Talk:2997: Solar Protons

cute and wholesome 😊 Caliban (talk) 17:29, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Re, "idealized depiction": does this mean it's not a real photo? Is it AI? It would be nice to know the source, if possible. 162.158.175.99 17:57, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

tfw you forget Randall Munroe is an artist 162.158.103.90 19:50, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

It's an easy mistake... 141.101.109.166 07:28, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

Seriously tho, when he does to art its great, he should try it more often SomeRandomNerd (talk) 02:11, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm reminded once again of the opening scenes in Jumanji: the first set of children see the pieces move by themselves and conclude "it must be magnets"; then a generation later, the conclusion is "it must be microchips". Such is the success of the current marketing around LLMs and similar that "it must be AI" feels like a more natural conclusion than "that's nice artwork"! See also 1838: Machine Learning. - IMSoP (talk) 14:03, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

3D stick figure is peak blursed 172.70.210.235 18:22, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Um, I feel the "Beret Guy is repeating two common misconception about aurora..." etc. paragraph is a bit unjust. The comic doesn't say anywhere that the solar protons are the aurora, nor how exactly they cause it. If the comic depicted a huge smoke cloud, and the sign read something like "Welcome flames! You'll love devouring our area!", would you also write about Randall wrongly thinking that all fires come with smoke? My guess is that most laypeople's understanding of auroras is too vague to be a misconception, at about like "This has something to do with stuff from the sun, right?" => I'd suggest to keep the explanation about the science of auroras, but delete the guesswork about Beret Guy's or Randall's purported misconceptions. Transgalactic (talk) 22:13, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

If it is a misconception then it is actually a bit sad that Randall promotes it if he knew this to be false... So I think leaving in that it is a misconception is important. And also to mention we do not actually know if Randall knows this himself. I would guess he does, in which case the misconception is Beret Guys. This should be in the explanation. --Kynde (talk) 06:15, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

My point was: The comic does not say anything about the physical process. It just shows an aurora and a sign that implies that there are solar protons arriving on Earth when there is an exceptionally huge and bright aurora. Which is correct. The comic simply doesn't say how exactly the solar protons trigger processes that create auroras. So, I agree that misconceptions about auroras should be mentioned along with the correct physics. But attributing the misconceptions to Beret Guy or Randall seems unfair because the comic simply doesn't say anything about that. Transgalactic (talk) 23:39, 4 November 2024 (UTC)