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| Tennis Balls |
 Title text: After initial tests created a series of large holes in the wall of the lab, the higher-power Scanning Tunneling Tennis Ball Microscope project was quickly shut down. |
Explanation
A scanning electron microscope produces images of a sample by scanning the surface with a focused beam of electrons. Since Megan and Cueball find electrons too small to work with, they are using tennis balls instead. However, most humans do not see using a microscope[citation needed]. The comic is likely making fun of scientists using electron microscopes so much for their research that they forgot how to see normally, having to build a microscope to see other things.
The tennis ball launcher uses a similar mechanism to a scanning electron microscope: it fires tennis balls, instead of electrons, over a wide range of heights to determine where raised portions(in this case a person) are. This would not be a very efficient method, as the person would likely duck or run away, forcing Cueball and Megan to chase them around. However, the joke is that this height measurement could probably have been completed with a visual assessment, and with far more accuracy than using tennis balls to approximate their height.
Title text is a reference to scanning tunneling microscope which takes advantage of quantum tunnelling effect. Though tennis balls were actually creating holes in the wall (which can be considered to be tunnels), which is not what tunneling electrons would do.
Transcript
- [Cueball fires eight tennis ball at varying heights using a tennis ball machine, making four "thunk" noises. Megan is standing behind him.]
- [Ten noises come from the right side of the panel.]
- Bonk
- Bonk
- Bonk
- Bonk
- Bonk
- OW!
- Bonk
- OW!
- Bonk
- Bonk
- [Megan has her hand to her chin.]
- Megan: Ok, there's definitely a person over there. Let's do one more pass to try to measure their height.
- [Caption below the panel:]
- Electrons are small and hard to work with, so some scientists have developed a scanning tennis ball microscope instead.
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