explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2372: Dialect Quiz

2020-10-16T13:06:37Z

Jvista:

{{comic
| number = 2372
| date = October 14, 2020
| title = Dialect Quiz
| image = dialect_quiz.png
| titletext = Do you make a distinction between shallots, scallops, and scallions? If you use all three words, do they all have different meanings, all the same, or are two the same and one different?
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a LIGHTBULB EATER and Delaware Line painter. Poll results should be added into the Trivia section. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic is a parody of online quizzes that offer to compare the user's dialect of American English with others around the country. These quizzes generally contain questions about word usage, names for certain objects, and pronunciations that vary between different regions of the US. There are also quizzes about broader English dialects, but this comic focuses on commonly cited differences between American dialects.

The earliest quiz of this type to be widely disseminated online was the [http://dialect.redlog.net/ Harvard Dialect Survey], conducted in the early 2000s by Bert Vaux and Scott Golder. The survey created maps of the distribution of various word usage (such as pop/soda/Coke for a fizzy drink) and was a relatively early example of widely shared Internet "viral" content. In 2013, Josh Katz of the New York Times created [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/dialect-quiz-map.html a new version] based on the Harvard survey, which became the Times' [https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/01/-em-the-new-york-times-em-most-popular-story-of-2013-was-not-an-article/283167/ most popular content of 2013] and spread the idea to many more people. Many of the questions in this comic directly derive from entries in those surveys.

Randall's previous two comics have been about election predictions, leading up to the 2020 US General Presidential Election. A prominent predictor of the election results is Nate Silver, who runs the FiveThirtyEight website. [https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1315348221565206530 @NateSilver538 posted his results] of taking the New York Times version of the survey on October 11, 2020... just three days before this comic was posted. [[2371: Election Screen Time]] specifically suggests that Randall may be spending too much time obsessing over new posts and content from the election predictors. It's coincidental, but likely, that Nate Silver's tweet inspired Randall's post: he was reminded of the 2013 feature from the Times.

{| border =1 width=100% cellpadding=5 class="wikitable"
! # !! Question !! Answers !! Explanation
|-
! 1
|How do you address a group of two or more people?
|style="width: 15%;"|
* A) You
* B) Y'all
* C) I have not been around two or more people for so long that I can't remember
| Reference to the first question of the Times quiz: "How would you address {{w|You#Informal_plural_forms|a group of two or more people}}?" (with options including "you all", "you guys", "y'all", etc.). Option C may reference the significant decrease in human interaction and social contact during the COVID-19 pandemic. Alternatively, it may suggest that some xkcd readers are particularly introverted.
|-
! 2
| How do you pronounce "Penelope"?
|
* A) Rhymes with "Antelope"
* B) Rhymes with "Develop"
| Both the options for this are wrong, making it the first of many quiz questions it is impossible to answer correctly.

Neither Option A's "PEN-e-lohp" /ˈpɛnɪˌloʊp/ and Option B's "pe-NELL-up" /pɪˈnɛləp/ are a typical pronunciation of this name (beyond mispronunciations). In English, the only correct way to pronounce this name is "pe-NELL-o-pee" /pəˈnɛləpi/, which is not listed. (Penelope is a proper name, but usually encountered in literature rather than as the name of a neighbor, and is therefore less subject to dialect shifts.)
|-
! 3
| What do you call the scientific field that studies the stars?
|
* A) Astrology
* B) Agronomy
* C) Cosmetology
| The actual answer is {{w|Astronomy}}, which is not listed. {{w|Astrology}} is the pseudo-scientific "study" of the influence of the stars and planets on our lives, including horoscopes (often confused with Astronomy due to its similar name), {{w|Agronomy}} ''is'' scientific but instead studies agriculture, and {{w|Cosmetology}} is the study of cosmetics and makeup (with a name close to {{w|Cosmology}}, a branch of Astronomy). The last may also be referring to the (occasionally makeup-heavy) faces of movie and television "stars".
|-
! 4
| How do you pronounce "genre"?
|
* A) Gone-ra
* B) Juh-neer
* C) Jen-er-uh
| Reference to a question found on some quizzes: "How do you pronounce ''genre''? ZHAHN-ruh, or JAHN-ruh?"

A majority of (American) English speakers pronounce "genre" as either "'''ZH'''AHN-ruh" /ˈʒɑnrə/ (beginning with the "zh" sound found in "trea'''s'''ure") or "'''J'''AHN-ruh" /ˈdʒɑnrə/ (beginning with the "j" sound in "justice"). Neither of these are listed, and none of the quiz's pronunciation options are common. However, they are close to other words: ''GONE-ra'' /ˈgɑnrə/ sounds like {{w|gonorrhea}} /ˌgɑnəˈriə/, ''juh-NEER'' /dʒəˈnɪər/ is the way the second and third syllables of ''engineer'' are are pronounced, and ''JEN-er-uh'' /ˈdʒɛnərə/ is a word (genera), the plural of {{w|genus}}.
|-
! 5
| You pronounce "Google" with a high-pitched yelp on the...
|
* A) First syllable
* B) Second syllable
| Reference to general questions regarding differences in pronunciation of words. "Google" is not generally pronounced with a high-pitched yelp on either syllable.{{Citation needed}} {{w|Yahoo!}}, on the other hand, has advertised its services with a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm5FE0x9eY0 high-pitched yodeling jingle], with the high-pitched yelp on the second syllable (as opposed to {{w|Goofy}}'s [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-70mtXw35c iconic holler], with the high yelp on the first syllable).
|-
! 6
| What do you call the thing on the wall at school that you drink water from?
|
* A) Gutter pipe
* B) Drainpipe
| Reference to a quiz question in the Harvard and Times quizzes, "What do you call the thing from which you might drink water in a school?" Answers included "drinking fountain", "water fountain", and "bubbler". However, the question in this comic implies that school children (or at least the quiz maker) drink out of {{w|Rain gutter|gutter pipes}} or drain pipes, which are used to collect rainwater and/or {{w|sewage|should absolutely not be drunk from.}}
|-
! 7
| How do you pronounce the name for a short silent video file?
|
* A) Animated give
* B) Animated gift
| Reference to the "{{w|Gif}}" pronunciation debate, with people split between pronouncing it "gif" (with the hard G sound in "graphics") or "jif" (with the soft G sound in "giraffe"). Both options presented in this quiz use the hard G sound, but neither option uses the commonly-agreed on pronunciation for the ending of the word, “if”. Both options refute the common “jif” argument that a g followed by an i usually results in a “j” sound, as in giraffe.
|-
! 8
| What do you call the baseball-sized garden bugs that, when poked, glow brightly and emit a warbling scream?
|
* A) What?
* B) Lawn buddies
| Reference to a question in the Harvard and Times quizzes: "What do you call the {{w|Armadillidiidae|small gray bug}} that curls up into a ball when it’s touched?" (options include "roly-poly," "pill-bug", "potato bug", "doodle bug", etc.). Another question common to these sorts of quizzes regards the {{w|Firefly|Lampyridae}} family of bioluminescent insects, variously called "fireflies," "glowworms," or "lightning bugs" (although these insects emit their light spontaneously, as a mating signal, and not in response to external stimuli such as being poked). However, there are no common "baseball-sized garden bugs," let alone bioluminescent ones that emit a warbling scream,{{Citation needed}} though a {{w|Madagascar_hissing_cockroach|cockroach}} that can approach this size does famously make a loud noise. May also be a reference to what "potato bug" means to people in the eastern part of the United States and {{w|Jerusalem cricket|what it means}} to people in the western part of the United States.
|-
! 9
| What do you call the misleading lines painted by disgruntled highway workers to trick cars into driving off the road?
|
* A) Prank lines
* B) Devil's Marks
* C) Fool-me lines
* D) Fauxguides
* E) Delaware lines
| Reference to the fact that some quiz questions ask about road features, such as "verge/berm/parking strip/curb strip" and "roundabout/traffic circle". However, these particular road lines, if they have ever been made, aren't common enough to warrant different names. The Delaware Line was a formation within the Continental Army. May also just be a dig at Delaware. Devil's Marks may be a takeoff of [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Devil%27s%20Strip Devil's Strip]

Misleading lines on the road were also mentioned in [[1958: Self-Driving Issues]].
|-
! 10
| What do you call the blue-green planet in the outer Solar System?
|
* A) Uranus
* B) Neptune
| This question references the two common pronunciations of Uranus: "YURR-ə-nəss" and "yoo-RAY-nəss" (which sounds like the phrase "{{tvtropes|UranusIsShowing|Your anus}}", a favorite joke of little kids). The original pronunciation is "oo-ra-noos", both u's pronounced the same way, but this is not a common pronunciation among the general public. It also references the fact that Uranus and Neptune are both blue-ish colored planets in the outer solar system and are often confused by people who don't know much about them. Uranus is closer to being the correct answer - it could plausibly be described as cyan, a color intermediate between blue and green - while Neptune is a deep, unambiguous blue.
|-
! 11
| What do you call this tool?
[[File:CloveHammer.png|150px]] (image of a claw hammer)
|
* A) Banger
* B) Nail axe
* C) Wood mage wand
* D) I'm familiar with this tool but have no specific word for it
* E) I have never seen it before
| The only name most people would ever call this tool is a "hammer".

The last two options reference options in many quiz questions along the lines of "I'm familiar with this but have no specific word for it" and "I am not familiar with this" (such as on the pill-bug/roly-poly question on the real quiz). These may appear as options to questions that ask about something that might not exist everywhere, or something which many may not have a word for (for example, some areas of the United States have a name for "sunshowers," while most don't). However, it's a bit absurd for these options to be present for this question (and this question alone), as virtually all users in an English dialect test would be expected to know what a hammer is. This also serves as a bit of reverse perspective on "When the only the only tool you have is a hammer ..."
|-
! 12
| What do you call a long sandwich with meats and lettuce and stuff?
|
* A) A long sandwich with meats and lettuce and stuff
* B) A longwich
* C) A salad hot dog
| Reference to a common dialect quiz question: "What do you call a {{w|Submarine sandwich|long sandwich}}?" with options typically including "sub", "hoagie", "hero", etc.

The hot dog answer could refer to the common online discussion: "Is a hot dog a sandwich?"
|-
! 13
| What do you call the scaly many-legged animal often found in attics?
|
* A) Lightbulb eater
* B) I have no special name for them
* C) I've never looked in my attic
| Another reference to the frequent appearance of quiz questions asking what users call various creepy crawlies.

{{w|Millipedes}} best fit the description. They have many legs, though rarely if ever a thousand of them, as their name (from the Latin word for "thousand feet") suggests. The hard rings that separate an individual's body into segments give the animal a scaly appearance. And of the thousands of species, only a few have common names, hence "no special name for them". The reference to "lightbulb eater" is obscure, but may refer to the tendency of millipedes to congregate in large numbers in dark crevices. Perhaps Randall found some in empty (no bulb) light fixtures in his attic.

Or maybe it is just the sort of spooky monster that lives in the dark and makes you afraid to check the attic (or basement).

Normally, questions about uncommon things would include an "I've never seen one" option, like option E in the hammer question. Instead, this question has "I've never looked in my attic" as an option, implying that these creatures are present in all attics, and anyone who doesn't know them is simply unaware of the monster dwelling in their own attic.
|-
! 14
| What do you say when someone around you sneezes?
|
* A) "What was that?"
* B) "Oh, wow."
* C) [Quietly] "Yikes."
| Reference to a question on some quizzes about which of several words/phrases you say in response to a sneeze, with usual answers including "bless you", "God bless you", and "{{w|Gesundheit}}" (from the German word for 'health').

This question may also be referencing the {{w|COVID-19 pandemic}} in answer C (and possibly answer B). Sneezing isn't a primary symptom of COVID-19, but most people are hyper-aware of possibly contracting the disease from the people around them so sneezes are treated with suspicion and it's seen as rude to sneeze openly.

It is also possible that a person who has been able to catch a sneeze-producing condition has also caught COVID-19 and, while the sneeze itself isn't ''caused'' by it, the air and various airway fluids so forcefully projected are a possible infective vector with that little extra frisson of concern, given the current situation.
|-
! Title Text
| colspan=2 | Do you make a distinction between shallots, scallops, and scallions? If you use all three words, do they all have different meanings, all the same, or are two the same and one different?
| Phrased similarly to questions like, on the Times quiz, "How do you pronounce the words Mary, merry, and marry?" Options included "all three are pronounced the same", "all three are pronounced differently," or all three combinations of two being the same and one different. Refers to the naming confusion around {{w|scallions}} and {{w|shallots}} - also known as 'eschalots' - but with the unrelated but similar-sounding {{w|scallops}} substituted in the middle.

'Shallots', 'scallions' and 'eschalots' are names used in different dialects, for various species and cultivars of onion used in cooking, either as a small bulb (especially [[wikipedia:shallot|Allium cepa var. Aggregatum]]) or as a green leaf (especially [[wikipedia:Allium_fistulosum|Allium fistulosum]]). In many dialects, the green leaf type is called a 'scallion' and the bulb a 'shallot'. In at least one dialect (NSW Australia) the green leaf type is called a 'shallot' and the bulb an 'eschalot'. This causes confusion in recipes posted online. The word 'shallot' is also pronounced with emphasis on either the first or second syllable, as refered to in question 5. Despite the answer options offered, there is no evidence of dialects which use all three terms, or where 'shallot' and 'scallion' are interchangeable.

{{w|Scallops}} are invertebrate marine animals similar to oysters and clams, frequently harvested for food. In some regions of the UK and Australia potato {{w|fritters}} are also called 'scallops'. The word 'scallop' itself can be pronounced either as /ˈskɒləp/ or /ˈskæləp/, and its spelling has varied over time in a similar way to that of 'shallot'. However, these are difficult to confuse with shallots or scallions.
|}

==Transcript==

[Box with title at the top]
:<big>Dialect Quiz</big>
[Smaller subtitle underneath]
:Compare answers with your friends!

[Quiz is divided into two columns. Answers to questions are indicated by a letter followed by a closed parentheses, such as A). These letters are greyed out]

[Column 1:]
 
How do you address a group of two or more people?
:A) You
:B) Y'all
:C) I have not been around two or more people for so long that I can't remember

How do you pronounce "Penelope"?
:A) Rhymes with "Antelope"
:B) Rhymes with "Develop"

What do you call the scientific field that studies the stars?
:A) Astrology
:B) Agronomy
:C) Cosmetology

How do you pronounce "genre"?
:A) Gone-ra
:B) Juh-neer
:C) Jen-er-uh

You pronounce "Google" with a high-pitched yelp on the...
:A) First syllable
:B) Second syllable

What do you call the thing on the wall at school that you drink water from?
:A) Gutter pipe
:B) Drainpipe

How do you pronounce the name for a short silent video file?
:A) Animated give
:B) Animated gift

What do you call the baseball-sized garden bugs that, when poked, glow brightly and emit a warbling scream?
:A) What?
:B) Lawn buddies

[Column 2:]
 
What do you call the misleading lines painted by disgruntled highway workers to trick cars into driving off the road?
:A) Prank lines
:B) Devil's Marks
:C) Fool-me lines
:D) Fauxguides
:E) Delaware lines

What do you call the blue-green planet in the outer Solar System?
:A) Uranus
:B) Neptune

What do you call this tool?
 
[Image of a claw hammer]
:A) Banger
:B) Nail axe
:C) Wood mage wand
:D) I'm familiar with this tool but have no specific word for it
:E) I have never seen it before

What do you call a long sandwich with meats and lettuce and stuff?
:A) A long sandwich with meats and lettuce and stuff
:B) A longwich
:C) A salad hot dog

What do you call the scaly many-legged animal often found in attics?
:A) Lightbulb eater
:B) I have no special name for them
:C) I've never looked in my attic

What do you say when someone around you sneezes?
:A) "What was that?"
:B) "Oh, wow."
:C) [Quietly] "Yikes."

==Trivia==

*The xkcd Twitter account posted a [https://twitter.com/xkcd/status/1316484953480323072 series of Twitter polls] asking the questions in this comic.
**How do you address a group of two or more people?
***You (31.2%)
***Y'all (33.5%)
***'''Can’t remember anymore (35.3%)'''
**How do you pronounce “Penelope”?
***'''Rhymes with “antelope” (58.6%)'''
***Rhymes with “develop” (41.4%)
**
*Shallots, scallops, and scallions ran against each other in [[1529: Bracket]]

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:COVID-19]]

2228: Machine Learning Captcha

2019-11-15T15:13:32Z

Jvista: Cow Tools

{{comic
| number = 2228
| date = November 13, 2019
| title = Machine Learning Captcha
| image = machine_learning_captcha.png
| titletext = More likely: Click on all the pictures of people who appear disloyal to [name of company or government]
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a HUMAN CAPTCHA. Which of the nine images would you click to prove you were human? A section about this. Also to explain what is actually on the pictures, which is not completely clear. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Many websites have difficulties with spambots, which are automated entities created in order to log onto a website and spam or otherwise wreak havoc upon it. To guard against this eventuality, websites have implemented {{w|CAPTCHA}}s, a challenge used to prove the user is a human and not an automated program. A typical CAPTCHA might distort a random sequence of letters and numbers and put it in a strange and/or mixed font and ask a user to type it, or it might show a set of pictures and ask the user which ones contain fire hydrants; these tasks are meant to be easy for humans but obscenely difficult for computers. [[:Category:CAPTCHA|CAPTCHAs]] are a recurring theme on xkcd.

CAPTCHAs run by Google are also used to train artificial intelligences to get better at these difficult tasks, such as reading poorly-scanned text or identifying objects of interest on the road (the latter being the subject of [[1897: Self Driving]]).

This comic jokes about a malicious CAPTCHA which is being used to train an AI to dominate the world. In order to prevent people from taking shelter, the AI uses the CAPTCHA to ask humans like Cueball to tell it places where they would hide. The implication is that during a robot uprising, the AI, on the side of the robots, would then be able to track down humans much more easily.

There are some decent choices for where a human could hide from an AI in the pictures given. For example, a house or bomb shelter (top left), or even a car (left) or hole (bottom right), would be decent places to hide. However, most of the choices would not make sense for a human; for example, it would be hard to hide on a sidewalk (right) or in a mailbox (bottom). Some may even be [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CowTools Cow Tools].

The title text imagines a different malicious CAPTCHA which Randall says is "more likely" than the robot-uprising scenario, in which a company or government asks users to identify "disloyal" members of society. Presumably the company or government would then use this information to eliminate such "disloyal" members, either by firing them (company) or jailing, expelling, or executing them (government). This follows a theme of previous comic strips (e.g. [[1968: Robot Future]]) in which Randall expresses that he is more concerned about humans using AI for evil ends than he is about AI being evil in itself.

Note that while CAPTCHA in the title of this comic is written Captcha, not in the correctly all caps style, that on the xkcd page, [[Randall]] uses small caps, so although there is a distinction between capital and lower case letters, the word Captcha is actually written correctly out as CAPTCHA!

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is sitting in an office chair at his desk with one hand in his lap and the other poised over the keyboard of his computer. A zigzag line is drawn from a starburst on the computer screen going above the computer to where it is shown what is displayed on the screen. At the top there is the following text:]
:Computer: To prove you're a human, click on all the photos that show places you would run for shelter during a robot uprising.

:[Below the text there are nine images arranged in a 3 by 3 square. In reading order they are: A house, possibly with an open carport; a large tree with two trees in the background; a bunker/bomb shelter; a car; a city skyline with several sky scrapers; a sidewalk with road on the left, grass on the right; a log with a board leaning up on the log; a mailbox; and a hole in the ground.]

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Artificial Intelligence]]
[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Robots]]
[[Category:CAPTCHA]]
[[Category:Politics]]

2201: Foucault Pendulum

2019-09-13T11:12:27Z

Jvista: This is a museum tour. Physics lecture attendees typically sit instead of stand.

{{comic
| number = 2201
| date = September 11, 2019
| title = Foucault Pendulum
| image = foucault_pendulum.png
| titletext = Trust me, you don't want to get on the wrong side of the paramilitary enforcement arm of the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[[Black Hat]] is attending what appears to be a guided tour of a museum with a {{w|Foucault pendulum}}. [[Megan]] is explaining to him, [[Cueball]] and [[Ponytail]] about the device which demonstrates the rotation of the Earth.

Black Hat, being himself, immediately sees an opportunity to cause chaos and seizes it with both hands, quite literally - as he grabs the pendulum which casues the others to shout after him to stop. At first this would seemingly be for fear of ruining the delicate demonstration. However, in the final panel, the [[:Category:News anchor|news anchor]] [[Blondie]] reveals to us that by arresting the motion of the pendulum, Black Hat has somehow stopped the rotation of the Earth. This of course is blatantly impossible since the Foucault pendulum's motion is tied to the earth's rotation, not the other way around. (That is except for this specific one, that controls the Earths rotation, which must, of course be located at one of the Earths poles, that is it must be the South Pole to stay in this fixed place, since else no one would have been able to stop Black Hat afterwards, as the Earth suddenly stops rotation while every loose object would continue with their normal rotation speed. Thus had this been at the Equator, no one would have been able to stop him afterwards, as everyone would have been killed instantaneously!)

A Foucault pendulum is a {{w|pendulum}} that swings from a bearing that allows rotation in any direction, like your shoulder joint instead of your elbow. If the Earth were stationary, it would continue to swing over the same portion of the Earth when it was released, but any pendulum will continue to swing in the same plane in space. So because the Earth moves beneath it, over the course of the day the pendulum's motion gradually changes direction relative to the room. The low-resistance bearing doesn't allow the rotation of the Earth to affect the motion of the pendulum, so it stays aligned to its original inertial reference frame according to the fix star (far away in space) rather than to the rotating surroundings which follow with the Earth's rotation.

The fact that the Earth's rotation does not influence the motion of the pendulum does NOT mean that other things can't affect it - for example, by running up and manually repositioning the pendulum. Of course, the apparent rotation of the pendulum's plane relative to the Earth is an effect of the planet's motion, rather than the cause of it. Thus, stopping a Foucault pendulum manually does not entail pausing the rotation of the Earth.

If it were somehow possible for a Foucault pendulum to control Earth's rotation, Black Hat would probably not want to alter the momentum of the pendulum, unlike most cases where he causes chaos (assuming he was told that it was related to Earth's rotation and assuming that he would prefer to preserve his own life over making chaos). The reason why is because if the rotation of Earth were to be stopped for even very short amounts of time (a few seconds), it would cause everything on Earth that wasn't bolted/fastened to the ground to move eastward compared to the now stationary ground. If they are near the Equator it would be at a speed of 300-360 meters per second, likely causing the death of most lifeforms on Earth beneath a certain latitude almost instantaneously. Those close enough to the poles may survive though. Also this will cause massive windstorms, tsunamis, volcanic and tectonic events on a scale not previously observed on Earth. This would likely cause a mass extinction event and wipe out 99% of humanity in the initial events (which would eventually lead to our extinction). It is possible that Black Hat's grabbing the pendulum would cause a gradual slowing prior to stopping, minimizing the issue (though this doesn't seem to be the case), but the results would still be catastrophic, as the aforementioned events are still likely to occur (specifically the tsunamis and volcanic events).

Randall covered this scenario in detail in his [https://io9.gizmodo.com/xkcds-creator-explains-what-would-happen-if-earth-stopp-1625068208 What If] book.

The [https://www.iers.org/IERS/EN/Home/home_node.html International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service] is an organization providing standards for global time and reference frames; this organization would have a very rough day after the fiasco with Black Hat. The title text refers to a (probably) fictional paramilitary enforcement arm of this organization and the foolishness of tangling with such a force. If Foucault pendulums were somehow able to influence the rotation of the Earth in any measurable way, the IERS enforcers would probably strictly control their installation and monitor their use (and misuse). Black Hat is likely in for a rough day as well.

==Trivia==
The Foucault Pendulum in this comic strongly resembles that in the Museum of Science in Boston (both in shape and the way it is knocking over the pegs).
And the one that was in the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry for many years. I suspect there's really only one way to build it.

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

:[Cueball, Black Hat, Ponytail, and Megan are standing next to a large swinging sphere on a pendulum with markers under it; Megan is pointing at it.]

:Megan: This Foucault pendulum demonstrates Earth's rotation. It stays in a fixed plane while the Earth rotates under it.

:[Close-up on Black Hat]

:Black Hat: Hmm, really. So that means...

:[Close-up on Black Hat and pendulum; Black Hat grabs pendulum, and a line points from the pendulum saying "GRAB!"]

:Character out of panel: Hey!

:Character out of panel: Stop him!

:[Blondie is standing next to Black Hat's picture in an inset frame, captioned with "BREAKING NEWS."]

:News Anchor: The Earth's rotation was briefly halted today until geophysicists wrestled the intruder to the ground...

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Blondie]]