explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

52: Secret Worlds

2021-06-03T18:23:31Z

Spitfire720: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 52
| date = January 21, 2006 
| title = Secret Worlds
| image = secret_worlds.jpg
| titletext = No two adjacent circles are the same color.
}}

==Explanation==
The quote written in the large white bubbles comes from {{w|The Sandman (Vertigo)|The Sandman}}, a comic book series about dreams. {{w|Neil Gaiman}} is a science fiction and fantasy author who came to fame for writing The Sandman.

The interconnected bubbles represent the secret worlds of different people and how they are connected. They may have the second meaning of the neurons in our brain.

The title text indicates that Randall used the {{w|Four color theorem}}, which states that a {{w|graph theory|graph}} drawn on a flat plane (like this one) requires at most four colors so that each region differs from all of its neighbors. The comic uses four colors (red, yellow, green, blue). This clearly does not include the white bubbles with text.

Here is the quote, to those wondering how to read the comic:

:“Everybody has a secret world inside of them... All of the people in the whole world, I mean everybody — no matter how dull and boring they are on the outside. Inside them they've all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds... Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe.”

:[https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/413047-everybody-has-a-secret-world-inside-of-them-i-mean- Niel Gaiman, A Game of You]

==Transcript==
:[A multitude of circles connected with several lines. Most of them are rather small and colored red, yellow, green and blue. Nine of them are white, six of these are larger than all the other circles, but one is the same size as the largest colored (green) circle, and the two smallest are smaller than a few of the colored circles. Pieces of text are written in all the white circles. Although it can be confusing at first, the reading order is still the normal one: left to right and top to bottom. Reading the circles in that order gives the following text:]
:"Everybody has a secret world inside of them.
:All of the people in the whole world
:I mean everybody
:No matter how dull and boring they are on the outside
:Inside they've all got unimaginable
:magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing, worlds
:Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe."
:--Neil Gaiman
:Sandman

==Trivia==
*This was the 50th comic originally posted to [[LiveJournal]].
**The previous was [[51: Malaria]].
**The next was [[53: Hobby]].
*This comic kept its original title: "Secret Worlds"
**It is part of the last six comics on LiveJournal, which all had a title without the word "Drawing" in it.
**Five of these had exactly the same title on both sites.
**Only 11 comics have the same title on both sites.
**Apart from the [[:Category:First day on LiveJournal|thirteen first comics]] posted to LiveJournal, there were only three other comics without the word "Drawing" in the title before these last six.
*There was no original [[Randall]] quote for this comic.
*This comic was one of the last 11 comics posted on LiveJournal.
**These 11 comics were [[:Category:Posted on LiveJournal after xkcd|posted both on LiveJournal and xkcd]] after the [[xkcd]] site opened on the 1st of January 2006.
**The first six comics were posted on both sites on the same day. But not this one.
*For some reason, [[54: Science]] was posted before this one on LiveJournal on the 18th of January 2006, but first a week later on xkcd on the 25th of January 2006.
**[[52: Secret Worlds]] was then released on xkcd the same day as [[51: Malaria]] came out on LiveJournal on Saturday the 21st of January 2006.
**It then came out on LiveJournal two days later on Monday the 23rd of January 2006.
**The release date here on explain xkcd uses the first release date, so that is the one on xkcd.
*After the mishap with [[54: Science]], the next three comics came out on LiveJournal a release day later.
**First with the last comic released on LiveJournal, [[55: Useless]], did the two sites release the same comic on the same day again.
*During the start-up of xkcd, several of the comics were released on days that deviated from the normal Monday, Wednesday, Friday scheme.
**This one was thus released on a '''Saturday'''.
**Since it was first posted on xkcd, there is no time given for the post. But [[51: Malaria]] was posted so early on Saturday, 1:43 am, that it could almost have been a Friday comic.
**And it is likely that these two were posted close to each other.
**The previous "Friday" comic [[49: Want]] was also released on a Saturday.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics posted on livejournal| 50]]
[[Category:Posted on LiveJournal after xkcd]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]

52: Secret Worlds

2021-06-03T18:22:59Z

Spitfire720: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 52
| date = January 21, 2006 
| title = Secret Worlds
| image = secret_worlds.jpg
| titletext = No two adjacent circles are the same color.
}}

==Explanation==
The quote written in the large white bubbles comes from {{w|The Sandman (Vertigo)|The Sandman}}, a comic book series about dreams. {{w|Neil Gaiman}} is a science fiction and fantasy author who came to fame for writing The Sandman.

The interconnected bubbles represent the secret worlds of different people and how they are connected. They may have the second meaning of the neurons in our brain.

The title text indicates that Randall used the {{w|Four color theorem}}, which states that a {{w|graph theory|graph}} drawn on a flat plane (like this one) requires at most four colors so that each region differs from all of its neighbors. The comic uses four colors (red, yellow, green, blue). This clearly does not include the white bubbles with text.

Here is the quote, to those wondering how to read the comic:

:“Everybody has a secret world inside of them...All of the people in the whole world, I mean everybody — no matter how dull and boring they are on the outside. Inside them they've all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds... Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe.”

:[https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/413047-everybody-has-a-secret-world-inside-of-them-i-mean- Niel Gaiman, A Game of You]

==Transcript==
:[A multitude of circles connected with several lines. Most of them are rather small and colored red, yellow, green and blue. Nine of them are white, six of these are larger than all the other circles, but one is the same size as the largest colored (green) circle, and the two smallest are smaller than a few of the colored circles. Pieces of text are written in all the white circles. Although it can be confusing at first, the reading order is still the normal one: left to right and top to bottom. Reading the circles in that order gives the following text:]
:"Everybody has a secret world inside of them.
:All of the people in the whole world
:I mean everybody
:No matter how dull and boring they are on the outside
:Inside they've all got unimaginable
:magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing, worlds
:Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe."
:--Neil Gaiman
:Sandman

==Trivia==
*This was the 50th comic originally posted to [[LiveJournal]].
**The previous was [[51: Malaria]].
**The next was [[53: Hobby]].
*This comic kept its original title: "Secret Worlds"
**It is part of the last six comics on LiveJournal, which all had a title without the word "Drawing" in it.
**Five of these had exactly the same title on both sites.
**Only 11 comics have the same title on both sites.
**Apart from the [[:Category:First day on LiveJournal|thirteen first comics]] posted to LiveJournal, there were only three other comics without the word "Drawing" in the title before these last six.
*There was no original [[Randall]] quote for this comic.
*This comic was one of the last 11 comics posted on LiveJournal.
**These 11 comics were [[:Category:Posted on LiveJournal after xkcd|posted both on LiveJournal and xkcd]] after the [[xkcd]] site opened on the 1st of January 2006.
**The first six comics were posted on both sites on the same day. But not this one.
*For some reason, [[54: Science]] was posted before this one on LiveJournal on the 18th of January 2006, but first a week later on xkcd on the 25th of January 2006.
**[[52: Secret Worlds]] was then released on xkcd the same day as [[51: Malaria]] came out on LiveJournal on Saturday the 21st of January 2006.
**It then came out on LiveJournal two days later on Monday the 23rd of January 2006.
**The release date here on explain xkcd uses the first release date, so that is the one on xkcd.
*After the mishap with [[54: Science]], the next three comics came out on LiveJournal a release day later.
**First with the last comic released on LiveJournal, [[55: Useless]], did the two sites release the same comic on the same day again.
*During the start-up of xkcd, several of the comics were released on days that deviated from the normal Monday, Wednesday, Friday scheme.
**This one was thus released on a '''Saturday'''.
**Since it was first posted on xkcd, there is no time given for the post. But [[51: Malaria]] was posted so early on Saturday, 1:43 am, that it could almost have been a Friday comic.
**And it is likely that these two were posted close to each other.
**The previous "Friday" comic [[49: Want]] was also released on a Saturday.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics posted on livejournal| 50]]
[[Category:Posted on LiveJournal after xkcd]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]

52: Secret Worlds

2021-06-03T18:22:19Z

Spitfire720: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 52
| date = January 21, 2006 
| title = Secret Worlds
| image = secret_worlds.jpg
| titletext = No two adjacent circles are the same color.
}}

==Explanation==
The quote written in the large white bubbles comes from {{w|The Sandman (Vertigo)|The Sandman}}, a comic book series about dreams. {{w|Neil Gaiman}} is a science fiction and fantasy author who came to fame for writing The Sandman.

The interconnected bubbles represent the secret worlds of different people and how they are connected. They may have the second meaning of the neurons in our brain.

The title text indicates that Randall used the {{w|Four color theorem}}, which states that a {{w|graph theory|graph}} drawn on a flat plane (like this one) requires at most four colors so that each region differs from all of its neighbors. The comic uses four colors (red, yellow, green, blue). This clearly does not include the white bubbles with text.

Here is the quote, to those wondering how to read the comic:

:“Everybody has a secret world inside of them. I mean everybody. All of the people in the whole world, I mean everybody — no matter how dull and boring they are on the outside. Inside them they've all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds... Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe.”

:[https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/413047-everybody-has-a-secret-world-inside-of-them-i-mean- Niel Gaiman, A Game of You]

==Transcript==
:[A multitude of circles connected with several lines. Most of them are rather small and colored red, yellow, green and blue. Nine of them are white, six of these are larger than all the other circles, but one is the same size as the largest colored (green) circle, and the two smallest are smaller than a few of the colored circles. Pieces of text are written in all the white circles. Although it can be confusing at first, the reading order is still the normal one: left to right and top to bottom. Reading the circles in that order gives the following text:]
:"Everybody has a secret world inside of them.
:All of the people in the whole world
:I mean everybody
:No matter how dull and boring they are on the outside
:Inside they've all got unimaginable
:magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing, worlds
:Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe."
:--Neil Gaiman
:Sandman

==Trivia==
*This was the 50th comic originally posted to [[LiveJournal]].
**The previous was [[51: Malaria]].
**The next was [[53: Hobby]].
*This comic kept its original title: "Secret Worlds"
**It is part of the last six comics on LiveJournal, which all had a title without the word "Drawing" in it.
**Five of these had exactly the same title on both sites.
**Only 11 comics have the same title on both sites.
**Apart from the [[:Category:First day on LiveJournal|thirteen first comics]] posted to LiveJournal, there were only three other comics without the word "Drawing" in the title before these last six.
*There was no original [[Randall]] quote for this comic.
*This comic was one of the last 11 comics posted on LiveJournal.
**These 11 comics were [[:Category:Posted on LiveJournal after xkcd|posted both on LiveJournal and xkcd]] after the [[xkcd]] site opened on the 1st of January 2006.
**The first six comics were posted on both sites on the same day. But not this one.
*For some reason, [[54: Science]] was posted before this one on LiveJournal on the 18th of January 2006, but first a week later on xkcd on the 25th of January 2006.
**[[52: Secret Worlds]] was then released on xkcd the same day as [[51: Malaria]] came out on LiveJournal on Saturday the 21st of January 2006.
**It then came out on LiveJournal two days later on Monday the 23rd of January 2006.
**The release date here on explain xkcd uses the first release date, so that is the one on xkcd.
*After the mishap with [[54: Science]], the next three comics came out on LiveJournal a release day later.
**First with the last comic released on LiveJournal, [[55: Useless]], did the two sites release the same comic on the same day again.
*During the start-up of xkcd, several of the comics were released on days that deviated from the normal Monday, Wednesday, Friday scheme.
**This one was thus released on a '''Saturday'''.
**Since it was first posted on xkcd, there is no time given for the post. But [[51: Malaria]] was posted so early on Saturday, 1:43 am, that it could almost have been a Friday comic.
**And it is likely that these two were posted close to each other.
**The previous "Friday" comic [[49: Want]] was also released on a Saturday.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics posted on livejournal| 50]]
[[Category:Posted on LiveJournal after xkcd]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]

1114: Metallurgy

2021-06-03T14:40:16Z

Spitfire720: one new sentence

{{comic
| number = 1114
| date = September 28, 2012
| title = Metallurgy
| image = metallurgy.png
| titletext = This exotic blade was wrought from a different fallen star. The meteorite was a carbonaceous chondrite, so it's basically a lump of gravel glued into the shape of a sword. A SPACE sword!
| imagesize =
}}

==Explanation==
The comic explains how weapons would really behave if they were made out of unusual materials. In fantasy stories, using unusual materials for weapons traditionally makes the weapons more powerful and cooler despite limited explanation for exactly why materials of extraterrestrial origin are so superior to their earthen counterparts.

The first panel is a reference to a fairly common fantasy trope: the use of iron meteorites for making weapons and armour (for example the sword "Brisingr" of the Inheritance series, "Anglachel" in the Tolkien Legendarium or the panserbjørns' armour in Pullman's Northern Lights). The quality of such metal can be rather hit-and-miss. On one hand, iron from meteorites was often mixed with "terrestrial" iron in the early stages of human development to create relatively high quality steel for swords. Undeveloped metalworking techniques at the time meant that extraterrestrial metal was often more refined and plentiful than man-made metal ingots. With that in mind, however, [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0016703767901408 research] has shown that meteorites have an abundance of the chemical element Antimony (Sb) which by itself is a very brittle metal and therefore swords forged from metals harvested from meteorites may not be as strong as lore would have one think.

The second panel is a reference to stories set in Middle-earth where sword such as Orcrist, Glamdring or Sting (the swords of Thorin, Gandalf and Bilbo/Frodo) glow blue when Orcs are near. The dagger in question, though, glows because of the radioactive properties of {{w|Actinium}} (Ac) which is also highly toxic. Definitely not a dagger you would want to carry around for your every day battles.

The word "Eldritch" in the third panel means sinister, ghostly, or magical.

The fourth panel mentions that the weapon gives a +2 to a player's attribute. This is a reference to role-playing games in which it is common to find items that are able to improve one's character by increasing desirable attributes. In this case, however, +2 to cancer risk, a consequence of the dagger's radioactivity, would definitely not be considered a desirable attribute to increase. This would hit harder on Randall due to his partner Megan being diagnosed with breast cancer.

In the title text, the salesman tries to sell [[Cueball]] another meteoric blade, this one made from a {{w|carbonaceous chondrite}}. Carbonaceous chondrites are rocky meteors that generally don't contain a lot of metallic iron. The salesman is either stating that the blade is simply a bunch of nonferrous meteor fragments glued together in the shape of a sword, or stating that the iron he got out of the meteor is so full of impurities that it may as well be gravel. However, because it's made of extraterrestrial material he seems confident he'll still be able to sell it on novelty value alone.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan are in a weapon store talking to a bearded salesman wearing a hat.]

:[Salesman holds up a sword.]
:Salesman: This sword was forged from a fallen star. Antimony impurities make the blade surpassingly ''brittle'' and ''weak''.

:[Salesman holds up a dagger.]
:Salesman: And this dagger is made of metal from a far-off kingdom. It glows blue.
:Off-panel: When orcs are near?

:Salesman: No, always. Radiation from the Actinium content.
:Megan: ...Does it have Eldritch powers?

:Salesman: It gives the wearer +2 to cancer risk.
:Cueball: I think we should find another shop.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Cancer]]
[[Category:LOTR]]