some larger ensemble of populations.

This all leads up to the math tip: If one of your equations ever looks too simple, try adding some purely decorative constants.

Other examples of well known equations that are profound but look simple include
:''E'' = ''mc''2 ({{w|Special Relativity}}),
:''PV'' = ''nRT'' (the {{w|Ideal Gas Law}}),
:''F'' = ''ma'' ({{w|Newton's Second Law}}),
:''V'' = ''IR'' ({{w|Ohm's Law}}), and
:''Gμν'' + Λ ''gμν'' = ''κTμν'' ({{w|Einstein field equations}}).

Of these, only the Einstein equations have been spiced up with decorative indices (which actually hide a system of ten nonlinear partial differential equations).

In the title text Randall mentions the {{w|Drag equation}}. In fluid dynamics, the drag equation is a formula used to calculate the force of drag experienced by an object due to movement through a fully enclosing fluid. The equation is ''F''d = ½''ρu''2''c''d''A''.

Randall jokes that the factor of ½ in the equation is meaningless and purely decorative, since the drag coefficients, ''c''d, are already unitless and could just as easily be half as big thus leaving out the ½ in front of the equation. The ½ is thus just an example of a "decorative constant." The usual reason for including the factor of ½ is that it is part of the formula for kinetic energy that appears in the derivation of the drag equation. However, modern treatments are so condensed that this factor of ½ is often smuggled in with no explanation. Since we can choose the constants to be whatever we want, there is ultimately no reason not to absorb the ½ into the drag coefficient ''c''d, but that does not mean it is totally unmotivated. Still, Randall quotes Frank White's ''Fluid Mechanics'' textbook, which calls it "a traditional tribute to Euler and Bernoulli." According to White, the factor of ½ rather comes from the calculation of the projected area of the object being dragged.

The line from White probably refers to renowned mathematicians {{w|Leonhard Euler}} and {{w|Daniel Bernoulli}}. Daniel Bernoulli is known for modifying the definition of ''vis viva'' (what we now call kinetic energy) from ''mv''2 to ½''mv''2, as motivated by the derivation from the impulse equation. In 1741, he wrote
:[Define ''vis viva''] esse ½ ''mvv'' = ∫''pdx''.
That is, "define ''vis viva'' to be ½ ''mv''2 = ∫''p''d''x''," where ''p'' is the force (from ''pressione'') and d''x'' is the differential of position (infinitesimal displacement). Today, this equation says that the kinetic energy imparted to an object at rest equals the work done on it.

==Transcript==
:[A small panel only with text. Written as an excerpt from a mathematical text book. Begins with a number for an equation, then follows the equation written in larger letters and symbols. And below are explanations of each term in the equation. The μ has a bar over the top and the D has a double vertical line.]
:Eq. 4-15
:<big>T = Dm0(rout - rin)μ</big>
:T: Net rate
:m0: Unit mass
:(rout-rin): Flow balance 
:D, μ: Decorative

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Math tip: If one of your equations ever looks too simple, try adding some purely decorative constants.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Tips]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]

2566: Decorative Constants

2022-01-11T02:55:01Z

EebstertheGreat: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2566
| date = January 10, 2022
| title = Decorative Constants
| image = decorative_constants.png
| titletext = Arguably, the '1/2' in the drag equation is purely decorative, since drag coefficients are already unitless and could just as easily be half as big. Some derivations give more justification for the extra 1/2 than others, but one textbook just calls it 'a traditional tribute to Euler and Bernoulli.'
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a DECORATIVE BOT - What is the formula representing when removing the two decorative constants? What had Euler and Bernouli done since a decorative constant is a tribute to them? They where math wiz but did they put in such needless constants in their work? Also seems like the 1/2 is not really such an example, just Randall that jokes. - Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This is another one of [[Randall|Randall's]] [[:Category:Tips|Tips]], this time a Math Tip.

He gives an example of a complex looking equation labeled 4-15, but since 𝔻 and μ are "decorative", the equation can be reduced to T = m0(rout - rin). The decorative symbols can be interpreted as constants 𝔻 = μ = 1, in which case the implied operations of multiplication and exponentiation make sense. The 𝔻 is is double-struck ("blackboard bold"). Mathematicians, who are always searching for more symbols, have taken to distinguishing things represented by the same letter by using different fonts, such as d, ''d'', '''d''', '''''d''''', D, ''D'', '''D''', '''''D''''', 𝒹, 𝒟, 𝖉, 𝕯, ∂, 𝕕, and 𝔻. The double-struck font is easier to write on a blackboard than a proper bold letter and often represents a set, such as ℝ for the set of real numbers or ℂ for the set of complex numbers. 𝔻 can represent the unit disk in the complex plane, the set of decimal fractions, or the set of split-complex numbers. μ is the Greek lowercase mu and has many uses in mathematics and science. Here it has a bar, which could indicate a number of things, including the complex conjugate. Intriguingly, μ is the symbol in statistics for the population mean, and the overbar represents the sample mean, so this could represent a random variable which is the average of a sample of means μi of different populations in some larger ensemble of populations.

This all leads up to the math tip: If one of your equations ever looks too simple, try adding some purely decorative constants.

Other examples of well known equations that are profound but look simple include
:''E'' = ''mc''2 ({{w|Special Relativity}}),
:''PV'' = ''nRT'' (the {{w|Ideal Gas Law}}),
:''F'' = ''ma'' ({{w|Newton's Second Law}}),
:''V'' = ''IR'' ({{w|Ohm's Law}}), and
:''Gμν'' + Λ ''gμν'' = ''κTμν'' ({{w|Einstein field equations}}).

Of these, only the Einstein equations have been spiced up with decorative indices (which actually hide a system of ten nonlinear partial differential equations).

In the title text Randall mentions the {{w|Drag equation}}. In fluid dynamics, the drag equation is a formula used to calculate the force of drag experienced by an object due to movement through a fully enclosing fluid. The equation is ''F''d = ½''ρu''2''c''d''A''.

Randall jokes that the factor of ½ in the equation is meaningless and purely decorative, since the drag coefficients, ''c''d, are already unitless and could just as easily be half as big thus leaving out the ½ in front of the equation. The ½ is thus just an example of a "decorative constant." The usual reason for including the factor of ½ is that it is part of the formula for kinetic energy that appears in the derivation of the drag equation. However, modern treatments are so condensed that this factor of ½ is often smuggled in with no explanation. Since we can choose the constants to be whatever we want, there is ultimately no reason not to absorb the ½ into the drag coefficient ''c''d, but that does not mean it is totally unmotivated. Still, Randall quotes Frank White's ''Fluid Mechanics'' textbook, which calls it "a traditional tribute to Euler and Bernoulli," probably referring to renowned mathematician {{w|Leonhard Euler}} and {{w|Daniel Bernoulli}}, a mathematician and member of the renowned Bernoulli family of mathematicians. Daniel Bernoulli is known for modifying the definition of ''vis viva'' (what we now call kinetic energy) from ''mv''2 to ½''mv''2, as motivated by the derivation from the impulse equation. In 1741, he wrote
:[Define ''vis viva''] esse ½ ''mvv'' = ∫''pdx''.
That is, "define ''vis viva'' to be ½ ''mv''2 = ∫''p''d''x''," where ''p'' is the force (from ''pressione'') and d''x'' is the differential of position (infinitesimal displacement). Today, this equation says that the kinetic energy imparted to an object at rest equals the work done on it. According to White, the factor of ½ rather comes from the calculation of the projected area of the object being dragged.

==Transcript==
:[A small panel only with text. Written as an excerpt from a mathematical text book. Begins with a number for an equation, then follows the equation written in larger letters and symbols. And below are explanations of each term in the equation. The μ has a bar over the top and the D has a double vertical line.]
:Eq. 4-15
:<big>T = Dm0(rout - rin)μ</big>
:T: Net rate
:m0: Unit mass
:(rout-rin): Flow balance 
:D, μ: Decorative

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Math tip: If one of your equations ever looks too simple, try adding some purely decorative constants.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Tips]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]