Talk:2217: 53 Cards

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Revision as of 03:29, 20 October 2019 by 162.158.75.238 (talk)
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"This page was last edited [tomorrow]." Okay, good to know. Tomorrow starts three hours from now, my time. This comic reminded me of this article: https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/10/corkscrewing-bouncy-ion-drive-would-provide-thrust-in-different-universe/ 172.68.38.88 00:44, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

I can do this, but my flowchart would be different and involve secretly inserting a joker, using the shuffling as cover for the move. Collect a deck of 52 cards and have a spectator count the cards. - Secretly hide a joker from the deck in your off-hand (the one without the deck). - Shuffle the cards, letting the hidden card drop on top of the deck. - Keep shuffling, so the inserted joker is well mixed into the deck. - Have a spectator count the cards, looking only at the backs. - 53. Nutster (talk) 04:56, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Actually this is also what encryption scientists have to face talking to not so few encryption enthusiasts who just invented their own encryption method162.158.234.112 07:01, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Ohg V unir na haornnoyr pvcure! 162.158.158.253 13:52, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
The difference is that those "own excryption methods" usually work ... not well, but at least little. Now, the algorithms which claim to compress ANY input to smaller size, those tend to be suspicious ... -- Hkmaly (talk) 22:15, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Wait, isn't perpetual motion (w.r.t. a inertial reference frame) possible, at least according to Newtonian mechanics? Just launch something into space at high enough speed and "watch" it wander away forever. Extracting (an unbounded amount of) energy from that object is a totally different story... --162.158.234.94 10:11, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Not really, as even in vacuums particles randomly come into existence. Eventually enough would be in the path to slow it to a stop. 162.158.62.151 17:37, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
Not in Newtonian mechanics. Those random particles are result of quantum physics - and in quantum physics, EVERYTHING is possible, just unlikely (there is extremely small but nonzero probability that all particles in macroscopic object would exhibit tunneling effect moving them in same direction, for example). -- Hkmaly (talk) 22:15, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Getting a 53 card deck from a 52 card deck is easy. First, cut the deck twice. Then, shuffle all parts together; be sure to suffer thoroughly. Finally, take off the top 5 cards, sneak in the Joker on the bottom while nobody's looking, and put the five cards at the "middle". Because of skewed philosophy, you will have gotten a 53 card deck!162.158.122.186

“The amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.” -Alberto Brandolini Menoshe (talk) 22:03, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Note that while it shouldn't be possible to obtain energy from nowhere, there ARE methods which makes hard to find where the energy comes from, and some may be useful (say, perhaps as a new kind of battery?). Also, anything involving not-completely-understood phenomena, like black hole for example, might actually generate energy from source we don't know about yet (parallel universe or something like that). Meanwhile, lot of theoretical designs of perpetual motion machines without working prototype only contain steps which can't possibly get energy anywhere and are completely useless ... -- Hkmaly (talk) 22:15, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

In the picture it seems that he cuts the cards into a pile of 21 cards and 38 cards (thus making 59 cards) I'm sure that helps his argument (or he can't count.