Editing 547: Simple

{{comic
| number    = 547
| date      = February 23, 2009
| title     = Simple
| image     = simple.png
| titletext = Actually, I think if all higher math professors had to write for the Simple English Wikipedia for a year, we'd be in much better shape academically.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] seems to be in a physics facility with a particle accelerator. The Physicist asks him his thoughts about a Tertiary F.E.L guidance system for the particle accelerator. The first joke here is that particle accelerators don't use guidance systems. They randomly smash together used charged particles or contain them in beams.

As the text below the comic says, Cueball has spent the previous night reading {{w|simple:|the Simple English Wikipedia}}, which is a simplified version of Wikipedia, so he can't stop talking in simplified language, making him sound unintelligent. He refers to the elementary particles and the ad hoc guidance system, which is presumably broken, and says that if the wrong particles collide it would be bad and damage the machine. The joke is also a take on Wikipedia and the fact that it has two versions of the same text.

The title text applies the same principle to teaching mathematics that simple language avoids unnecessary complications as math teachers often write in unnecessarily complicated English, often discouraging math students who are then unable to comprehend the substituted English symbols.

This concept was later revisited in  [[1133:_Up_Goer_Five| 1133 Up Goer Five]].

==Transcript==
:Friend: Do you have any thoughts regarding the particle accelerator's tertiary F.E.L. Guidance System?
:Cueball: We can't put the broken part in the machine. It wouldn't smash the right tiny things together. Then the machine might break.
:Cueball: That would be very bad.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Wikipedia]]