Editing 242: The Difference

{{comic
| number    = 242
| date      = March 30, 2007
| title     = The Difference
| image     = the_difference.png
| titletext = How could you choose avoiding a little pain over understanding a magic lightning machine?
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] pulls a lever. A bolt of lightning comes down and strikes him.

After being dazed for a moment, the comic then takes one of two routes; the first is that of a normal person, the second that of a scientist.

In [[Randall]]'s example, the normal person would decide not to pull the lever anymore, because it seems to cause him to get struck by a bolt of lightning.

But the scientist would pull the lever again to see if it was just a coincidence or if the lever actually caused the bolt of lightning. A scientist requires that results be repeatable before he accepts the results.

The title text refers to the scientist's method of pulling the lever again and again, trying to understand how the machine works, as opposed to the normal person, just avoiding pain. This could be a nod towards how scientists sometimes go to extreme measures for knowledge.

==Transcript==
:[All the panels are circular.]

:[Cueball pulls a lever.]
:''Pull''

:[Lightning hits Cueball.]
:''ZAP''

:[Cueball still stands, obviously battered.]

:[An arrow labelled "normal person" points to a panel of Cueball thinking.]
:Cueball (thinking): I guess I shouldn't do that.

:[An arrow labelled "scientist" points to a panel of Cueball about to pull the level again.]
:Cueball (thinking): I wonder if that happens every time.

==Trivia==
This comic used to be [https://web.archive.org/web/20220125023401/https://store.xkcd.com/products/signed-prints available as a signed print] in the xkcd store before it was [[Store|shut down]].

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics with xkcd store products]]