Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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| Inflation Timeline |
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Title text: Depending what corners of the internet you hang out on, 'regular' may at times awkwardly coexist with 'sexy.' |
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Explanation
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Cosmic inflation is the theory that the very early universe briefly expanded at an enormous rate. This explains the "clumpiness" of the early universe, which is necessary to explain the formation of large-scale structures (e.g. galaxies, galaxy clusters, galaxy filaments, etc.) as the universe evolved. "Regular" inflation refers to the economic process in which the average price of goods and services increases over time. This is usually gradual, but can be very rapid during times of economic distress.
The comic puts both of these on the same timeline of the universe. Cosmic inflation occurs shortly (~10-35 s) after the Big Bang. Regular inflation occurs only during the time of human society after money started being used. Because of the logarithmic scale of the graph, the cosmic inflation period, which is only a tiny fraction of a second, looks much larger than regular inflation, which has existed for at least a few thousand years. This misinterpretation is likely Randall's intention in the comic.
The title text refers to a third meaning, that of body inflation as a sexual fetish or kink, which has no direct relationship to cosmology or economics. Randall points out that body inflation happens at the same time as economic inflation, presumably because both arise from human activities. The suggestion that this coexistence may be "awkward" perhaps implies that people are paying to indulge in the fetish, and that those prices are subject to economic inflation. The "inflation" might also refer to something akin to a blow-up doll.
Another comic showing the Cosmic Inflation on a graph is 2240.
Transcript
- [Caption:] Timeline of Inflation
- [A log scale timeline marked by "Age of the Universe (Seconds)" at each factor of 1010, ranging from 10-40 to about 1025. A bar labeled "Cosmic" begins off-panel to the left and continues up to roughly 10-32 seconds. A second, much thinner bar labeled "Regular" covers another period between roughly 1016 and 1018 seconds.]
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This is a test. PoolloverNathan[stalk the blue seas] 20:48, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
- This is not. —While False (museum | talk | contributions | logs | rights | printable version | page information | what links there | related changes | Google search | current time: 16:53) 18:38, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
- A foreign student asked me to help fight against his math teacher. That was unusual. He was in that class for just a couple of weeks. The teacher's phone number was sent to me. The student asked me to spam-call the teacher. 172.71.155.55 22:58, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
here i'm just messing around in html, ignore this
furhhfghure guyrburgryhuyvfr "rvhru"
interesting way of writing quotations xd
- hmmm this one of putting "<p>" in a line break will come in handy for when i want it to start at the same place than the first line
- Please beware that <p> on mediawiki also disables automatic paragraph breaks, so you need a closing </p> or you'll break automatic paragraph formatting for the rest of the page. Zmatt (talk) 22:06, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
edit: da hek did that "</div>" come from An user who has no account yet (talk) 14:14, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
hi uh its hard to get here.
is this a reference to undocumented feature??? hmm... this is interesting.
108.162.241.216 02:05, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
yum yum [citation needed]
Hiuiedeixgeyceiyedhcdiedcve
{{trout}}
This is the leaderboard:
<a href=" [AT THE JULY 28TH MEETING][tab] "Cancel the meeting! Our cover is blown.">
More testing: hello doesthiswork (yesitdoes) This isn't a good name (talk) 22:44, 28 January 2026 (UTC)
hi 164.58.172.158 14:21, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
What is this??????????????????????
King Pando (
talk) 04:25, 10 March 2026 (UTC)
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