3240: Bottle

Bottle

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Title text: "I know it seems impossible, but the trick is that I sailed in here when I was very young."

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Explanation

In this comic, Beret Guy is inside a life-sized ship in a bottle. Cueball and Megan are in a sail boat to his left, while Ponytail is alone in what appears to be a gaff rig to his right. A common question regarding a ship-in-a-bottle is how the model ship was put inside the bottle, given the small size of the opening in the bottle compared to the ship. The answer is often that the ship (or its components) was inserted in a more compact form, and then assembled (or at least partially unfolded) within the bottle. The components are small enough to pass through the neck of the bottle, and the final assembly is done through the neck, which is usually the most awkward task. Of course, toy boat assembly is not comparable to construction of a real or life-sized ship, and bottles are almost never big enough to stand up in, with necks large enough to climb in and out through if required.

The title text alludes to this, by saying that Beret Guy, when he was smaller, sailed the boat inside the bottle while he was still able to fit through the entrance. This is similar to the way some brands of pear brandy are sold in bottles containing entire pears. These are produced by attaching the bottle to a young fruit and letting it grow to full size inside. This explanation fails to address the fact that Beret Guy would fit through the neck of such a bottle relatively easy, on his own; but the boat, being made from non-living materials, would not have grown inside the bottle, and it is unlikely to have ever been a smaller boat carrying a smaller Beret Guy, in a manner that both together could have sailed into the bottle. On the other hand, it would probably be easier for someone inside the bottle to have assembled components of a ship there than for that assembly to be done from outside. This would especially be true of a seaworthy vessel of a size to carry a passenger, rather than a mere model. Given the definition of a boat explained in the earlier comic 2043: Boathouses and Houseboats (“a ship, by most definitions, carries boats”), Beret Guy's vessel is merely a boat.

The water level in the free-floating bottle is lower than the water outside. This is because the bottle will sink until the weight of the bottle and its contents (the water, the boat, and Beret Guy) equals the weight of the water displaced by the bottle. The weight of the 'missing' water in the bottle (the layer of air (or hopefully air) between the two surface levels, including the corresponding volume of air displaced by the boat) is consequently equal to the weight of the whole glass bottle. If you added water to the bottle in an attempt to make the inside and outside water levels the same, the bottle would contain less buoyant air and just sink deeper to misalign the surfaces again. Keep repeating this, and the buoyancy becomes less than zero (unless the inherent buoyancy of Beret Guy and his boat, now forced into the bottle's 'ceiling', still possess enough intrinsic support) at which point the bottle would sink.

As well as the question as to how Beret Guy and the boat got into the bottle, there is another oddity: the bottle appears to be keeping pace with the boats on either side, implying it is somehow being propelled, despite lacking an engine, a sail, or any other method of propulsion. This could mean that the bottle shares one of Beret Guy's strange powers, or it could be a combination of tides and the bottle catching some wind. Ordinarily, the bottle would lack airflow for the boat to sail within it, since the cork would prevent any air currents from entering. However, since Beret Guy would quickly die without his own source of airflow, he could be somehow be creating some air ingress. He has powered up random objects in strange ways before, after all.

In practice, the bottle is horizontally unstable. The weight of the bottle is not equal along its length (it appears heavier at the neck), and the buoyancy at each point will not equal the weight at that point. This is also true of the boats in the cartoon; the difference is that in the bottle much of the weight is the water, which is free to move. If the neck of the bottle goes down (into the water, to increase the displacement to balance the weight), or the base of the bottle does similarly (since it is often the thickest and widest part of the glass), the water will naturally flow to that end of the bottle. This increases the weight found at the respective end, which will force that even deeper. This will continue until the bottle is floating vertically (in the comic's version, without intervention this is likely to result in the bottle stabilising in an inverted position, with the neck facing directly down, although this would depend upon the effect of the cork’s relative density). Beret Guy's boat would appear to fit in the width of the bottle, and there is enough water to keep him afloat in this attitude, so everything will probably be fine (for certain values of 'fine'). This effect, known as the free surface effect, has real implications for ships with open decks, such as car ferries, and has been implicated in several disasters such as the sinkings of the Herald of Free Enterprise, the Princess Victoria, and the Estonia.

So the bottle is ridiculously impractical and the only thing it would do would be to protect the people riding the ship — though it wouldn't be much use for that, as the bottle is likely made of glass, as giant boat-carrying bottles normally are.^{[citation needed]} In fact, if it was to break then the resulting hole would create a bottleneck for the way out (pun not intended), so any attackers would have the advantage there as well — in addition to the dangers of broken glass (though, for Beret Guy, that wouldn't be a problem).

Transcript

This is one of 45 incomplete transcripts: Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

[Three small single-masted sailboats are shown (the right one in a gaff rig), all sailing towards the right. The ones on the left and right are on the ocean, while the one in the middle is contained completely by a large bottle. On the left, Cueball and Megan are in one boat; Cueball is sitting near the stern, possibly holding the tiller, while Megan is before the mast. In the middle, Beret Guy is before the mast in the boat that's inside the giant bottle, with a cork plugging the screw top bottleneck. On the right, Ponytail is directly aft of the mast of the third boat. All the boats are sitting on the water with ripples on the surface, but the water level in the bottle is lower than the rest.]

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Discussion

So... is the meniscus drawn correctly, given the difference in shape of the front vs the back of the bottle??? BorQhue del Sol (talk) 18:54, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

Left-hand threads on bottle. Why? --PRR (talk) 18:49, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

I don't think those are threads on cap, they're wires around the cork. Barmar (talk) 19:19, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

I think it's a (perhaps reverse-threaded) screw-top bottle with no actual screw-top and a cork inserted instead. 81.179.199.253 21:36, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

I reckon it's meant to be a bit of cord, like this kind of thing (albeit simpler than that example). 82.13.184.33 14:35, 5 May 2026 (UTC)

Looks too much like a screw-top thread. And very much not enough like that picture's 'wrap'-cord. 81.179.199.253 19:49, 5 May 2026 (UTC)

Doesn't look at all like a screw thread to me. 82.13.184.33 08:29, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

Three visible lines of threading, one starting just before it goes round the other side at the bottom (first of three such winds), second appears at 'half way' at the top (first of two such winds to do so), off the bottom, from the top again, off the bottom again (to terminate beyond view). The distance between the winds is consistent with a top's complementary inside-screw, the phase-differences between upper and lower 'wind' is roughly half that of the pitch between each subsequent appearance of wind... Pretty much is a screwthread.

On the other hand, if it's a wrapper-type cord then it's not over-wrapped/self-tying in any way, and not even wrapped tightly as a secure and grippable surface (like the handle of a cricket bat, or similar, might be). If it's glued in place then it's deliberately glued to look like a bottle's screw-thread.

So I say it's pretty much certainly a screwthread. Unused, as a cork is inserted instead of/without the original screw-top that fitted it, but clearly implied rather than the smooth barrel that a (non-screwtop) wine-bottle might have, other than the purely circular ridge that they often have to secure the foil and wire-cage 'cork cover' to, and which also exists in screwtop bottles (including here) as well, for whatever purpose. 82.132.237.108 11:03, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

this transcript is a work of art. raeb 18:54, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

Is part of the joke of the alt text the fact that he could easily fit into the bottle at his current age? 24.244.70.174 18:58, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

If he sailed in when he was very young, does that mean the ship grew up with beret guy? Commercialegg (talk) 18:59, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

That does seem to be what he's implying. When he sailed in, the boat must have been small enough to get through the bottleneck. Barmar (talk) 19:15, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

It's a reference to Williams pears, which do grow inside a bottle like that.37.59.41.98 19:41, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

Could it be that the boat inside the bottle is the one talking, not Beret Guy? SovereignFinn

It may be worth noting that Beret Guy's boat's sail visibly isn't getting any wind, which of course makes sense. Also, I like that Ponytail's boat has a gaff rig. 63.229.212.46 20:33, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

Off-screen, they are all in an even larger bottle. Fephisto (talk) 16:46, 2 May 2026 (UTC)

I see a totally different context and joke here: the water level in the bottle is lower than the water level outside. (Which requires a bit of physics thinking to figure out why this would be so.) At first intuitive glance, the water levels should be the same, hence, as the title text says "... seems impossible ...". Then the title text offers a (wrong, but intuitive) explanation for the different water levels: he entered the bottle at very young age when he was lighter (equal levels). Now as an adult he is heavier, thus the whole bottle is heavier and hence it is dipping deeper into the outer water (creating different levels). 31.16.254.255 20:38, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

I think it's sort of what would happen with a glass bottle. Glass is far more dense than water. If you part-filled a bottle (sideways, supported) so that it is level with the water it is sitting in and then plug it and release it, the air-filled bottle would then sit lower in the water than its previously established level.

i.e. the trapped water itself is neutral, versus the volume of external water that it displaces. The bottle-material that is below that level is denser than the water it directly displaces, so is negatively buoyant (and the above-the-water glass is less buoyant than the external air). It needs to sink enough that the internal air is also contributing to the displacement of the whole sealed bottle enough to equalise the whole thing.

And, the marvelous thing is that the bottled boat itself is completely neutral. As it's floating at a level that is neutrally buoyant across the (internal) water+air interface, so long as it is floating, thus the whole container weighs (as well as displaces) the same, for any given internal water-level. (i.e. how boat lifts operate... two 'troughs' that essentially weight the same regardless of whether they have a boat in them, that can be hauled up and down essentially perfectly counterbalanced by the paired trough going in the opposite direction. Which I still think is rather clever.) 81.179.199.253 21:36, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

Hi, new here, thanks for explainxkcd. Not sure about this sentence: "The weight of the missing water in the bottle is consequently equal to the weight of the bottle, the boat, and Beret Guy." I think the weight of the missing water is actually a bit less than the weight of the bottle. Here's the reasoning. First, imagine a bottle containing only water, no boat. We know that the weight of the displaced water equals the weight of the empty bottle plus the water inside (m_wd = m_b + m_wi, dropping earth gravity on both sides). And we know that the volume of the displaced water equals the volume of the bottle walls underwater plus the volume of the water inside plus the volume of the missing water (V_wd = V_bu + V_wi + V_wm). Multiply the latter by the density of water to get m_wd = rho_w * V_bu + m_wi + m_wm, and set equal to the first equation to get m_b + m_wi = rho_w * V_bu + m_wi + m_wm, or: m_wm = m_b - rho_w * V_bu. In other words, the mass of the missing water equals the mass of the bottle minus the mass of water with the same volume as the submerged parts of the bottle walls. Second, we can now take water out of the bottle with the same mass as the boat and Beret Guy, and put in the boat and Beret guy. The water level inside the bottle will not change (as the amount of water displaced by boat and Beret guy is just the amount we took out). If the water level doesn't change when we insert boat and Beret Guy, the amount of missing water remains unaffected. In conclusion, the weight of the missing water in the bottle is a bit less than the empty weight of the bottle. More precisely, the volume of the missing water equals the volume of an amount of water with the same mass as the empty bottle, but reduced by the volume of the submerged bottle walls. Or not? Cheers, Fab 203.218.42.181 08:07, 2 May 2026 (UTC)

Did not see this until I (just) addressed that statement my own way. Slightly messily, but also trying to consciously remove BG+Boat from the basic equation (at least until the bottle is so filled that it starts pushing up on the bottle/the bottle pushed down on it, and BG needs to hope it had enough closed-cell buoyancy to not suffer too much from being flooded).

The internal water-level (the boat's 'plimsol line', flattening out the 'wavy nature' of the water) is effectively constant (for a given similar 'plimsol line' of the bottle w.r.t. to the open sea), regardless of whether the boat is there. The weight of water that the Boat+BG displaces (plus also the weight of the air), by being there, is the total weight of the Boat+BG. Without B+BG, but the same water level, the water and air volumes that fit into the appropriate gaps (no 'bottle half empty'-type trickery allowed!) provides the same weight and volume.

So, to calculate the bottle-weight minus the weight of the water(+air) that the substance of the bottle-body (and cork!) already displaces, imagine the boat isn't there and 'weigh out' the water that would be there in the 'slice' between the two surfaces, within the bottle (as if the boat was not there, everything else the same). Then go back and find the volume of the total bottle-glass, consider that in terms of water-density (almost as accurate as accounting for which slices are to be given water-density equivalence, and which are to be 'converted' to air). Add that bottle-body water-weight to the surface-gap water-weight, and this equals the bottle(+stopper) weight, with Boat+BG not being a factor (so long as it is not at all grounded and/or 'ceilinged', within the bottle).

I'm sure with a bit of calculus, we could do the whole thing. Calculating the volume of rotation of the hollow-bottle-shape, assuming a degree of cylindricality of profile, and integrating the 'sideways slice of semi-cylindrical contents' that exists between the two nominal surface-planes (reducing the 'peak and trough' water profile to equivalent flatness-level, especially considering that this involves the intersection of surfaces sloping/curving in multiple directions, might be the most hand-'wavy' part of the estimation, that's trickiest to be sure about) is left as an excercise to anyone sufficiently nerd-sniped enough to actually plug numbers into this. But the concept, at least, seems 'simple' enough.

And it shows that Randall didn't lazily draw the same water levels through both. Though there are arguments that they need to be different, in order to emphasise the full isolation of the bottle interior from the open sea, it could also have been done with a higher internal water level than the outside (implying the bottle-material was significantly less dense than water, or even that it's an 'air gap' between two line-thick 'skins', or maybe that the 'air' in the bottle is hydrogen, helium and/or lower-pressure than outside or...). I choose to believe that Randall (without necessarily enumerating the degree of the effect) chose a 'realistic' outcome of a floating bottle with a small amount of water in its 'bilgewash' bottom. (Saving that the natural attitude of such a bottle is either neck-up or neck-down, but then RealityIsUnrealistic. Or at least less visually aesthetic.)

In fact, my only true concern is the attitude of the bottle. Sideways, as it is, smaller-BG could not have (as implied) sailed the smaller-boat into the neck, as it is now. Either there was more water originally (pumped out before BG then pulled the cork-stopper into place, or (knowing BG), he just drank it and... somehow, and without affecting his admitedly rather ambiguous personal density too much... 'retains' it all, still), or the bottle was tilted down at an angle (not vertical!) and he floated 'up and in' before/during the twist in which the bottle underwent its current 'leveling sideways' orientation. 82.132.239.222 09:28, 2 May 2026 (UTC)

Is the hovertext also a potential reference to animals that get stuck within a particular location as they grow? I'm thinking hermit crab, but this might be an imagining. Kev (talk) 14:58, 2 May 2026 (UTC)

Hermit crabs don't get stuck in one location, as they grow, though. They go and find a suitably-sized 'upgrade' of shell (or useful piece of seafloor rubbish, if they find one of those that they like the look of), either unclaimed or about to be vacated by a larger crab who is lining up their own 'upgrade' (often as a chain of such stepwise upgrades).

At most, I'd expect it to be like "caught their neck in beer-can packaging, when young, get slowly strangled/garotted to death as they grow up with it still around their neck", rather than anything else. Some tree-hole nesting birds get effectively sealed in by closing the hole up with mud until it's more predwtator-proof, leaving only enough hole for their mate to give them/the eventual chicks bits of food (and chuck out waste), and no doubt creatures (like livestock) have escaped certain fenced/naturally-barriered areas when small and later couldn't get back through the gap if they tried to. And queen-insects of various kinds might be practically confined to the nests/hives in their fully developed 'egg-laying machine' form. But nothing that seems (to me) to have been directly or tangentially alluded to, to be honest. Though I might be missing something (other than already noted pears, and similar "bottled on the tree" novelty versions of such things). 82.132.239.222 16:42, 2 May 2026 (UTC)

Another oddity? - "The bottle appears to be keeping pace with the boats on either side, implying it is somehow propelling itself long despite lacking an engine, a sail, or any other method of propulsion" Is this really an oddity? Firstly, there doesn't seem to be much indication that the other two boats are moving much at all. There is no wake or bow wave to speak of. The depiction of the sails also doesn't necessarily imply they are catching significant wind, as unlike a spinnaker they are largely supported by the mast and boom. So if the bottle is "keeping pace" with the other boats, it's not really odd if the pace is close to zero. The presence of slight waves and a slight curve in the sails implies there could be a light wind. But let's not forget that the bottle itself is a sail, and one much bigger than the boat's sails. So again it's really not odd that the bottle would be moving along. The sail within the bottle also looks very limp, so it's uncertain why the previous commenter thinks the Beret Guy is sailing within the bottle. 103.225.231.220 06:26, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

"The sail within the bottle also looks very limp," - I think that's the point. The slack and ruffled nature of the Beret Guy Boat's sailcloth is in marked difference to the taut (catenary-esque) nature of the sailcloth edges in the other two boats. Whatever else Beret Guy is doing, his boat is not 'sailing', and is essentially becalmed.

Possibly the bottle is 'sailing', though there would normally be no subtlety to the movement (like tacking), just being buffeted along, perhaps even being twisted around so that air-direction (and maybe the direction of the water currents it is floating through) is minimally impeded and so provides a minimum of motive power in a directly downwind(ish) direction.

What happens to the boat within the bottle is a bit more interesting. It will have inertia, so when the bottle starts moving it (and the water it is floating in) will tend to stay at rest until enough water 'piles up' in one end/side of the bottle to transfer a 'moving equilibreum' to it, which in turn may drag the boat or let it 'slide downhill' with the counteractive mass of moving air perhaps also pushing it more backwards, on top of the inertial tendency to stay where it is. One way or another, the boat may hit the glass 'walls' of the bottle (sides, neck end or base end) or 'floor' (cylindrical curve up, or just where the water is angled too low to float the boat, even if still centrally placed over the deepest part) and be nudged and bounced into bottle-wise movement. Eventually, in a steadily moving bottle, the boat (and water, and counterpart volume of air) will settle down and be moving 'statically' within the bottle, as if the whole system is at rest. So it's rather hard to tell what the current status quo is, in BG's case.

Moreso because BG is a master at manipulating (or being manipulated by) unorthodox/irregular forces, like Vacuum(-Cleaner) Energy or even the cosmic Great Attractor. It is his power/curse to be under the influence of non-standard physics. But clearly his sailboat is not itself being wind-blown, in contrast to the others (no obvious wakes, no, but the choppy waters may be too dominant to let such things be shown) and the details of the bottle's respective wind+water movement are even more non-visible.

The 2d-nature of the comic tends to imply physical alignment, of some kind, which in turn implies that this is a consistent formation, with no sign of either partnering boat ever going behind/in front of the bottle-boat from our perspective, so it could be reasonable to assume that the 'rear' boat isn't about to slam into the bottle, and the 'front' one hasnct just left contact, they're instead maintaining their relative positions. And (for the various interpretions already suggested), this is controlled movement, not directly at the whim of the wind direction. Which would be odd, if anyone but Beret Guy did this, along with all the secondary oddities regarding BG's position. 82.132.236.209 13:20, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

Lots of discussion here regarding displacement of the water, but wouldn't the glass of the bottle wall also cause refraction, contributing to the perceived difference in water levels? 136.226.154.67 (talk) 17:57, 4 May 2026 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

The viewpoint is already a nominative 'slice' through the water (and bottle), so I don't think we're viewing through the angled glass 'from the side' in any significant optical way that the comic bothers to replicate (and, if it did, then you'd get a more complex inter-interface line, due to passing into and out of the glass at different angles, plus emerge in glass-air, after starting in through water-glass, an have to contend with total internal reflection issues at various light-lines through the glass etc.) . But YMMV. 81.179.199.253 18:15, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

May 4th

No comic today? Is Randall ok? 205.185.98.6 05:31, 5 May 2026 (UTC)

Maybe it's just a longer comic he's doing, maybe? It's still not there now. -- GSLikesCats307 (talk) 08:36, 5 May 2026 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Last time this happened was in September 2024 and also in April 2024, so let's hope it's just a technical glitch. There have in recent years also been two comic dates missing entirely (Nov 15th, 2023 and July 13th 2022). 195.65.24.115

It's historically not unknown to be 'rather late', but still officially of the day that has ended even for the west-coast US (though Randall is of course more generally East-coast, also, at least when not travelling). That it happens so few times but still does at all (not even counting "tried to do a special comic for this particular date, but took too long to finalise") speaks of Randall's hand-crafted method, i.e. not just lining things up to be published in an automated manner.

It also could be a Special Comic (perhaps for May the 4th Be With You!), and you know that April 1st comics have been very delayed, but still intended for that date (if only a little bit, then no 'filler', if several weeks then a filler might have been provided in its stead until it finally was).

So, anyway, I'm still in "no worries" mode, myself. Time will tell. 81.179.199.253 10:13, 5 May 2026 (UTC)

special comic maybe?Commercialegg (talk) 12:34, 5 May 2026 (UTC)

still no comic but if there is a regular comic ima crash out TicTacALT (talk) 16:16, 5 May 2026 (UTC)

Guys, he's been a day late before, it's fine. B for brain (talk) (youtube channel wobsite (supposed to be a blag)) 18:38, 5 May 2026 (UTC)

It's probably because he just released a new what if? video, so his priorities are probably a bit skewed rn. 76.143.215.42 19:07, 5 May 2026 (UTC)

And as of 3:45 (Randall's time) there was a new one, although the "explain" site doesn't seem to have picked up on it yet. MAP (talk) 19:48, 5 May 2026 (UTC)

Of course, by the time I'd entered that it had caught up. :-) MAP (talk) 19:51, 5 May 2026 (UTC)
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