2803: Geohydrotypography

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Geohydrotypography

Title text: The Atlantic is expanding at about 10 ppm (points per month).

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by a KERNED OCEAN - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

Typing speed is typically measured in words per minute, with higher numbers indicating greater proficiency. The Atlantic Ocean is full of water. This comic suggests that, were the water covered with words, the slow widening caused by plate tectonics would increase the words per minute of whoever was typing on it by 100 words per minute.

Transcript

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If you covered the surface of the Atlantic Ocean with twelve-point printed text, with the lines wrapping at the coasts, the expansion of the ocean basin due to plate tectonics would increase your word count by about 100 words per second.

[Caption below the panel:]

My hobby: Geohydrotypography

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Discussion

100 words per minute seems… fast. 172.69.33.64 04:47, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes, has anyone done the maths on this claim?Thisfox (talk) 09:52, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

The claim is actually "per second"... and given the size of the Atlantic it's actually not thaaat much. Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 11:02, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

The height of 12pt text is stated as approx(!) 4.233mm, which is possibly from the tops of the risers to the bottom of sub-line descenders but not sure if it includes the extra line_spacing that prevents them touching across. If the (quoted) 13,000km figure is accepted as close enough, that's over 3x10⁹ lines of text, each expanding by (up to) the "fingernail growth" rate often described. That's a lot of compound extension going on.

The width is variable ('l' vs 'm'; then possible kerning of 'AV'- or 'rj'-like combinations vs 'AA' and 'rr', depending on font), so I don't really know where to start with the exact width-gain-per-line being mapped to characters (then to whole words that can be stocasticall inserted into the available new space). There are probably printers/publishers who have a good idea of how many pages some raw text (not yet actually suitably repaginated) actually might take up, at least to within the nearest quire. 172.70.91.89 11:41, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Is it accurate to say it's a portmaneau of geology, hydrology and typography? Surely the geo- and hydro- could also be considered here to have come from the root words (the same way they have in geology and hydrology) because they're just adding scope to the -ography from typography, or rather specifying that it's typography involving *geo* and *hydro*. 172.70.86.15 06:41, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

It may see obvious to most, but I'd like to suggest a bit more literal explanation of the mechanics involved. It took me far too many readings, both of the comic and the explanation, to realize that the comic's "expansion of the ocean basin due to plate tectonics" is independent from the characters being "written" on the ocean. The word-wrap effects are just due to the existing rate of expansion due to plate tectonics. I was looking for some kind of typically Randallian closed loop (as in 688: Self-Description). Der57 (talk) 07:25, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Why geology and hydrology when geography and hydrography are perfectly valid things? If it is a portmanteau, it could clearly be of three different "graphy" words.. 172.71.102.108 09:10, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Agree Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 11:02, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

There's a difference between geology and geography. The root "-logy" being of knowledge, "-graphy" that of measurement and recording.

Very roughly, the first I'd consider covers what we know of the underlying plate techtonics/etc, whilst the latter is how people understand/use the surface (not necessarily the land); I think geology applies to the comic more than geography (certainly far from many of its more prominant subfields, such as political geography). Yes, there's overlaps (where physical geography derives from/demonstrates various direct aspect of surface geology), but I think I'd say geology is the prime driver here.

Hydrology vs hydrography, I'd skew the other way as far as relevence to the comic. It's the measure of the extent of the ocean rather than the understood movements of water (which, significantly to the layperson, includes aquifers and rivers and other land-observed watery analyses even more irrelevent to the hypothetical than that of the actual ocean currents which presumably Randall has no problem 'writing' over).

..if only I could think of a reason to choose "typology" over "typography", then I could really go for a more awkward interpretation of what the composite word construction should be rooted in. ;) 141.101.98.119 11:12, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

I don't think it's a portmanteau at all - rather, it's a neologism: the measurement and recording of text on the water surfaces of the earth. So there is no -ology or -graphy applicable to the component parts of the word; just one -graphy applied to the whole thing. (Also, it doesn't necessarily mean that he himself enjoys typing on the water - just that he likes studying / measuring it.)141.101.98.4 16:14, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Imho, this is some of Randall's finest work. In a very large portfolio of very fine work. Boatster (talk) 00:01, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

It took me a bit to realize that the width of the Atlantic doesn't matter. ~ Megan ^she/_her ^talk/_contribs 01:02, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Well, it does if it approaches (<~2x?) the width of a single typical 12pt word. And further when it reduces down to demanding hyphens for the longest words. But, yes, such effects are so smeared out that there'd be a rare (non-zero) chance of re-wrapping making the rate increase go wild (and unusually static for a long while). 172.70.162.181 08:14, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Since the width stays constant, we can ignore its size in area increase calculations. We also know the width of the Atlantic is huge compared with a 12pt word. ~ Megan ^she/_her ^talk/_contribs 15:19, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Ummm... The point is that the width is not constant. It's increasing. But I thought you'd realised that the point was not the massive instantaneous width(s), as differently defined at different latitudes, 'merely' the imperceptible increases of width at all latitudes that sum together as being the space for the increasing number of words that would flow between these expanding margins. What we can ignore is how many actual words any actual full area will contain, we're looking at just the new words possible from just the new area (very very thin but very very tall) that's added. 172.70.90.183 15:32, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

For what it's worth, chatGPT4 says this. "The Atlantic Ocean is expanding at a rate of about 2.5 cm/year (or about 0.0000000794 miles/year) due to seafloor spreading along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Assuming this expansion is fairly evenly spread over the entire surface of the Atlantic Ocean, we can convert this to the equivalent in point size for the text, considering there are approximately 72 points to an inch, and one inch is approximately 2.54 cm. So, the expansion of the Atlantic Ocean in points per year would be approximately: 2.5 cm/year * (1 inch / 2.54 cm) * 72 points/inch ≈ 70.866 points/year For simplicity, let's assume each line of 12pt text is exactly 12pt high (though in reality it would be a bit more due to line spacing), and each line contains 10 words (as a rough average). So, each point of expansion would add about 10/12 = 0.833 words. Therefore, the expansion of the Atlantic Ocean in words per year due to seafloor spreading is approximately: 70.866 points/year * 0.833 words/point ≈ 59 words/year This is equivalent to: 59 words/year / (365.25 days/year * 24 hours/day * 60 minutes/minute * 60 seconds/second) ≈ 0.00000187 words/second So, with these assumptions and approximations, the expansion of the Atlantic Ocean due to plate tectonics might increase your word count by approximately 0.00000187 words per second.

172.70.127.65 18:49, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

"So, each point of expansion would add about 10/12 = 0.833 words." Meaning that, in 12pt text, a word is smaller than a letter? I think the pile (1838: Machine Learning) may need a bit more stirring. (Comment by someone who's better at catching GPT errors than knowing how to comment here; sorry if I did it wrong.) 162.158.38.19 17:00, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

(On the latter point, you replied close enough. Though could have use ~~~, giving (your version of) "172.71.178.169", rather than trying to manually write in the timestamp to try to emulate the ~~~~, which gives the full signature aitomatically. I've put the full thing there, for you, and now here is my own... ;) 172.71.178.169 19:00, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Took me a BIT to get this. I thought he was describing the comic, the 30-whatever words written on a MAP view, that their room would expand by 100 words, took me a bit of time to realize he meant on the real ocean, one inch of text covering 1 inch of real ocean. THAT I can believe. :) NiceGuy1 (talk) 04:04, 22 July 2023 (UTC)