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| Source: XKCD.com |
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| Source - Brewster Rockit |
See, it's funny because it's a reference to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle in which - in a very simplified format - we can know the momentum or position of a particle but never both.
I warn you, the uncertainty principle is a whole lot more complicated in its real form, but unless you're really into quantum mechanics, I recommend that you take the simple version instead.
With larger objects - say a person or a baseball - we can know the two quantities about the object almost perfectly, but as the object gets smaller - like atoms and protons and electrons or a shrunken Brewster Rockit - we can know less and less about the combination of the two quantities.
I get it. It takes some subtlety and understanding of the world of quantum mechanics to get the joke.
Luckily, I get the joke...like I got this other, similar one.
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| Source - SMBC |
I get that - as is often the case in many genie stories - the genie fulfills the wish as spoken but not necessarily as the person intended it to be fulfilled. It's a fairly common trope, donchaknow.
But there are hydrogen atoms with two electrons or at least hydrogen ions that have two electrons. I guess changing every hydrogen atom to hydride ions (hydrogen with two electrons) would cause some problems, but I don't necessarily know that all of that would lead to immediate explosions.
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| Source - Cyanide & Happiness |
Then again, the circles of hell as described by Dante Alighieri in his Inferno suggest that the lower levels are for the greater sinners where greater punishment is meted out, and that image seems to have permeated the popular consciousness, so Joe's thinking seems to be reasonable.
Maybe this is another example of two people both being correct but simply not communicating with each other.
Just talk it out, Devil and Joe.
Then again, if we assume that hell is somewhere underground - maybe under Turkmenistan, maybe somewhere else - then the geothermal gradient should likely be considered.
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| Source: https://xkcd.com/2719/ |
See, it's funny because hydrogen actually does have three isotopes with official names: protium (hydrogen-1), deuterium (hydrogen-2), and tritium (hydrogen-3).
If you're not ready to follow along, the empty circles with a + are protons. Each hydrogen by definition has to have one of those, so a couple of the isotopes up there aren't really hydrogen.
The filled, black circles are neutrons. Those can be different - which is what makes isotopes different in the real, non-xkcd world.
The smaller circles with a minus sign (-) are electrons. Most neutral hydrogens have one of those, too, because positives and negatives sort of need to balance each other out.
The rest of them in that diagram aren't real. Technically explainxkcd.com says ium and instant hydrogen technically exist but certainly aren't common. The oops, all neutrons is a reference it Cap'n Crunch's Oops, all berries cereal. I would reference a particular comedian's routine about the Oops, all berries cereal, but it's not school-appropriate.
His name is K. Trevor Wilson...in case you wanted to look it up...which you clearly shouldn't do because he uses words that aren't school-appropriate.
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| Source - XKCD.com/2743/ |
It's the same idea as trying to brown a steak. If the outside of the steak is wet, the outside can't brown because the energy is going to evaporate the water which has to happen until all the water is gone, keeping the surface of the meat no hotter than 100 C. Once that water is gone, however, the steak's surface can get hotter and can brown.
Once your hands are dry, they can feel the warmth.
Until then, though, you just get evaporative cooling.
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| Rollover joke - The Earth is, on average, located in the habitable zone, but at any given time it has a certain probability of being outside it, which is why life exists on Earth but is mortal. (Source - XKCD) |
See, it's funny because most of the time, the atom - particularly the Bohr model of the atom - is likened to the solar system with electrons following 'orbital' paths around the nucleus the way that planets follow similar paths around the sun.
As a chemistry teacher, I can say that it's much, much harder to come up with a similarly easily understood analogy for how electrons exist in the quantum mechanical model of the atom. There just isn't any sort of macroscopic thing that is anything like the quantum mechanical model of the atom.
And if the planets did move like electrons, that would be somewhat terrifying - especially as electrons can teleport from region to region a la an electron in a box.
Though I do have some evidence that the planets have a measurable spin, so there is that, at least.
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| Source - https://xkcd.com/2658/ Rollover text: Theoretical physicist: At the Planck length, uncountably many. |
See, it's funny because...
I'll leave the middle three panels (and the rollover text) to the fine crowdsourcing folks at explainxkcd. If you don't get those, check the link.
...but the chemistry one is all mine.
The caffeine molecule...
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| Source - https://xkcd.com/2648/ |
See, it's funny because just knowing which atoms - and even how many of each of those atoms - constitute a molecule doesn't mean that you can synthesize that molecule.
There's an analogy here to cooking. If I list the ingredients - even if I include the amounts of each ingredient - for a recipe, that doesn't give you enough information actually to make that final product. Listing the ingredients for a chocolate cake, for example, doesn't tell you in which order the ingredients should be assembled, nor does it tell you how to handle each of those ingredients. Do you whip the butter, fold it in, melt it, freeze it, crumble it into the flour?
That analogy, though, even undersells the complexity of molecules, however, because not all atoms will assemble in the ways we want them to assemble. Some molecules require very specific pathways to produce.
To read this explanation in far more words, check out explainxkcd.com.
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| Source - XKCD |
See, the periodic table is appropriately periodic meaning there's a repeating pattern in its layout. In this case there's a repeating pattern in the properties of the elements when the elements are placed in order by their atomic number. Lithium is similar to sodium which is similar to potassium and on down with rubidium, cesium, and francium. With those similarities noticed, the elements were placed in columns with a new row (or period) starting every time those properties repeated.
It would be nice to see helium moved above beryllium, and there are some reasons why it maybe should be moved over there, but there are way more reasons why it belongs in column 18 with the noble gases.
Admittedly, changing the element symbols (iron = Fe but maybe should be I...silver = Ag but maybe should be Sv, and so on) is within the powers of a bunch of chemists if they really wanted to do it, but just moving the inner transition metals so they don't look dorky down at the bottom of the table isn't within the powers of those same chemists because it would require those elements to have different properties and different electron configurations. Those aren't things chemists have the power to change.
Maybe next week I'll rant about all the non-periodic periodic tables that I get shown in the course of my job.
Thanks, SMBC.
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| Source - Three Panel Soul |
See, it's funny because there was a movie called The Emoji Movie that was roundly and thoroughly panned by critics and still ended up being profitable.
So, if studios can build a movie around 'something kind of abstract and pretend it's a neoliberal bureaucracy,' and make money from it, it makes as much sense to make a Molecules movie as it does an Emoji Movie.
I am bothered, however, at the monatomic molecules, a clear oxymoron.
I do appreciate that Ian and Matt included the, 'one atom wants to get radical' joke...because radicals are atoms or molecules with an unpaired electron, making them highly reactive. The joke is nerdly funny.
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| Source - https://xkcd.com/2552/ |
See it's funny because there's no way that chemistry - or any science, really - will ever be 'complete'.
I'll quote here from the explainxkcd.com entry because it's really well written (as is usually the case)...
"[T]this may be a reference to a quote from around 1900, often attributed to Lord Kelvin or Albert Michelson: "There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement."
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"In real life the number of ways to arrange atoms into molecules grows combinatorically with the number of atoms in a molecule. Since molecules can be extremely large (up until the point where gravity takes over and initiates nuclear fusion), the number of possible combinations is much much larger than the number of particles in the observable universe, making the full cataloging of all molecules impossible. Thus, a "final molecule" cannot be reached. In addition, chemistry is the study of the interaction and changing states of atoms and molecules, not simply the cataloging of all specimens of molecule. Even if we did have a list of every molecule, there are a far greater number of ways to continue studying them, so the field would still be nowhere near completed."
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"As readers are aware of this, part of the humor comes from the very high percentages given to the different fields. [...] Another part of the humor is the precision."
Jokes for nerds, folks, jokes for nerds!
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| Source - SMBC |
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| Source: XKCD |
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| Source - link |
The situation described (scrambling to update geographical datasets in the advent of natural disaster) is actually a common occurrence these days. The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team's Disaster Response unit does almost exactly this: When there is a natural disaster in a location that lacks high quality GIS data (common in much of the developing world), a team of volunteers across the world mobilises to update and improve OpenStreetMap. They use the latest available satellite imagery, usually donated free for the purpose. Disaster response teams then use the GIS data in OpenStreetMap to create maps and plan their response.
The safety-conscious 1960s brought a quick end to the chemistry set’s popularity. The Federal Hazardous Substances Labeling Act of 1960 required labels for toxic and dangerous substances, and chemistry set makers removed the alcohol lamps and acids from their kits. The Toy Safety Act of 1969 removed lead paint from toys but also took its toll on the sets. The creation of the Consumer Product Safety Commission in 1972 and the passing of the Toxic Substances Control Act in 1976 resulted in further limits on the contents of the kits. Newspapers that once broadcast the arrival of new kinds of chemistry sets soon warned of their dangers, recommending that they only be given to older children and kept locked up from their younger siblings. “The death of the chemistry set is almost an unintended consequence of the rise in consumer protection laws,” says Cook.Sadly, it looks like in the world of the webcomic, all chemicals possibly more dangerous than water have been removed from chemistry sets.
