Talk:2632: Greatest Scientist

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Revision as of 11:16, 2 July 2022 by 172.70.222.79 (talk)
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If anyone knows how to get this to work with the bar at the top, please do it! SqueakSquawk4 (talk) 18:32, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

User:SqueakSquawk4 for everything to display correctly I think you need to follow the steps here: User:DgbrtBOT#When_the_BOT_fails... Ahiijny (talk) 18:43, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
A) Following them now. B) Bookmarked. SqueakSquawk4 (talk) 18:45, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
Should be fixed now. Natg19 (talk) 18:49, 13 June 2022 (UTC)


Saying Viviani already proved that the acceleration due to gravity on an object is independent of mass runs into a snag: Viviani suggest that it was Galileo who showed him that. So whether Galileo actually dropped any balls from the Tower of Pisa or was even the first to assert the principle in writing, he seems to be the driving force behind Vivian's proofs of it. Dismissing Galileo here is wrong. 172.69.70.159 21:53, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Thunderbolts and lightning, very, very frightening me. Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Figaro.... 162.158.159.41 23:22, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

He did this before in 1531, where he combines several principles into a single comic. 108.162.245.31 23:39, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Hard to believe he's been doing these comics for nearly 500 years now. 162.158.187.138 19:46, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

So many missed opportunities to include Focault's pendulum, cannonball mine drops, the Magnus and Coriolis effects, electromagnatism, etc, ad nauseam, ad astra 108.162.221.193 13:57, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Pavlov was inhumane

Pavlov did a lot more than just ring some bells. For example (Trigger warning for dog lovers), he drained them of stomach acid until they were dead for profit alone, and sewed dogs heads onto each other. I think this should be acknowledges. I have put this in the main article, but it has been removes. I've tried re-phrasing, and want to know how well that will stick.

What do you think should happen. I think it is important to acknowledge, but at the same time it is not directly relevant to the comic. Please discuss. SqueakSquawk4 (talk) 23:16, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
It was I who removed the first phrasing, and as it is written now I think it's good. Perhaps a trivia section would be appropriate for it, as someone else mentioned, and I saw no problem with having a link in the previous version. While False (speak) 09:19, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Seems most appropriate for a Trivia section and not the main article. 172.70.211.52
Two Petri dishes

The title text says that "One of the petri dishes" fell (emphasis added). Is that an obscure reference to the Twin paradox?

Proposed new text:
(Title text) One of the petri dishes fell and one did not The Twin paradox thought experiment: ... See 1432 Albert Einstein
No I think that is very far fetched. --Kynde (talk) 13:21, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
I have added it, with a "Possible" note next to it. (Or will have in a min)
Also, I assume you meant 1584: Moments of Inspiration, not 1432: The Sake of Argument.
Also Also, two Square brackets [ ] around an internal link, not two fancy/curly brackets {} SqueakSquawk4 (talk) 11:23, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
I will remove it. There is not sign of twin paradox in that title text! --Kynde (talk) 13:24, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Sorry. I'm such an imbecil for adding it. So so sorry. Is there something I can do to make up for it? I don't want to delete my account, but I would if you wanted. Edit: How about a compromise, where the Einstein theory is mentioned in brief under the table as far-fetched but possible? SqueakSquawk4 (talk) 14:27, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
The link to the twin paradox is that there are two Petri dishes and only one of them falls (rather than all of them) and that being bonked on the head "gives an idea". I think this should be included, and wouldn't mind a "possible" or "unlikely" or "far-fetched" qualifier. For that matter I wouldn't mind if the table literally said "This is absolutely definitely positively with a cherry on top not a reference to the Twin paradox" :) -OP
Thanks SS4. I meant the title text of 1432, which explains thought experiments (they also came up in 1233 but aren't explained there).
I used {} because I assumed that'd link to that comic with both its number and its title. -OP
Quick list of these things, in case it helps.
  • Bare URLs are treated as literal links if recognisable (might fall over some URLs, best avoided when more complicated than https://www.microsoft.com) - and note the padlock icon in most cases.
  • Single []s are for URLs.
    • [URL] alone gives a 'reference number' link, not very viewer-friendly
    • [URL TEXT] (with a <space> between) gives the TEXT-as-link-to-URL format
    • Will include a 'padlock' icon on (most?) external sites
    • Using an explainxkcd URL (e.g. pointing at a page like an edit-diff one) doesn't add the padlock... May be possible to link to those with [[]], below, but I find it simpler to do it this way, when necessary.
  • Double [[]]s are best used for internal links
    • [[PAGE_TITLE]] (need not use underscore for spaces, but can) links in the form you write...
    • [[PAGE_TITLE|TEXT]] gives you the choice of using alternate text.
    • Because of page-redirects, often a [[COMIC_NUMBER]] or a [[COMIC_TITLE]] will work and send you to the right [[COMIC_NUMBER:_COMIC_TITLE]], but it's good practice to use the latter because some comics are titled with numbers, etc, and if you're not giving substituted link-text it's convention to link (e.g.) 2632: Greatest Scientist visibly explicit like that... ;)
  • {{}} is for invoking Templates
    • Some are unqualified, like {{Citation needed}}
    • But {{TEMPLATE|OPTIONS|...}} is common. e.g.:
    • Other useful templated shortcuts to external sites are {{tvtropes}} (a wiki-in-spirit) and {{wiktionary}}, that require the 'page title' as first parameter and any text-to-link-as optional second. Note that because TVTropesWillRuinYourLife, the TVTropes-linking template is set up to visually warn the possibly compulsive wikiwalker that they may get sucked in and does retain the padlock... ;)
HTH, HAND! 172.70.90.227 21:02, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
TYVM, 227! I just assumed there'd be a bot that auto-creates templates, for instance, create Template:2632 with contents "2632: Greatest Scientist"...
To close the Petri dish issue, (by the time I got to read tbis) the title text says "... that I left on the rail ..." so it wasn't one of the two hanging from the kite. RIIW - Ponder it (talk) 21:34, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
I noticed that -- two different petri dish "experiments". I don't think that any reference to Einstein's work is suggested/implied by the comic. BunsenH (talk) 15:42, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
As before I agree and removed a new version of it. --Kynde (talk) 11:44, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
Height shadow

I'm not sure which scientist (or probably ancient philosophy) it might be referencing, but I get the direct impression that the first shadow in the spiel (which KarlMann just removed the row for, and I agree that that it was redundant to the latter shadow, insofar as it was written) is directly referencing the principle of using a shadow to calculate height, as indicated by the illustration, as opposed to the 'shadow to calculate radius' of the latter one. 172.70.90.227 10:19, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

I think you're right, and I may have been a bit hasty. But also, I don't know of any association of that shadow measurement with Eratosthenes. I'd guess that it well pre-dates him (pun not intended). But I have no idea who might have done it first, or whether their name may have been lost to the mists of history, much less any citation to back myself up on this. -- KarMann (talk) 10:23, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
No, not hasty, as Erato's involvement was clearly less useful in that bit (and I take it that the h2 local-horizontal to the dog is a typical Randall-joke comparison to the h1 local-height to the tower-top), and it would just invite reversion to have merely cleared out the existing 'explanation' without something convincing to replace it. And I've nothing convincing (or based upon a definite named historic figure, or even an alleged/fabled one) in my mind, because I imagine the principle is Older Than The Pyramids, possibly back to Babylon/Ur/whatever if not even a hunter-gatherer rule-of-thumb.
(Literally? Making an L with thumb and fingers and touching the thumb onto the end of your nose and sighting the tips of the upheld tips of fingers to a tree you're cutting down is also a pretty decent indicator (a couple of extra strides backwards might be reasonable!) of how far back is a safe distance when felling it. If you don't have that stick often mentioned in the arms'-length method. For some reason... despite being tolerably near at least one tree and having a handy axe available to you... ;) ) 172.70.85.177 13:23, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Isn’t the first "shadow" mention an obvious reference to the famous story of how Thales of Miletus (the "Father of Science") measured the height of the Great Pyramid ? Just google "Thales shadow" to get an idea of how widely known the experiment is. This article discusses it in detail. I think the Thales experiment would deserve a mention in the explanation.
I agree, it's a reference to Thales. i'll add a row to the table.108.162.221.81 16:39, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
Newton's Gravity

Newton didn't discover Gravity, (as Douglas Adams, as Dirk Gentley, said "they even leave it on at the weekend"). His insight was that there weren't separate Earth, Sun, Moon, Planet, etc gravities, but one Universal Gravity. He also worked out the equations which explain why we don't fall towards the sun. RIIW - Ponder it (talk) 21:50, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

In one of Diana Gabalon's Outlander series of books, one of the lead characters, Claire, reinvents penicillin circa 1770 but she time-traveled from the 1970's or so. Joem5636 (talk) 10:51, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

should it be mentioned that Galileo used pure logic to show that weight doesn't determine the speed of fall? "Two identical bricks would fall side by side; no doubt about that. If a piece of string was tied to them they still would. Shortening the string could not change that. Hence two bricks tied together end to end would fall at the same speed as either brick alone. Now throw away the string and glue the bricks together; no reason appears why this double brick of double weight should fall faster than two bricks tied together—or either one alone"