explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1661: Podium

2016-03-28T13:52:35Z

Mattdm: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1661
| date = March 28, 2016
| title = Podium
| image = podium.png
| titletext = BREAKING: Senator's bold pro-podium stand leads to primary challenge from prescriptivist base.
}}

==Explanation==

Technically — or at least, in original use — a podium is the stage or raised platform. But because that's not obvious from context, the meaning has drifted in common use to refer to the thing the speaker stands behind, puts papers on, etc. — the lectern. Sometimes, people care about this; see for example http://www.platformgiant.com/podium-vs-lectern

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is speaking at a lectern]
:Cueball: The American people are tired of politics as usual.
:Cueball: They're tired of-
:Cueball: Okay, brief tangent: is this thing a podium or a lectern? People say "podium" is wrong, but I also see it used that way in pretty formal contexts. Is usage just changing?
:Cueball: If elected, I will get to the bottom of this for once and for all.

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:1515: Basketball Earth

2015-04-22T15:40:59Z

Mattdm: i don't get it

Apologies to the first editor, who made a snappier version of what I wrote. For the record, whilst fighting a dodgy internet connection I eventually ended up replacing the following...
Cueball is seen trying to explain the relative sizes of the earth and moon by comparing the earth to a basketball and the moon to what looks like a golf ball. This explanation is constantly thwarted by passerby interacting with the basketball while Cueball is explaining it.
For the title text, the answer is zero, since it is against basketball rules.
...with what I tried to keep short during my own writing from scratch. I also ommited several other concepts of my own thought: The fact that Blackhat must have used a very light-touch to ''only'' generate a megatsunami (albeit already unimaginably large, at Earthball's scale); The possibility of recursion (including something like the Men In Black 'cat collar' allusion); and that in the universe of the comic strip there is only ''one'' actual basketball (the Earthball itsself), although I like how we ''both'' had the idea that the basketballs upon Earthball would not have counted in a game of basketball with an Earthball-scaled hoop, due to quite obvious interpretations of the sport's regulations. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.67|141.101.98.67]] 05:11, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
:Oh yeah, and reversion is invited, if deemed preferable. As is amalgamation, and refinement and re-replacement by something even better, of course. As per the standard Wiki creed. Much as I am cringing at having upset the original contributor, I'm quite happy to be gazumped in turn. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.67|141.101.98.67]] 05:14, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
If you look at the third frame of the Blackhat sequence and compare it to the frames underneath, you can see that he didn't just touch the Earth or an ocean--he actually rotated it 90 degrees.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.115|108.162.221.115]] 09:38, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
:Well spotted! Edit that in! (Do it quickly with a pre-prepared edit. I kept getting hit by edit-conflicts, which I set about to resolve amicably without reversing anybody else's input; only to get hit by further edit-conflicts by the next person to come along and improve overlapping pieces, whom I also strived not to disregard.) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.67|141.101.98.67]] 09:57, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
::No he didn't. the Earth always rotates from the first panel to the next. So that it is in a different position when Black Hat touches it, to where it was the panel before does not imply that he rotated the Earth. If anything he only rotated it a few degrees, as it had already rotated most of those 90 degree from panel 1 to panel 2 before Black Hat reaches the Earth. As far as I can see there has not been any change to include this yet. So that is good. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:41, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

I really love this comic. It is great fun. Thanks Randall, happy Earth day. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:42, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

... a tennis ball an average 7.2 metres away, while the Sun would be 26 metres across and 2.8 km away. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.165|108.162.250.165]] 13:25, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

It's 13:23 right now, but the clock of explainxkcd.com says it's 13:37. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.201|108.162.221.201]] 13:37, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

If we assume 9,000,000 basketballs sold every year ([http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=82227 bbs.ClutchFans.net]), one basketball lasts about 10,000 bounces ([http://www.sotruefacts.com/rule/770 SoTrueFacts.com]), and there's between 2,500 and 3,000 bounces per game ([http://www.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_average_lifespan_of_a_basketball_in_bounces_in_National_Basketball_Association_play Answers.com]) we can extrapolate that on average a basketball doesn't live for more than a year, and the number of basketballs sold replace those which have lifed-out. Let's build in a 10% slush factor and say there 10m basketballs produced in the world last year. Let's further say that there's an extra 1m basketballs sold every year which don't get regular use and are in some kid's room and those have been accumulating for about ten years (different kids get basketballs every year which end up in their bedrooms). Dunking a basketball gives two points, and at 20 million basketballs, that gives 40 million points – and a safe bet you're going to make it to the playoffs that year. [[User:Jarod997|Jarod997]] ([[User talk:Jarod997|talk]]) 13:51, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Is it possible that the megatsunami is actually caused by the gravity of the scale Moon (it being way too close to the scale Earth)? This is a major problem that most children's books (or adult's books or websites) have. They scale the planets/moons/stars but not the distance. As the comment above, to get normal tides, the tennis ball should be 7.2m away at this scale. --[[User:Gravitron|Gravitron]] ([[User talk:Gravitron|talk]]) 14:06, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

I find it interesting that Randall makes the same mistake a lot of people make reguarding the distance between the earth and moon at that scale. I was watching Veritasium (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bz9D6xba9Og) on Youtube a while back and the guy there was asking people how far away a tennis ball sized moon would be from a basketball sized Earth. Most people made the distance way too small, very similar to how far away they appear in the comic. In reality they would be something like 10 times that distance. Usually Randall is more accurate than this. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.171|108.162.221.171]] 14:09, 22 April 2015 (UTC)Agent0013
:Unless he was simply trying to compare the relative sizes. It's possible after that he would get in to the relative distance between the two - but good point. [[User:Jarod997|Jarod997]] ([[User talk:Jarod997|talk]]) 14:12, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

I don't agree with the claim (at a couple points in the article) that *all* life would be extinguished by any of these manipulations. 2-4 may kill off most or all macroscopic life, but microbes would survive all of them (unless Megan has bleach in that sports bottle). If 3 or 4 shattered the earth, that might extinguish all microbes, but even that I doubt. The only case I can imagine would be if 3 or 4 caused it to spiral into the sun. [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 14:10, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Title text might be reference to HHGTG: “
Ford Prefect: I read of one planet in the seventh dimension got used as a ball in a game of intergalactic bar billiards. Got potted straight into a black hole, killed ten billion people.
Arthur Dent: Madness. Total madness.
Ford Prefect: Yeah. Only scored thirty points too. ”[[Special:Contributions/198.41.241.91|198.41.241.91]] 14:23, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

-----

I admit that I'm super-confused by the structure of the comic. The explanation here describes possible consequences for the actions, but as depicted, only the first has any "real world" effect. I too would expect the water bottle to cause a deluge, but it doesn't seem to. What's going on? [[User:Mattdm|Mattdm]] ([[User talk:Mattdm|talk]]) 15:40, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

1505: Ontological Argument

2015-03-31T17:38:24Z

Mattdm:

{{comic
| number = 1505
| date = March 30, 2015
| title = Ontological Argument
| image = ontological argument.png
| titletext = A God who holds the world record for eating the most skateboards is greater than a God who does not hold that record.
}}

==Explanation==

{{incomplete|Could use more links and references.}}

{{w|Ontology}} is the study of being, reality, and existence. "The ontological argument" is an attempt at proving the existence of God through reasoning about the nature of "being".

Megan's statement in the comic is believed to be a reference to what is considered the first ontological argument, that of 11th Century philosopher {{w|Anselm of Canterbury}}. His argument starts by defining God as "that than which nothing greater can be conceived". Another step in the argument is that you can conceive of such a being even if you don't believe it exists. Another step is the statement that a being of which one can conceive and which exists is certainly greater than a being of which one can conceive and which does not exist.

The comic makes fun of Anselm's ontological argument by extending to absurdity the claim that a being who exists is greater than one who does not exist, therefore God must exist. A God who can disprove the ontological argument must be greater than one who cannot disprove the ontological argument, therefore the ontological argument proves the existence of a God that disproves it.

The comic also may be drawing an analogy to the {{w|omnipotence paradox}}.

The title text carries the absurdity a step further.

{{w|Richard Dawkins}}, in his book "{{w|The God Delusion}}" takes a similar approach in a parody of Anselm's ontological argument that attempts to prove that God does not exist. In Dawkins' version, God's greatness is demonstrated by his creation of the world. A being that overcomes the great handicap of not existing and goes on to create the world is obviously greater than a being that exists who creates the world. Therefore, God, who by definition is "that than which nothing greater can be conceived" must not exist. A rather more famous parody is {{w|Gaunilo of Marmoutiers}}', where he argues for the existence of a maximally great island. When taking into account the comic with this argument, it seems that we now know what happened to Atlantis.

Not all ontological arguments for the existence of God rely on the notion that a God that exists is greater than one that does not exist. Examples include the modal ontological argument from {{w|Alvin Plantinga}}, or {{w|Gödel's ontological proof}}. {{w|Graham Oppy}}, an authority on ontological arguments, [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ontological-arguments/ here] attempts to classify what exactly makes arguments ontological; he concludes that it is that they are a priori in nature. He also classifies them into eight categories, definitional, conceptual, modal, Meinongian, experiential, mereological, higher order, and Hegelian.

This comic, in particular the way Megan and Cueball are walking and its reference to theology, greatly resembles the earlier comic [[1315: Questions for God]].

==Transcript==

:[Megan and Cueball are walking side-by-side]

:Megan: ...but wouldn't a God who could find a flaw in the ontological argument be even '''''greater?'''''

{{comic discussion}}

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