2944: Magnet Fishing

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Magnet Fishing

Title text: The ten-way tie was judged a ten-way tie, so no one won the grand prize, a rare fishing monopole.

Explanation

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Transcript

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10 characters are stood on a bridge over a river. They have all cast fishing magnets over the edge. However, their magnets have all stuck together due to being too close and none have reached the river below. All 10 characters appear confused.

The caption below them says, "The first, and last, World Magnet Fishing Championship."

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Discussion

Isn't the solution to make the competition like skiing: The participants take turns fishing, instead of all fishing at the same time? And they're judged on how quickly they can "catch" a magnet in the water. Barmar (talk) 15:44, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Same reason why (some) slalom competitions are held with two racers going downhill at the same time: it's more exciting! ;) --172.68.195.156 21:08, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

It's also possible that Magnet Fishing is scored in a way where earlier competitors' actions can affect the scoring of later competitors. For instance, if they're scored on the number of objects dredged up, later contestants could have an unfair disadvantage if the objects were not replaced or an unfair advantage if they knew where the objects were replaced. (Or if those objects were originally tangled up in weeds or half-covered in silt, but were now sitting on top of everything.) Of course, this just raises the question of how Magnet Fishing competitions are prepared and scored. GreatWyrmGold (talk) 13:25, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

This comic made me cackle. My cat is hiding under my bed now. Psychoticpotato (talk) 21:30, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

There's various degrees of what you might hope to find, when fishing, and what you might find, whilst magnet-fishing... (Also note, in that first link the "groups of 50-60" who gather – maybe multiple people per magnet – and the picture of at least three magnets being simultaneously worked from the same bridge. But not to dismiss the comic's humour, of course.)
I think the problem for the comic was siting the competition in a natural watercourse with a too obviously V-shaped bed. Everyone lowered their magnets straight down into the water, no problem, as even a powerful magnet can't overcome gravity-induced of hanging at that sort of scale of hanging. But then all magnets not already over the thalweg slide away from the bank into it, close enough to start clumping. As the 'prizes'/scorable-finds will also have probably migrated down the benthic slopes, over time, it's in everyone's personal interest to let their magnet tumble that way, if they weren't given 'pole position' directly over the (or 'a') deepest point. If the stream's cut goes significently non-perpendicular to the bridge that crosses it, or it has multiple (low-water) channels dug into its sediment, possibly sensible coordination could allow parallel fishing. Or the rules state that minimal slack be allowed when dipping the magnet-'hook' into the water, and no lateral dragging or swinging allowed, with (judged) penalties for any who cause an 'out of line' contact to occur. I think the second world championships are entirely feasible, just needs some rethinking of the setting, conditions and competition regulations. 172.69.43.184 09:47, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

"Unfinished" text archive: "This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by a NONWORKING MAGNETIC FORCE - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks." 162.158.119.21

I don't think it's a coincidence that this comic came out just a few days after this June 6 news article: a couple in New York City went magnet fishing and brought up a safe containing tens of thousands of dollars in cash. 172.69.65.32 23:57, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Title text

I believe the first "ten-way tie" refers to calling the competition a "tie" between ten competitors. It's more common in British English, but can be used as a synonym for game/match/etc. So it's saying "the ten-person match was judged a ten-way draw". -- MightyP (talk) 16:36, 10 June 2024 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

It's a pun on tie meaning to knot/tangle the lines, and tie in the sense of competitors finishing equally. 172.70.134.117 18:29, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

As a British Englisher(!) myself, I think "cup tie" (e.g. the final culmination of a knockout competition) tends to be what "breaks the tie" between the two teams that have each reached this stage equally successful against all other opponents. (Also "3rd/4th-place tie", etc.) You don't tend to get N-way competitions called a 'tie' (though, theoretically, a trifurcated bracketing system could bring 27 teams in nine games teams could become nine teams in three games, then three three teams producing the winner, etc).

Tie/tangle and tie/equally-scored is going to be good enough. If Randall had thought of the "cup tie"-type usage, he could have easily made a tripled-pun version with that and the two more obvious versions. 172.70.160.248 21:30, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Is it more common in British English? I'm American and I usually say "tie" to refer to a draw. I also see it be used frequently in American media. GreyFox (talk) 21:53, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Unless you're using "draw" as in the randomised pairing of competitors (prior to the match), that's not the issue. Tie-as-in-equally-scoring and Tie-as-in-knotted seem (mostly) unambiuous, here. Tie-as-in-knockout-game (early rounds perhaps being arranged by being drawn, by ballot, so "tied by a draw" in a different sense) seems to be the one mentioned as being British-usage biased. 172.69.195.183 09:19, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

The prize is also a bit of wordplay. It refers to a magnetic monopole as already noted, but is also a joke, as a regular fishing pole is technically a "monopole". I've never personally seen a fishing dipole, but I suppose they could exist! -- MightyP (talk) 16:49, 10 June 2024 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Triple pun for some speakers

I found it funny that in Austrian, monopole is "Monopol", and we use the same word for monopole and monopoly! The prize also feels special if you have a monopoly on magnet fishing - without all the others interfering with your magnet like in the comic.

First time ever posting here. Keep up the good spirit! 172.68.50.13 20:45, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Quadruple pun: I (german) thought for the same reason, that the prize is the exclusive right for (magnetic) fishing at a certain (rare implies very good) spot. Indeed, that might be a very valuable entitlement and plausible prize in a fishing championship.

Monopoles

If you did have a magnetic monopole... Would the field lines look a lot like the strings in this comic?

It could in the Arctic ocean with a south monopole! Near the monopole the field lines point inward but far away they point in the direction of Earth's field. There are parts of the Arctic ocean with a 90 degree inclination and the lines are vertical instead of north-to-south. Monopoles also have two advantages: The field drops off inverse-square instead of of inverse-cube, giving the "hook" a longer range. Also, if all contestants have the same kind of monopole they will repel instead of sticking to each-other.

172.70.80.121 00:17, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

If the contestans' monopoles repelled each other, things could get pretty chaotic with so many of them in close proximity. None of the monopoles would be in a stable position, so the fishing lines would tangle up even worse than if they were all dipoles attracted to each other.

141.101.98.56 05:36, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

The picture obviously shows a Tenpole Tudor. <runs for his life> 172.71.160.114 06:19, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

The magnetic field lines coming out of a magnetic monopole look very much like the fishing lines coming away from the magnets all stuck together in the comic. The first thing I thought when I saw the title and the picture was that Randell was drawing a magnetic monopole. Warm regards, Rick. 162.158.146.33 (talk) 06:50, 11 June 2024 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

If the lures are magnetic because the fish (as in commercial magnetic fishing games) contain magnets, a monopole lure only solves half the problem: The fish either need their fields to be kept separated or they need (the opposite) monopoles, too? ProphetZarquon (talk) 15:39, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

The existence of "magnetic monopole" would contradict the Maxwell equations. CipherGuide (talk) 08:38, 30 July 2024 (UTC)