3009: Number Shortage

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Number Shortage

Title text: "10 minutes ago we were down to only 2 0s!" "How many do we have now?" "I ... don't know!!"

Explanation

This comic presents a situation where the ability to use numbers is a limited resource. Even quantifying how many numbers are left uses up some of those numbers when stating the results.

In real life, being able to write or say digits is not a limited resource.^{[citation needed]} However, the comic does parallel many educational video games for young children where numbers and mathematical concepts are treated as living people or factory goods, in order to give some sort of story or context to the math-related activities. In addition, the plight faced by the shortage resembles the look-and-say sequence where trying to quantify the list changes it, requiring it to be quantified again (which changes it again, and so on).

The comic conflates numbers with decimal digits. So when Blondie says "15 2s and 12 3s", that uses up two 2s (one in "2s" and one in "12") and one 3 (in "3s"). She adjusts the counts as she's speaking, so when she says "13 2s", that uses up another 3, leaving only 10 3s as she's completing the sentence.

In the title text, she uses the last two 0s when saying that they had two 0s left, so now they have no more 0s. But she can't use the number 0 to describe this situation because they're now out of them.

Blondie could have taken a different approach by saying "14 2s and 11 3s", which would be accurate once it has been said.

Jokes with a similar theme been made about letters, such as shortages of vowels (and later consonants) in The Onion's "Clinton Deploys Vowels to Bosnia".

Continuation

A continuation of the pattern would go:

• "We have only 15 2s and 12 3s left."
• "No, wait, 13 2s and 10 3s."
• "No, wait, 12 2s and 9 3s."
• "No, wait, 10 2s and 8 3s."
• "No, wait, 9 2s and 7 3s."
• "No, wait, 8 2s and 6 3s."
• "No, wait, 7 2s and 5 3s."
• "No, wait, 6 2s and 4 3s."
• "No, wait, 5 2s and 3 3s."
• "No, wait, 4 2s and 1 3."
• "No, wait..."
• "How many more do we have?"
• "I...don't know..."

At that point, having used up the last 3 at the end of the previous line, Blondie would lack the necessary 3s to articulate that there are "3 2s and 0 3s."

Transcript

[Blondie is standing on the left, facing Cueball and Megan on the right.]

Blondie: The Math Department number shortage is getting worse. We have only 15 2s and 12 3s left.

Blondie: No, wait, 13 2s and 10 3s.

Blondie: No, wait...

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Discussion

I bet there's plenty of 9s left. They obviously didn't get a proper range of digits at Benford's Discount Number Store. 172.69.195.113 05:53, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

There are so many 9s because they get used the least on microwaves. N-eh (talk) 22:27, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

I expect pricing psychology uses up most of the 9's that Benford stocks, using the first-in-last-out method.162.158.159.119 21:06, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Is this not an error? "15 2s and 12 3s" uses up one 3. So shouldn't it next be 11 3s left, not 10? -- 172.69.144.152 10:41, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

No - they started with fifteen 2s and twelve 3s. They used two 2s saying '15 2s and 12 3s' which leaves thirteen 2s. They used two 3s saying ...12 3s / No wait, 13 2s...' which leaves ten 3s. However, by the next line they still have nine 3s (having used up one saying '... and 10 3s') - not eight, as the explanation previously said.172.70.160.134 17:06, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

the consequences of our actions /ref Caliban (talk) 10:45, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

The above mentioned “error” is not an error. When she says there are 13 2s left, that uses up one 3. PedanticMan (talk) 11:13, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

There's no pause, no "No wait" after "13 2s". Is she reevaluating numbers instantly realtime midsentence? Did she start the sentence planning to say one thing and instantly altered it partway through? I guess that's what Randall is going for. -- 172.69.144.162 12:00, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

That's what I assumed, and I already included it in the explanation. But I'm not sure if the title text is consistent with that interpretation. Barmar (talk) 17:35, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Title text is perhaps semi-consistent. Regardless of what was said/used beteen "ten minutes ago" and now, the statement (ten minutes ago) of "2 0s" used one zero. The statement (now) of "10 minutes ago" used another and technically used a third (but it could be considered recycled from the original statement being quoted).

Whichever way the counting works (and presuming that any quotable re-use principle doesn't allow just "Ns" to be requoted as "X Ns" in a way that preserves the N stock even whilst depleting Xs), we're certainly down to the stage where we can no longer say there are "0" of something, nor that the something involved is the 0s.

...to put it another way, a different TT might be "10 minutes ago we were down to only 2 ... oh darnit!". But that wouldn't have made itself quite so obvious (the Ns could have been 0, 1 or 2). I suppose having 3 0s ten minutes ago might only have led to the necessity of that logic being explained (then: "3 0s {0s=>2}"; now: "10 minutes {0s=>1} .. 3 0s {0s=>0}" "now?" " {0s=>0 ∴ unable to even begin to answer} "), however...

But, much like the TT question posed, wise use of "them”/etc might be useful in some (not-title text) circumstances. "I earlier said there were 9 9s, but now there are 7 of them. ...still 7. Yep, definitely 7 of them! (7s, on the other hand are now...)", vs. "there were 9 9s, but now there are 7 9s. 6 9s! 5 9s! <...> 1 9! <curses>" 172.69.195.114 12:19, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

I believe the title text is clear. There where still 2 like there was when she checked ten minutes ago. She can only say the sentence because she still had those two left. But after it is not possible to day there are 0 0 left. And thus the Idk. --Kynde (talk) 08:43, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Presumably the scenario that resulted in this was: There were three 0s remaining; Person A said "How many 0s do we have left?" (reducing them to two); Person B then said "2". If, instead, someone had said "We have only 2 0s left", that would have reduced them to one, leaving insufficient to complete the sentence in the title text.172.70.86.141 17:21, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

If anyone wants to see self-referentiality of numbers taken even further, here is a series of posts that I wrote on "self-describing numbers": https://atmos.warplight.dev/profile/1p8WCZnqqG6N3ZOsJxBgUTo/p1cNCw1OTsioTQBRk Fabian42 (talk) 12:09, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

the first stage of grief is denial youtu.be/miLcaqq2Zpk 12:19, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

So you saw that the Harris banner is still up too, eh? There may be no shortage of absolute numbers, but numbers of things, yeah, there are shortages. Like, chances to act to avert disaster, like weren't taken in 2016, and we got lucky ... 172.68.23.92 17:37, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Just heard on Not The Bee that Trump is planning to help the Democrats out by paying Kamala's campaign debt at a rate of $10/mention in speeches over the past 180 days. Should be plenty to pay off the $20 million.172.71.142.75 21:02, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

When logic and proportionhave fallen sloppy dead, remember what the dormouse said.172.71.142.30 05:48, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure "15" uses up one 3 (3*5) and "12" uses up two 2's and one 3 (2*2*3) 172.71.222.213 15:09, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

No, I think the "3s" in the first statement uses one, and the ones place of "13" referring to the number of 2s left in the second statement uses another. Laneymarie96 (talk) 03:13, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

"Well? How many numbers do we have left?" "Oh great! There's one more!" (Yes, I know this goes against the logic of the original comic) Turquoise Hat (talk) 17:36, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Why don't we try using Roman numerals while we wait for the shortage to get fixed? 172.69.135.53 04:05, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

We could always go back gto tally marks...wait also who says this is Miss Lenhart? 172.68.70.56 (talk) 12:41, 11 November 2024 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

No one says it is her, since we (explain xkcd users) have named a character that looks like Blondie but who seems to be a teacher Miss Lenhart. This is taken from a couple of comics where a teacher is named and another where her name is used. In this case she works at the Math Department, presumably at a university thus she is likely a teacher there, and looks like Blondie, hence it is Miss Lenhart. --Kynde (talk) 18:51, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Seems very related to the Look-and-say sequence! 172.71.170.93 21:48, 10 November 2024 (UTC)Bumpf

Instead of having to say "I don't know" in the title text, one could just say "none". 172.70.110.170 19:46, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

It's funnier to imagine that they forgot how to articulate "zero" as a concept. P?sych??otic?pot??at???o (talk) 20:56, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

By that logic, they could (partially) escape the "10 minutes ago 0s" issue by saying "ten minutes ago" and not depleting certain digits. Or, as it says "numbers", depleting 10s (but neither 1s nor 0s). But you have to consider if "one" is a "1" (also "a(n)", maybe), and if you can get away with "a couple of" or dozens, scores, grosses, ton(ne)s of, a "pony" or a "grand" or even a googol/googolplex. Then one (1s--) may won(1s--?)der what really are the uses to be strictly atone(1s--?)d for? Still, I've got 33×3 problems, but the number of 3²s aint one! (1s--). 172.70.160.218 12:47, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

So, is this comic related to the Google incident? Google seems to be suffering from money shortage after being fined in large numbers. CategoryGeneral (talk) 01:51, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

...no? Big leap in logic here. 172.69.22.243 04:06, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

This one needs a nerd snipe warning! Anyone else get sniped with this one? Fephisto (talk) 14:02, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

I'll let you know. I have only fifteen vowels left. No, nine. Or is it six? No, two. Grrrrr! 172.70.160.135 15:39, 11 Nvmbr 2024 (TC)

t's not hard t rtclt wtht vwls, tbh -P?sych??otic?pot??at???o (talk) 17:44, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

It's surprising they didn't run out of 0s and 1s well before the rest. I mean, we all know what those Computer Science types are like when you turn your back for a moment...172.70.162.204 17:34, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

I have a backup supply of 615 2s, 172 3s, 68 5s, 216 1s, and 29 0s. No, wait 108.162.238.34 21:41, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't have time for a response - TenGolf 108.162.238.77 21:34, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

This might be a reference to all the times where describing a situation, you change it. It's a common phenomena in psychology and macro economy.162.158.202.133 16:26, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

This is no place for political comment. At best, it's off-topic. I hesitate to suggest what is worst about it but a pretty undesirable effect is that it reveals something of the characters of contributors I might previously have thought of as rational thinkers. 172.68.210.33 (talk) 00:11, 16 November 2024 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)