Editing 821: Five-Minute Comics: Part 3
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# After ''{{w|Brown v. Board of Education}}'' ruled that schools could not segregate based on race, nine African American students from Little Rock, Arkansas enrolled in the previously-segregated Little Rock Central High School. The school board could not officially deny them attendance, but members of the community (and, after Arkansas governor Orval Faubus intervened, the Arkansas National Guard) formed a blockade to physically prevent them from entering the school building. The governor claimed this was within his power even after ''Brown v. Board'', because the students were enrolled without issue, they were just physically blocked from entering the school building. After determining that the right to enroll in a school does, implicitly, include the right to actually attend classes there, president Eisenhower ordered the 101st Airborne Division to accompany the students and force the National Guard to stand down, thus integrating the school. This incident became known as the {{w|Little Rock Nine}}.<br>However, {{w|Integral|integration}} also has a meaning in mathematics. This is indicated in the comic with the soldiers lifting up a giant integral sign to place beside the school, in order to (mathematically) integrate it. Normally, an integral only makes sense on functions; however, since this is the Little Rock ''Nine'', if we take the integral of the constant function ''f''(''x'') = 9, we do, in fact, get 9''x'' + ''C'', as stated in the title text. The posture of the three soldiers with the integral sign echoes the iconic {{w|Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima}} photograph. | # After ''{{w|Brown v. Board of Education}}'' ruled that schools could not segregate based on race, nine African American students from Little Rock, Arkansas enrolled in the previously-segregated Little Rock Central High School. The school board could not officially deny them attendance, but members of the community (and, after Arkansas governor Orval Faubus intervened, the Arkansas National Guard) formed a blockade to physically prevent them from entering the school building. The governor claimed this was within his power even after ''Brown v. Board'', because the students were enrolled without issue, they were just physically blocked from entering the school building. After determining that the right to enroll in a school does, implicitly, include the right to actually attend classes there, president Eisenhower ordered the 101st Airborne Division to accompany the students and force the National Guard to stand down, thus integrating the school. This incident became known as the {{w|Little Rock Nine}}.<br>However, {{w|Integral|integration}} also has a meaning in mathematics. This is indicated in the comic with the soldiers lifting up a giant integral sign to place beside the school, in order to (mathematically) integrate it. Normally, an integral only makes sense on functions; however, since this is the Little Rock ''Nine'', if we take the integral of the constant function ''f''(''x'') = 9, we do, in fact, get 9''x'' + ''C'', as stated in the title text. The posture of the three soldiers with the integral sign echoes the iconic {{w|Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima}} photograph. | ||
# Cell phones with advanced computing capabilities, typically at least requiring fully-featured Internet browsing, multimedia capabilities, and the ability to run software applications, are called "smartphones." Most cell phones also have a "vibrate" function that allows someone in a public situation to receive calls without alerting others; the phone will discreetly vibrate rather than activate a ringtone, thus privately notifying the owner that a call is incoming. A semi-common problem with this feature is that a vibrating phone on a table that has a slight slope will slowly - or, if the slope is bad enough, rather quickly - slide down the slope, possibly falling off the table and breaking. If our smartphones ever decided to kill us, this would possibly be their only method of attack. Randall would later cover this topic in the ''[[what if? (blog)|what if?]]'' article ''{{what if|5|Robot Apocalypse}}''. | # Cell phones with advanced computing capabilities, typically at least requiring fully-featured Internet browsing, multimedia capabilities, and the ability to run software applications, are called "smartphones." Most cell phones also have a "vibrate" function that allows someone in a public situation to receive calls without alerting others; the phone will discreetly vibrate rather than activate a ringtone, thus privately notifying the owner that a call is incoming. A semi-common problem with this feature is that a vibrating phone on a table that has a slight slope will slowly - or, if the slope is bad enough, rather quickly - slide down the slope, possibly falling off the table and breaking. If our smartphones ever decided to kill us, this would possibly be their only method of attack. Randall would later cover this topic in the ''[[what if? (blog)|what if?]]'' article ''{{what if|5|Robot Apocalypse}}''. | ||
| β | # The Three Little Pigs is a children's fairy tale about three pigs who build their houses out of, respectively, straw, sticks, and bricks. A wolf comes along and eats the pigs living in the straw and stick houses, but he can't knock down the brick house, because his only method for breaking them down is to blow on them until the material falls to pieces. (In some variants, the more foolish pigs seek refuge in the brick house for a happier total ending for all but the wolf.) The 119 Little Pigs seems to be a variant where the pigs build their houses out of the 118 {{w|chemical elements}}, plus one other material (perhaps the bricks). The 38th little pig builds his house out of {{w|strontium}}, which is, of course, the 38th element on the Periodic Table. One wonders what happened to the pigs who are stuck making their houses out of elements that are gaseous or liquid at room temperature, or those whose houses would react with the air and/or undergo nuclear decay. In his book ''[[What If? (book)|What If?]]'', in the first comic, it shows the 92nd little pig, who built his house out of depleted Uranium, The wolf responded, "Dude". However, given the water content in exhaled breath, it's {{w|Alkali metal#Reaction with water (alkali metal hydroxides)|easy to see}} how the wolf would huff, puff, and blow down the houses made of {{w|lithium}}, {{w|sodium}}, {{w|potassium}}, {{w|rubidium}}, {{w|caesium}}, and {{w|francium}}. Though making houses out of {{w|hydrogen}}, {{w|helium}}, {{w|nitrogen}}, {{w|oxygen}}, {{w|fluorine}}, {{w|neon}}, {{w|chlorine}}, {{w|argon}}, {{w|krypton}}, {{w|xenon}}, and {{w|radon}} would all be very difficult as they are gases at room temperature | + | # The Three Little Pigs is a children's fairy tale about three pigs who build their houses out of, respectively, straw, sticks, and bricks. A wolf comes along and eats the pigs living in the straw and stick houses, but he can't knock down the brick house, because his only method for breaking them down is to blow on them until the material falls to pieces. (In some variants, the more foolish pigs seek refuge in the brick house for a happier total ending for all but the wolf.) The 119 Little Pigs seems to be a variant where the pigs build their houses out of the 118 {{w|chemical elements}}, plus one other material (perhaps the bricks). The 38th little pig builds his house out of {{w|strontium}}, which is, of course, the 38th element on the Periodic Table. One wonders what happened to the pigs who are stuck making their houses out of elements that are gaseous or liquid at room temperature, or those whose houses would react with the air and/or undergo nuclear decay. In his book ''[[What If? (book)|What If?]]'', in the first comic, it shows the 92nd little pig, who built his house out of depleted Uranium, The wolf responded, "Dude". However, given the water content in exhaled breath, it's {{w|Alkali metal#Reaction with water (alkali metal hydroxides)|easy to see}} how the wolf would huff, puff, and blow down the houses made of {{w|lithium}}, {{w|sodium}}, {{w|potassium}}, {{w|rubidium}}, {{w|caesium}}, and {{w|francium}}. Though making houses out of {{w|hydrogen}}, {{w|helium}}, {{w|nitrogen}}, {{w|oxygen}}, {{w|fluorine}}, {{w|neon}}, {{w|chlorine}}, {{w|argon}}, {{w|krypton}}, {{w|xenon}}, and {{w|radon}} would all be very difficult as they are gases at room temperature{{Citation needed}}. Also, there would be issues such as death from the toxicity of the elements, e.g. fluorine would kill the pig and wolf. The piggies may have difficulty collecting enough metal, as they would have trouble collecting enough {{w|technetium}} (43), which only occurs in minute traces, and {{w|astatine}}, of which approximately 1 ounce exists on earth. It could be a coincidence, or possibly Randall's intent, that the wolf asks "What is this shit?" while referring to strontium while "stronzo" is an Italian (vulgar) word for "turd", pronounced almost the same (it's a common source of bad taste jokes) and stront is a Dutch word for shit. |
# "Fastest gun in the West" is a boast commonly made in Western movies, where it is used to mean that a person is the fastest at drawing his gun in a duel (or, alternatively, can fire his gun the fastest). It doesn't actually describe the gun itself, and certainly doesn't describe how fast the gun can gallop across the land. | # "Fastest gun in the West" is a boast commonly made in Western movies, where it is used to mean that a person is the fastest at drawing his gun in a duel (or, alternatively, can fire his gun the fastest). It doesn't actually describe the gun itself, and certainly doesn't describe how fast the gun can gallop across the land. | ||
# "It's what separates the ''men'' from the ''boys''" is a phrase used to describe "macho" activities that, apparently, only "real men" will participate/do well in; all the other men haven't grown up yet, and are thus "boys." This strip takes a more literal approach, making a joke about how centrifuges also separate the men from the boys because the men are heavier. {{w|Centrifuge}}s are used to rapidly separate a material from the liquid it's suspended in; this is either a pun on the word "separate", or an attempt by Randall to make the occupation of lab technician seem macho. In the film ''{{W|Moonraker_(film)|Moonraker}}'', {{W|James Bond}} was almost killed in a centrifuge used as a g-force training vehicle for pilots/astronauts - but he survived - and he for sure is a real man... See also [[123: Centrifugal Force]]. | # "It's what separates the ''men'' from the ''boys''" is a phrase used to describe "macho" activities that, apparently, only "real men" will participate/do well in; all the other men haven't grown up yet, and are thus "boys." This strip takes a more literal approach, making a joke about how centrifuges also separate the men from the boys because the men are heavier. {{w|Centrifuge}}s are used to rapidly separate a material from the liquid it's suspended in; this is either a pun on the word "separate", or an attempt by Randall to make the occupation of lab technician seem macho. In the film ''{{W|Moonraker_(film)|Moonraker}}'', {{W|James Bond}} was almost killed in a centrifuge used as a g-force training vehicle for pilots/astronauts - but he survived - and he for sure is a real man... See also [[123: Centrifugal Force]]. | ||
