2301: Turtle Sandwich Standard Model
| Turtle Sandwich Standard Model |
 Title text: It's possible the bread and shell can be split into a top and bottom flavor, and some models additionally suggest Strange Bread and Charm Shells. |
Explanation
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This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by a TURTLE EATING A SANDWICH. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks. |
This comic recapitulates Mendel's postulate that certain genotypes are incompatible with life, thus predicted phenotypes can not be predicted by simple Punnett squares. For example, a genotype of two parents heterozygous for the sickle cell trait have a 1/4 chance of producing offspring homozygous for sickle cell anemia. This progeny would have a lesser chance of surviving to produce further offspring, suggesting that the gene itself would be selected out of the population. This, however does not consider possible advantages of the heterozygous genotype (in this case, a phenotype with better resistance to malaria). In the case of this comic, a simple Punnett square has been set up, revealing the known presentation of both sandwiches and turtles, composed of bread and shell in one axis, and head and meat on the other axis. The two other phenotypes (head-bread and meat-shell) do not present themselves in nature, but based on this universal model it is postulated that they theoretical are variations of these common sandwich and turtle phenotypes. It could be that they are absent because these variations are incompatible with life. The theory assumes that turtles and sandwiches are of the same species. This premise is why the comic is a joke, as we know that they only look alike superficially and have no common ontogeny.
Part of the joke comes from particle physics. The Standard Model of physics explains the base particles and fields that make up the universe, including the quarks, which have six flavors: up, down, top, bottom, strange, charm. While much of the theory was written earlier on, it took a long time for experiments to catch up. Hence, there were many particles that were theorized to exist, but had not yet been found yet, like the two unconfirmed turtle/sandwich mixes.
Transcript
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This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks. |
- [A two-by-two grid, with a piece of bread next to the top left cell; a turtle shell next to the bottom left cell; lettuce, cheese, and tomato above the top left cell; and an turtle head enclosed in a circle above the top right cell.]
- [Top left cell: an image of a sandwich.]
✔ CONFIRMED
- [Top right cell: an image of a turtle sandwiched between two slices of bread.]
(?)
- [Bottom left cell: an image of a turtle shell housing lettuce, cheese, and tomato - the contents of a sandwich.]
(?)
- [Bottom right cell: an image of a turtle.]
✔ CONFIRMED
- [Caption below the panel]
Our lab is working to detect the two missing pieces of the turtle-sandwich standard model.
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This is the first time I have had a chance to see the comic early enough to make a meaningful contribution to the explanation, but this time I have no idea whatsoever what the comic is about! Moosenonny10 (talk) 20:32, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
Looks like it is referencing the standard model of elementary particles. The title text mentions four of the quarks(top,bottom,charm,strange) 162.158.106.150 20:38, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
Disagree with DgbrtBOT that this is primarily to do with genetics. I agree that it's about the standard model. Up, down, charmed and strange. It may 'because I'm dumb', but even I'm not that dumb.
- I agree that this is not about genetics. The usual Mendelian diagram has the same traits in both dimensions. Maybe he didn't make the particle physics connection because that has more than 4 boxes. Barmar (talk) 21:52, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
- Agree with Barmar: This is not at all about genetics, but only about the particles standard model. Hence the name given by Randal, hence the dimensions not fitting Mendel, hence the lab reference and hence the biological absurd combinations. It does not fit genetics at all, but it perfectly fits a basic assumption of the standard particle modell: That every combination does exist. Labs all over the world have spend decades trying find/prove the existance of a particle predicted by lining up the dimensions of the particles standard model just as shown here and most seeming just as absurd. 172.68.51.52 00:06, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
I added a bit about the physics part of it, but it can definitely use more information! ChunyangD (talk) 20:52, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
Randall missed an obvious physics/turtle joke "turtles all the way down" reference here Glenn Strycker 4:56pm CDT 1 May 2020
- It was the first thing I thought, Randall can be sure his readers fill in such details... 141.101.104.221 21:08, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
If this really is about genetics, which I question, it seems likely that most people who haven't studied genetics would find the use of genetics jargon to be less than helpful in an explanation.Darthpoppins (talk) 22:46, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
In my opinion, the ExplainXKCD community has been successfully trolled by the contributor of the explanation of this comic, and with humorous effect. The troll consists of an explanation couched entirely in terms used primarily by biologists but generally difficult for others to understand, contrary to this community's practice of trying to simplify. Genotypes, phenotypes, Punnett Squares, heterozygous, homozygous, ontogeny. That being said, the contributor is certainly correct that the comic is about genetics, in that the depicted two-by-two square is immediately suggestive of the visual tool used for predicting the results of cross-breeding experiments. And the comic is certainly also about particle physics, in that the comic title refers to a "Standard Model" and then the title text alludes to particle names used in the standard model of particle physics. So the comic's joke is about the unexpected juxtaposition of genetics with particle physics, and also is about turtle sandwiches which, as drawn, are intrinsically funny anyway. Yes, @Glen, all the way down. JohnB 162.158.75.116 00:25, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
This looks less like a Punnet Square than it does like one of those political alignment chart memes. Punnet squares use symbols next to each other to designate genotypes, not diagrams of the results. Not to mention that the individual labels along the sides are supposed to be alleles, not separate effing traits! That whole paragraph is completely wrong and should be removed. GreatWyrmGold (talk) 00:44, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
Isn't this about supersymmetry? The missing pieces are the bosonic partners of the known fermions (matter particles), and the fermionic partners of the known bosons (force particles).... Joel K
For a second, I thought it said "Turkey Sandwich Standard Model"AllTheWayDown (talk) 01:31, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
This is clearly a use of the box method for factoring a trinomial in standard form (ax^2 + bx + c) which the coefficient of the first term (say ax^2) is not simply 1 (a<>1). Actually, the moment I saw it I knew exactly what it was, simply because I have been helping my high school son with his algebra the past few weeks. I laughed out loud! I never heard of this method as a math undergrad because it was brand new at the time, but now it's evidently fairly standard.
You create a 2x2 box, and write the first term of the trinomial (ax^2) in the top right corner and the last term (c) in the lower left. Then you have to figure out what factoring of a x c gives you two middle terms that when added will yield the middle term, bx. Let's call those b1x and b2x (where b1 x b2 = a x c, and b1 + b2 = b). You put those terms, b1x and b2x in the two empty boxes (in either order). Then you pull out common factors along each row and column until they multiply correctly to get the table. The terms you have pulled out then are your two binomial factors of the trinomial.
Randall has factored a turtle sandwich where the first term (ax^2) is a sandwich and the last term (c) is a turtle. These are the known terms (check marks). The unknown terms, through working the box method, turn out work if the bread is the common factor along the top row and the turtle shell on the bottom row. The sandwich filling is the common factor in the first column, and the shell-less turtle is the common factor on the second column.
I believe the alt-text is a play on the fact that, if I'm not mistaken, there are more ways to factor a trinomial if you allow imaginary numbers, because that allows square roots of negative numbers. Analogously, dividing shells differently suggests subatomic particles—thus, various quark flavors like charm and strange. EternalLearner (talk) 01:52, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
Apropos of nothing, and just for the comic relief of the commenters, I searched for 'turtle' 'sandwich' 'standard' 'model' and came across | this bad boy. I couldn't resist sharing. Thanks for the knowledge. -- brad
Uhm,wut,mostly. Okay so the earth is on a turtle. What holds the turtle up? It's turtles, all the way down, I've heard but? "Turtle legs" is my answer. Why I'm here: didn't xkcd.com used to say it was updated Monday, w, f, ? 162.158.78.182 04:55, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
- Obviously, the turtle doesn't need to be held up. It's a sea turtle, it swims. -- Hkmaly (talk) 23:13, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
Please refer to http://recipes-plus.com/recipe/turtle-sandwiches-kids-30062 for the top left sighting. Steven Nijhuis (talk) 05:35, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
LOL. This is the most random comments I have seen on one of these. This is 100% particle physics. Standard model of particle physics, up quarks, charmed quarks.. this is a commentary on how we know there is gravity, and we know there are electrons and we have a standard model which is still being filled in, in order to unify the theories.
--Adam Outler 108.162.238.131 06:03, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
I'm a bit confused by these comments. It seems like people are getting thrown off by the 2x2 table thinking that the comic must be related to where they've seen tables before (genetics / factoring quadratics / ...). This is wrong though, this comic is 100% particle physics. In particle theoretical (particle) physics, the way forward has often been unification (combining forces of nature mathematically). We know the Standard Model is wrong, so physicists have been searching for ways to theoretically extend the known theory for decades. One of the most popular ways of doing this is looking for a larger symmetry group that encompasses the known symmetry groups of the equations governing the Standard Model. And the first time that physicists got REALLY close to a working theory was extending to E(5). When doing this mathematical extension of the Standard Model, you automatically get new messenger particles that are predicted (leptoquarks) that would theoretically make a transition between leptons and quarks possible (much like the weak interaction allows for transitions between quarks). The whole thing tends to get represented as a matrix visually, much like the turtle sandwich joke. tl;dr: The joke makes perfect sense in theoretical particle physics. This type of diagram is common in extending the Standard Model (which is definitely incomplete) to a larger symmetry group like E(5). Tom B
- I'm pretty sure the factoring comment is satirizing the people who think it is about genetics. Probably not Douglas Hofstadter (talk) 05:13, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
Outside of anything scientific, I think it's also referring to the memetic "Is a BLANK a sandwich?" debate (normally a hotdog or a calzone) 141.101.107.84 18:12, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
- The big debate, surely, is orientation. If I prepare (say) some chicken-breast in some sort of marinade, and then half-toast some bread (half-way towards toasting, not one-sidedly; I put the slices in the toaster but manually eject them when it makes a click which equates to roughly half way to the dialled-in toasting degree, at least on my old toaster) then lightly butter(/non-dairy spread) them and use them to sandwich the chicken, but with a slice of cheese atop the chicken, then it tastes nice. If, during consumption or just moving the construct to a plate, I end up inverting it so it's bread/chicken/cheese/bread from top to bottom (happens when passed from hand to hand, I think, between picking up and alighting anew) it tastes... still nice, but different. Yes, the tongue is set only below the route the sandwich takes, but I'm not sure that accounts for it (experiments while inverting myself, with or without inverting the sandwich, are yet to be trialled without other factors going uncontrolled). However, it does mean that a sandwich cannot be assumed to have a reflective or rotational symmetry in the horizontal plane or any horizontal axis, which is the usual bar quoted against the smörgåsbord... 162.158.159.142 01:35, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
- Yes, orientation plays a role in surprisingly bizzarre situations. Have you noticed that USB Type A plugs have 1/2 spin? You try to stick one in a socket - it doesn't fit. You turn it 180 degrees - it doesn't fit. You turn it further 180 degrees - now it fits! -- Malgond (talk) 14:45, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
- Try inverting your tongue and see what effect that has.108.162.215.206 06:36, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
Anyone else mistakenly see the tomato slice/cheese/lettuce as a Turtle Chocolate and a slice of Turtle Pie?
Seeing the turtle without a shell between the two slices of bread in the grid reminds me of the other old question regarding turtles: If a turtle has lost its shell, is it homeless or naked? RAGBRAIvet (talk) 05:03, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
- A turtle without its shell is spineless. Rtanenbaum (talk) 20:46, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
I think the commentary is missing a main point. If you you hold a turtle in one hand and a sandwich in the other, you cannot help but notice the similar structure. In fact you can find two kinds of pictures of "Turtle Sandwich" on the internet. Sandwich made to look like a turtle. or a turtle made to look like a sandwich. So the question becomes, which of these is the "standard model". Which then opens us up to a pun on the "standard model" from quantum physics. Rtanenbaum (talk) 20:46, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
The linked page on the Standard Model doesn't say anything about either turtles or sandwiches, so I think some more explanation on that part is welcome. --IByte (talk) 10:54, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
Perhaps we can find some clues at 2251. (That's what this reminded me of, anyway.) —Scs (talk) 12:59, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
=== Size
Why is it big now? Is it just big for me? Anyone else seeing this? 162.158.187.205 04:52, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
- I can see it too.
- Saved in Wayback Machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20200504044520/https://xkcd.com/ --162.158.238.4 04:56, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
Meanwhile, C++ programmers are waiting to see where to position MockTurtle on the diagram (with no apologies whatsoever to Lewis Carroll)Cellocgw (talk) 16:48, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
