2856: Materials Scientists

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Materials Scientists

Title text: If a materials scientist gives you a present, always ask whether regifting will incur any requirements for Federal paperwork.

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by a BIOLUMINESCENT DEPLETED URANIUM WRAPPING PAPER GIVING OFF A BIT TOO MUCH CHERENKOV RADIATION- 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.

Material science is essentially the study of materials, including some pretty strange ones such as Vantablack and Triiodide. Here Ponytail and White Hat have gifted Cueball (a material scientist) a bunch of materials in the form of gift wrapping, which Cueball enjoys due to the materials. The joke is that this is similar to how cats enjoy playing with boxes and wrapping materials, a materials scientist thus would also enjoy an empty wrapped box covered in wrapping paper with some quite interesting properties.

Aramid fibers (misspelled as "amarid" in the comic) are a class of strong synthetic fibers, built from aromatic rings connected via amide linkages. Kevlar, a material commonly used as a fabric for soft bulletproof vests, is an example of an aramid. Due to their strength they can be quite durable, even when thin, as depicted in the comic.

Triboluminescence refers to a phenomenon where mechanically working on a material (in this case pulling on the tape) causes it to glow. Triboluminescence is still not well understood by material scientists, so they may find such materials particularly appealing. Scotch tape does exhibit this property. Phosphors are substances that glow when exposed to some other, typically more energetic, form of radiation.

Structural coloration is a phenomenon where the coloration of an animal or plant is not produced via pigments, but via structural interactions with visible light at the scale of a wavelength (e.g. diffraction gratings, thin-film interference). More generally it can also be used to refer to artificial materials that have a similar effect.

The title text states that if a materials scientist gives you a gift that you should ask if regifting it requires any form of federal paperwork.

Transcript

This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks.

[Ponytail, White Hat and Cueball are standing around a table of gifts, with Cueball holding one.]

Cueball: Where is this wrapping paper from? It's so thin, but I can't tear it. Is this amarid fabric?!

Cueball: Maybe I can unpeel the... oooh, the tape flashes as I pull it up! Triboluminescence! Did you add a phosphor? It's so bright!

Cueball: Wait, are these patterns structural coloration?

[Caption below the panel:]

Materials scientists are like cats - the best present you can get them is an empty box with cool wrapping paper.

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Discussion

It isn't "amarid", it's "aramid"... -- Dtgriscom (talk) 03:03, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Sounds like a great case for a "Trivia" section below the transcript. Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 23:19, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Damn, I'd love some gift wrap like that, it sounds fascinating, and I'm not even a materials scientist. 172.70.130.91 08:29, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Whoever added "This comic may also be an example of nerd sniping." should have said what the "nerd sniping" is that they detect here. Giving us terms to look up? Certainly not the spelling error, that's just a simple mistake. "Looking up" doesn't seem like enough to qualify, it should to be a problem to figure out, a solution begging to be found. I'll give it some time, but if I don't see this claim properly expanded I'll remove it next time I'm here. NiceGuy1 (talk) 06:32, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

There's some editing conflict over that point. It seems obvious to me that there's no "nerd sniping" here since the "nerd" isn't being put in danger. BunsenH (talk) 16:56, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

I agree with you, Bunsen, but if you look at the original nerd sniping comic's title text, Randall got nerd sniped but he wasn't actually in danger though. In a later talk (at Dartmouth?) he talks more about this. After looking into that I think they should leave the nerd sniping connection in the explanation. 172.69.65.156 18:50, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

I don't think that the "Nerd Sniping" comic's title text should be taken to mean that Randall got "sniped" with that problem, just that he got so absorbed by it that it looked like good bait for someone to go "sniping" with. BunsenH (talk) 23:26, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

When I was in high school chemistry way back in 1960 or so, we used to make Nitrogen Triiodide. It is extremely easy to make — put some crystals of iodine in a filter paper in a funnel. Pour ammonia over them. Let dry — often the triiodide will explode as it dries. If scattered on the floor, it will explode if someone steps on it. The explosion is accompanied by a puff of purple smoke. 172.70.135.17 12:02, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Is there any relationship between Materials Scientists and Material Girls? --188.114.102.34 16:29, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Well, they're both living in a Material World.172.69.195.174 16:24, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Is anyone else getting a HUGE image for this comic? It's showing up as a 4437 × 6680 pixels, 1200DPI, RGB image too big for the browser. I had to "open image in another tab" to view the whole thing. For comparison, the next comic is only 328 × 437 pixels, 80DPI, Gray. 162.158.146.233 04:47, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, same issue here with the dimensions. It wasn't showing up that way when it was first posted, either. 172.71.147.130 09:31, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Probably he reuploaded with a correction from "amarid" to "aramid" 198.41.236.148 11:11, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Yes, Randall updated the comic image with the correction, but uploaded the wrong size. I downloaded the large image and resized it to match the original 2x image here, then uploaded the new version of it over the original image. The cache appears to have finally updated, and this corrected image should now be visible to everyone here. Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 15:16, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

I was wondering if the huge version was part of the joke? Apparently not! Banalotopia (talk) 14:55, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Should the stuff about the "amarid" misspelling be moved to something like a "Trivia" section now that the comic has been corrected? BunsenH (talk) 16:56, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Typically, yes. With link to original image for those who want to look at the prior version ...if the new (rescaled) "aramid" one has indeed been made to replace the "amarid" original, you can link to the appropriate 'diff=' page. But it's probably an edit that can wait until someone willing to do it is doing some other tweaking, generally. There'll be something else, there's always something else. ;) 172.71.178.68 23:13, 22 November 2023 (UTC)