Editing 1417: Seven

| titletext = The days of the week are Monday, Arctic, Wellsley, Green, Electra, Synergize, and the Seventh Seal.

This is shown in the comic when Cueball tries to enumerate the seven dwarfs from ''{{w|Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937 film)|Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs}}'' (a task some people might find difficult, although they would not just chose words from other sets of seven to fill in the gaps...)

The title text also makes it clear that even a simple set of seven items, like the days of the week, also goes completely wrong.

The comic is a reference to the oldest {{w|Set-theoretic_definition_of_natural_numbers#Oldest_definition|set-theoretic definition of the natural numbers}} in which for each natural number, an equivalence class is defined over all sets which contain the same number of items. As Cueball is known for mathematical thinking he could be presumed to have taken the underlying equivalence relation to heart, and (over)applying it to real life, genuinely judges sets to be identical if they both contain N objects.

The number seven being the number for when sets become indistinguishable is possibly a reference to {{w|The_Magical_Number_Seven,_Plus_or_Minus_Two|Miller's law}}; however, this refers to elements within the same set becoming indistinguishable, rather than indistinguishability of different sets of the same size, as the original tests involved either distinguishing between the items or repeating them back <em>in the correct order</em>.

For each of the seven lists below, the relevant item's traditional position on its own list of seven is equal to its position on the list in the comic. So, since "phylum" is the second major taxonomic rank, "phylum" is the second item on the list in the comic.

The seven "dwarfs" mentioned and their relevant sets of seven are (Items in the set are written in bold):

!Disney's Dwarfs from the movie ''{{w|Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937 film)|Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs}}'')

|'''Sneezy'''

|Sleepy

|Doc

!Major {{w|taxonomic ranks}}

!Continents

|Australia

!{{w|Seven deadly sins|Deadly sins}}

!{{w|Seven-layer dip|Seven Layer Dip (recipe)}}

|chopped black olives/tomatoes/green onions

!|Layers of the {{w|OSI model|Open System Interconnection (OSI) data transmission model}}

!|{{w|Wonders of the World|Wonders of the Ancient World}}

The title text extends this saying he also does the same with the set of the seven days of the week.  

: [Megan and Cueball are talking]

: Megan: Can you name all the dwarves from Snow White?

: Cueball: Sure, there's, um...

: Cueball's thoughts: Sneezy, phylum, Europe, sloth, guacamole, data link, Colossus of Rhodes

: Caption: I have this problem where all sets of seven things are indistinguishable to me.

*Arctic (no. 2 on the title text list) could also be a reference to {{w|Climate zones|climate zones}}: '''Arctic''', North Temperate, Northern Subtropical, Tropical, Southern Subtropical, South Temperate and Antarctic.  

** There are however usually only five mentioned according to the {{w|Köppen climate classification}}. They are: Tropical, Dry, Temperate, Continental and Polar climate.

** There are seven continents of the world. Africa, Antarctica (2), Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, South America.  Since the picture of the 2nd dwarf is not a dwarf, but resembles another cartoon character "Fievel", the second item in the hover list "Arctic" was a purposeful mistake as well.

*Concerning the seven colours of the spectrum (no. 4 on the title text list) {{w|Indigo#Classification_as_a_spectral_color|indigo is stuck in}} by {{w|Isaac Newton}} to add up to the seven notes in the {{w|Scale_(music)#Western_music|Western musical scale}}  

** It should be noted that {{w|Indigo#Classification as a spectral color|Newton probably meant}} the colours {{w|cyan}} and {{w|blue}} as we think of it today, rather than blue and {{w|indigo}}.  

** Also note that in a {{w|rainbow}} you usually {{w|Rainbow#Number_of_colours_in_spectrum_or_rainbow|cannot distinguish more than six colours}} with cyan melting in with green and blue and the same for indigo with blue and violet.

*** {{w|Color term#Basic color terms|This is highly dependent on the language you speak.}} Russian, for example, has both sinij and goluboj to describe different blues that in English are both blue. Japanese, as another example, has blue and green together (kinda) in 青.

** These are also the traditional seven artists' pigments, {{w|Roy_G._Biv|with the accompanying mnemonic "Roy G. Biv"}}. Indigo dye is a widely known and readily available colouring agent. The ongoing ubiquity of the ''pigment'' (think denim) gives it a unique prominence in spite of its uncertain status as a spectral colour.  

*Although '''very''' unlikely, ''The Seventh Seal'' (no. 7 on the title text list) could also refer to the 1957 film by Ingmar Bergman.

**This was Bergman's seventh film with an English title beginning with the letter ‘S’ (ignoring articles). ''A Ship Bound for India'', ''Summer Interlude'', ''Secrets of Women'', ''Summer with Monika'', ''Sawdust and Tinsel'', ''Smiles of a Summer Night'', '''''The Seventh Seal'''''.

**Similary ''The Seventh Seal'' is also the seventh Bergman film whose Swedish title starts with ‘S’, although the list has some different members. ''Skepp till Indialand'', ''Sånt händer inte här'', ''Sommarlek'', ''Sommaren med Monika'', ''Sommarnattens leende'', ''Sista paret ut'', '''''Det sjunde inseglet'''''.