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Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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We have an explanation for all 3071 xkcd comics, and only 69 (2.2%) are incomplete. Help us finish them!

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Decay Chain
If you have an old phone in a drawer, and you listen very carefully, you can occasionally hear the occasional tap of an emitted SIM card hitting the side of the drawer as the phone transmutes to a lower-end model.
Title text: If you have an old phone in a drawer, and you listen very carefully, you can occasionally hear the occasional tap of an emitted SIM card hitting the side of the drawer as the phone transmutes to a lower-end model.

Explanation

This comic suggests that as iPhones get heavier (as model iterations get higher) they, like heavier chemical elements, become unstable and susceptible to decay. In science, some atoms decays into other atoms, releasing some energy in the process. This comic humorously explore how an iPhone would decay if decaying works the same.

The decay step from the iPhone 13 Pro to the iPhone 14 Plus is missing a symbol. It is presumably meant to be beta minus decay.

Transcript

Flow chart: iPhone 16 pro max

[Caption below the panel:]
Physicists believe that an iPhone 16 Pro Max will, if left alone long enough, eventually decay into an iPhone 7, the heaviest stable model.




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