Editing 2863: Space Typography

{{comic
| number    = 2863
| date      = December 4, 2023
| title     = Space Typography
| image     = space_typography_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x239px
| noexpand  = true
| titletext = And over heeee[...]eeeere (i)s Saturn.
}}

==Explanation==
This is another one of [[Randall|Randall's]] [[:Category:Tips|Tips]], this time a space tip, the first of two in a row, the second being [[2864: Compact Graphs]] with a design tip.

Randall has created a sentence with the property wherein, when printed in {{w|Times New Roman}} font, the distances of the "i" letters from the first letter are proportional to the radii of the orbits of the innermost five planets in the {{w|Solar System}}. These are the only letters in the sentence that have a dot over the letter (there are no "j"s in the sentence) or elsewhere (there are no periods, colons, semicolons, or other dot-containing symbols). He suggests that if you get lost traveling among these planets, you can use the dots as a map.

This won't actually be a very useful map. When traveling between planets, it's not enough to know where the planet's orbit is, you also need to know where it is along the orbit. Additionally, if you are truly lost then you likely do not know where ''you'' actually are, and which 'way' you are heading, though you can probably at least locate the sun if you are indeed within our inner solar system.

The sentence is self-referential, since it talks about using typography to measure distances in space, and this makes it a useful mnemonic. The "optimistic" in the sentence could indicate that the aliens in question are highly optimistic that this kind of "map" would be useful for navigating a star system where planets orbit in ellipses, rather than being in static positions along a line (as is so often depicted in line-ups of the Solar System's planets).

The title text appends the sentence with a section for identifying Saturn. It contains an ellipsis in brackets, which normally signifies that an indeterminate number of 'e's has been omitted from the sentence, seemingly to represent Saturn's large orbital radius as the next "i" in "is". The trick is that actually appending the sentence literally, brackets and all, after the original sentence (so that we get "<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'>Optimistic aliens measure space typographically. And over heeee[...]eeeere (i)s Saturn.</span>") actually puts the dot on the last "i" at Saturn's orbit. The extra dots and periods beside the six 'i's only serve as punctuation and spacing; the parentheses, besides spacing, call attention to the 'i' in the title text, where the black emphasis of the comic is not available. They're also reminiscent of {{w|Saturn's rings}}, although they are much too large and off-center.

Similar sentences with varying numbers of "e"s could be used to continue out to any planet or other body which does not contain the letter "i" – which is all of the remaining planets and minor planets, with the exception of Eris.  However, the strings of "e"s would get longer and longer, to the point that it might be necessary to write down how many of them are to be used – about 59 "e"s for Saturn, starting from the Sun – which negates any mnemonic value the sentence may have had and might as well just be replaced with a table of orbital {{w|ephemerides}}.

==Accuracy==
[[File:2863OrbitComparison.png|thumb|Comparison between orbits of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and Jupiter to the dots in the comic]]
Measuring the distances based on the provided image results in these approximate distances:

{| class="wikitable" style="margin:auto"
|-
! Planet !! Pixel offset !! Relative Distance in Comic !! Actual Distance in AU<ref>https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/pdfs/scaless_reference.pdf</ref>
|-
| Mercury || 93 || 0.3907 || 0.39
|-
| Venus || 169 || 0.7101 || 0.72
|-
| Earth || 238 || 1 || 1
|-
| Mars || 362 || 1.5210 || 1.52
|-
| Jupiter || 1229 || 5.1639 || 5.2
|}

Saturn is 9.54 astronomical units from the sun, for which 13 middle 'e's would be required in "here" to make the title text work. 

The picture also contains a standard representation of Times New Roman, with no changes to kerning or tracking.

Continuing the idea would look like this:

"<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'>Optimistic aliens measure space typographically. And over heeeeeeeeeeeeere (i)s Saturn. And over heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere is Uranus. And over heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere is Neptune.</span>"


{| class="wikitable" style="margin:auto"
|-
! Planet !! Number of middle 'e's needed in "here"
|-
| Saturn || 13
|-
| Uranus || 49
|-
| Neptune || 58
|}

==Transcript==
:[A grayed-out sentence in the Times New Roman font reads "<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Optimistic aliens measure space typographically</span>". The "O" in "Optimistic" is dark black and indicated as representing the Sun (not to scale). The dots of the letters "i" in the sentence are similarly dark black. The dot in the first "i" in "Optimistic" is indicated as representing Mercury; the dot in the second "i" represents Venus; the dot in the third "i" represents Earth. The dot in the "i" in "aliens" is indicated as representing Mars. The dot in the "i" in "typographically" is indicated as representing Jupiter. A measurement bar indicates that the distance between the "O" and the third "i" in "Optimistic" (representing Earth) is equivalent to 1 AU (astronomical unit).]

[Caption below the panel:] 

Space tip: if you're ever lost in the inner Solar System, you can just type out the phrase "Optimistic aliens measure space typographically" in Times New Roman and use the dots as a map.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Space]]
[[Category:Tips]]