1606: Five-Day Forecast

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Five-Day Forecast

Title text: You know what they say--if you don't like the weather here in the Solar System, just wait five billion years.

Explanation

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Transcript

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Discussion

As far as I can figure out, -452 F is something like 4 K, which seems a bit too warm (above OTL microwave background). It probably should be -456 in the next-to-last row and -458 in the last row (-459 for the last column). --141.101.81.76 12:58, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Inside a galaxy, it presumably is a bit warmer than CMB, since there are stars around to heat the interstellar medium a little. --Aaron of Mpls (talk) 05:40, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

A few things- the remnant white dwarf should still be heating the Earth measurably at the 5 billion year mark. A 17000K Earth-sized white dwarf remnant at 1 AU would account for the temperature rise in the last panel, BUT it should have cooled significantly in the 1 trillion year panel. 172.70.43.5 20:21, 25 October 2024 (UTC) 

If Randall is going to use Farenheit why don't we stick with Rankine, thus -452 F works out at about 8 R? (Saves all the messing about with multiplication and division) 162.158.34.147 13:15, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the conversions to degrees C as being a 58 year old Brit I have never understood degrees F (I know what they are just I have no idea whether 60F is cold, cool or comfortable). I have always used 5, 10 and 21, Winter, Spring and Summer sun - well works for Middle Brittan) RIIW - Ponder it (talk) 19:09, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

FYI 60 degrees F outside is quite pleasant, a little cool, but inside your feet get cold. 15.5 degrees C NotLock (talk) 09:12, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes thank you for the conversions, _most_ readers of this comic use metric units: http://daretorant.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/metric-system.jpg Martin (talk) 21:52, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

As a younger Brit (56) I grew up with Farenheit, I'm not sure where in the UK our 58-year old grew up, but I don't remember a concerted effort to use SI units until the mid seventies. For me it's the other way 'round: 60F sort of OK as long as it isn't windy, 70F quite warm, 80F Phew! What a scorcher! All the centigrade equivalents are just too small! :) 162.158.34.147 13:15, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps the original Brit is only 58F, and was born c. 2000.108.162.238.87 21:09, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

There will be ambient starlight in addition to the 2.7K background which should raise the temperature slightly. However, the 2.7K background will also redshift to a lower temperature as time goes on: T propto 1/a where a is the scale factor of the Universe. Would be a good assignment for a cosmology class. 173.245.54.48 13:07, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Aha, what will last longer than stars etc is the silly Fahrenheits. 162.158.91.165 17:49, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

There are five columns. Either the first column is "today" and one should not speak of predictions after five (m/b/trillion) years (as is currently the case a couple of times), or the first column is "tomorrow (etc.)" and then the prediction of "A bright yellow sun; 38°F" for one trillion years would be very strange. Jkrstrt (talk) 18:39, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Randall lives in a cold climate! 188.114.97.127 21:37, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

If the "red giant" temperature measures the sun's core, how do you explain the last panels showing decidedly non-white-dwarf temperatures? --199.27.130.234 03:48, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Regarding the 5-year-predicion: It seems to me that the temperature is in average rising a bit across the year, maybe a reference to the slow process of global warming? This would not be the first time, there are even whole comics just about global warming, especially about the noticeable speed and the "in average"-importance (e.g. 1379, 1321) 162.158.92.118 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I don't believe so. Five years is probably too short a period for discussing global warming. Limit it to a single place and even more so. Limit it to a sample of one day per year, and I believe you can't bother looking at the p-values. --Ahyangyi (talk) 15:56, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Image with °C

I hope someone will find my low-effort edited version useful: http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/File:five_day_forecast_Celsius.png --Asdf (talk) 18:15, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Nice work. It's mentioned above the explanation section. I'm hoping the values are correct. ;-) --Dgbrt (talk) 18:39, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, I thought it'd be forgotten. I rounded the last value down from -269.44... to -270 degrees C to keep the joke though.

Edit: Of course someone had thought of this before. See this Reddit thread to see a better image and conversion to kelvins. --Asdf (talk) 20:56, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

I’m thinking that maybe the flying saucers arrived to help us evacuate the planet (using tractor beams), before it was too late. Brenda (talk) 12:17, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Incomplete Tag

What’s with the incomplete tag? 42.book.addict (talk) 01:50, 3 November 2024 (UTC)