Editing 1519: Venus

Jump to: navigation, search

Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.

The edit can be undone. Please check the comparison below to verify that this is what you want to do, and then save the changes below to finish undoing the edit.
Latest revision Your text
Line 8: Line 8:
  
 
==Explanation==
 
==Explanation==
[[Miss Lenhart]] is [[#Trivia|teaching]] a class on science about the planet {{w|Venus}}.
+
{{incomplete|This explanation requires some touching up.}}
 +
[[Miss Lenhart]] is teaching a class scientifically incorrect information that oppose the majority of currently scientifically acknowledged facts concerning the planet Venus, while using actual scientific terminology incorrectly to support her claims.
  
In the first panel, we see her teaching the history of Venus. Venus may have had water on its surface billions of years ago, but if that is true all hydrogen since then was eventually lost due to dissociation. However, there is no evidence that Venus ever had fields of flowers, or Venusians, or any other form of life.
+
In the first panel we see Miss Lenhart teaching the history of Venus. Planetary scientists think that Venus may have had surface water billions of years ago, but it all evaporated due to stronger sunlight, and was eventually lost due to ultraviolet dissociation. However, there is no evidence that Venus ever had fields of flowers, or Venusians, or any other form of life.
  
The {{w|runaway greenhouse effect}} on the second panel is a play on words. While the term normally refers to a rapid rise in temperature caused by greenhouse gases, Miss Lenhart uses the term literally and claims the existence of sentient greenhouses that actually ran away from Venus. In reality, the effect caused Venus to develop a thick atmosphere of carbon dioxide, which raised its temperature above approx. 460 °C (860 °F), hotter than daytime on {{w|Mercury}}. This eventually destroyed all evidence of anything that had been on the surface of Venus billions of years ago.
+
In the second panel, {{w|runaway greenhouse effect}} is a pun. Miss Lenhart uses the term literally and claims the existence of sentient greenhouses actually running away. In reality, the effect caused Venus to develop a thick atmosphere of carbon dioxide, which raised its temperature to 460 C (860 F), hotter than daytime on Mercury.
  
The third panel ties the previous distortion of Miss Lenhart into the very real {{w|Tulip mania|historic reputation}} of the Netherlands as {{w|Netherlands#Agriculture|flower growers}}, with a further fabrication by Miss Lenhart that the Dutch flower industry was in fact started by Venusians.
+
The third panel ties the previous distortion into the very real (but unconnected) {{w|Tulip mania|historic reputation}} of the Netherlands as {{w|Netherlands#Agriculture|flower growers}}, as a further fabrication by Miss Lenhart. In the final panel we see that she is a month away from retirement and doesn't care about relaying accurate information anymore.
  
In the final panel we learn that she is a month away from retirement and does not care about relaying accurate information anymore. She just wants to have a laugh at the expense of the naive school children, although it is clear that [[Jill]] in the front row was not fooled.
+
The title text is a pun on the {{w|Butterfly effect}}, because {{w|Butterfly|Butterflies}} help to pollinate flowers on Earth, misattributing it to Miss Lenhart's false explanation of history.
 
 
The title text jokes about the {{w|butterfly effect}}, the idea that a {{w|butterfly}} flapping its wings in Brazil can cause a tornado in the U.S. In this case the butterflies would just help pollinate the flowers. The butterfly effect, a part of {{w|chaos theory}}, is a term coined by {{w|Edward Norton Lorenz}}, who had the comic [[1350: Lorenz]] named after him due to its chaotic nature.
 
 
 
Although Miss Lenhart was supposed to retire a month after this comic, she seems to return a year later for a university-level math course ([[1724: Proofs]]) and several years later for an astronomy course ([[2926: Doppler Effect]]), where she continues the trend from this class.
 
  
 
==Transcript==
 
==Transcript==
:[Miss Lenhart is standing in front of an image depicting a section of a temperate Venus' surface, with greenhouses, grass, flowers and a river flowing into a sea.]
+
:[Miss Lenhart is standing in front of an image, presumably a temperate Venus, with greenhouses, grass, flowers and a river flowing into a sea.]
:Miss Lenhart: Venus was once temperate. It had seas and rivers, and Venusians cultivated vast fields of beautiful flowers.
+
:Miss Lenhart: Venus once was temperate. It had seas and rivers, and Venusians cultivated vast fields of beautiful flowers.
  
:[The image now shows the entirety of Venus, with continents and oceans. The greenhouses appear to be fleeing from Venus.]
+
:[The image is now zoomed out to see the entirety of Venus, with continents and oceans. The greenhouses are shown fleeing ("running") away from Venus.]
 
:Miss Lenhart: Until their greenhouses fled the planet due to the runaway greenhouse effect.
 
:Miss Lenhart: Until their greenhouses fled the planet due to the runaway greenhouse effect.
  
:[Miss Lenhart is shown to be standing in front of a classroom. Jill is sitting in the front row.]
+
:[Miss Lenhart is now standing in front of a classroom and addressing the students, we see one of these, a young girl with a loose hair bun, sitting at a desk.]
 
:Miss Lenhart: The Venusians pursued their greenhouses to Earth, settling in the Netherlands and kickstarting the Dutch floral industry. Any questions?
 
:Miss Lenhart: The Venusians pursued their greenhouses to Earth, settling in the Netherlands and kickstarting the Dutch floral industry. Any questions?
  
:Off-panel student (presumably Jill): Because you're retiring in a month, do you just not care what you say anymore?
+
:Offscreen: Because you're retiring in a month, do you just not care what you say anymore?
 
:Miss Lenhart: ''What?!'' I '''''ride the skies''''' atop a screaming bird of truth! Also, yes, I do not.
 
:Miss Lenhart: ''What?!'' I '''''ride the skies''''' atop a screaming bird of truth! Also, yes, I do not.
  
 
==Trivia==
 
==Trivia==
*It is not directly mentioned that it is Miss Lenhart teaching, but her looks and profession fits this character well enough to make this deduction.
+
*It is not directly mentioned that this is Miss Lenhart, but her look and profession fits this character well enough to make this deduction.
*Similarly, the girl knowing she is being cheated fits the description of [[Jill]].
 
  
 
{{comic discussion}}
 
{{comic discussion}}
 +
<!-- Include any categories below this line. -->
  
 
[[Category:Comics featuring Miss Lenhart]]
 
[[Category:Comics featuring Miss Lenhart]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Jill]]
 
[[Category:Animals]]
 
 
[[Category:Space]]
 
[[Category:Space]]
 +
[[Category:Puns]]

Please note that all contributions to explain xkcd may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here.
You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see explain xkcd:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission!

To protect the wiki against automated edit spam, we kindly ask you to solve the following CAPTCHA:

Cancel | Editing help (opens in new window)