Xkcd - Blog Posts
I've recently read What If 2, and since my brain has been pointing true IWTV for a few weeks now, I couldn't help but get stuck on this question:
Link to the entire thing:
This has two possible explanations: The first (most likely) is that vampires in IWTV don't get drunk on the actual alcohol in people's blood, they get drunk on the drunkenness. The second, much funnier explanation is that when you become a vampire you also become a lightweight who gets incredibly drunk on a pint of beer.
Remember, history was awful. Never trust the romantics.
The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space--each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision.
—Randall Munroe, xkcd #893
Would like a map of the whole area, just to know for sure i’ve been to all the places :)
Wow, this is the coolest comic i ever read! Got your book (”What if?”) and now think its the second coolest thing i read! :) Keep it up!
Wow, this is the coolest comic i ever read! Got your book (”What if?”) and now think its the second coolest thing i read! :) Keep it up!
taking a whack at these for funsies
π - Im guessing complex analysis but pi is used in so many things from the area of a circle to QFT that you could honestly pick two things from any of it and say this about them.
Δ - notably referring to a change in quantity due to an object being in a different state. Your ball was 10C, now it's 20C. ΔT = 10C. along with pi one of the first symbols you get familiar with
δ - Dirac delta or Kronecker delta. This is "change" if the "change" only lasted for an infinitesimally small, perfectly instantaneous moment. Handy for modeling point-like things such as atomic nuclei in quantum mechanics.
θ - i culd b ur angle or ur.... Heavidise step function. definitely not just circles.
ϕ - I was gonna say "NOT JUST ORBS" but everything basically boils down to spherical harmonics or is rotationally symmetric so you can ignore phi anyway...
ϵ - "dont worry about it but also if you dont include this teeny tiny thing you can't solve this equation". usually an infinitesimal addition to something to literally just... work around singularities where the math breaks down.
𝞶 - the worst part about nu is that in QFT all the variations of v, nu, and u are often used simultaneously. good luck if the lecturer has bad handwriting. usually you can tell which one it is by looking at where it is in the equation. could be momentum or an index.
μ - more familiar with this as magnetic permeability which is DEFINITELY something you can feel when you play with a couple o common magnets. also sometimes an index in QFT.
Σ - just means adding stuff up.
Π - same but multiplying.
ξ - i hate this thing. hate it. its a function that i also hate. ruining my pretty notes by making me just... do a little poopy scribble. but sometimes its also used a bit like epsilon.
β - because no one wants to write v^2/c^2 over and over again and i wholeheartedly agree. alternatively a back-up when you run out of the other angle symbols, including...
α - idk what xkcd means here, alpha particles? but those aren't the scariest radiation. also used for an angle or an index, along with beta.
Ω - jeez so many things. solid angle? Resistance?? Multiplicity??? ω - usually for frequency, and therefore attached to most modern physics.
σ - standard deviation. you'll hear particle physicists become optimistic at "3-sigma" and they start throwing parties at "5-sigma". its a bit more complicated but boils down to more sigmas, more certainty that your measurement is legit.
γ - Lorentz factor, used in relativity. not exactly itself the speed of light (c) but the scale factor by which some quantity changes when approaching it.
ρ - also often used alongside "p" in QFT, both referring to momentum but of different particles. also used for "density" in more basic applications, or "resistivity" in E&M. Same letter, completely different meaning depending on context.
Ξ - never had to write this one down actually. chi-squared yes for statistics
ψ - sometimes used kind of like phi, usually referring to a different particle in the same system. usually a wave function, thus triton bit.
What Greek letters mean in equations (source : xkcd.com)
But you don't become great by trying to be great. You become great by wanting to do something, and then doing it so hard that you become great in the process.
Zombie Marie Curie.
This xkcd comic from 2009 changed my life. It feels timeless.
![Title: Decoding a M.E.T.A.R. Report:
[A M.E.T.A.R. report is shown with (incorrect) annotations. The report is:]
M.E.T.A.R. ("Meter", usually misspelled.)
K.N.Y.C. (Station I.D.)
251600 Z (Time: 25, 16, 002.)
18035 G 45 K.T. (Wind speed has been 18,035 knots for a good 45 minutes now.)
6 S.M. (Observer is a size 6 small.)
V.C.F.C.F.Z.V.A. (Sorry, the station cat walked on the keyboard.)
+ Blup (Weird noise the sky made earlier.)
No Sig (Observer has no significant other [frowny face].) L.T.G. O.H.D. (We overheard someone saying there was lightning.)
A 3808 (Hey look, an Airbus A380-800!)
R.M.K. (Remarkable!)
A Oh 2 (Fanfic Archive equipped with a precipitation sensor.)
S.P.L. 130= (Observer got sleepy around 1:30.)](https://64.media.tumblr.com/313cdc57cc37e58001feadcb4f00cf15/d2bfe372cfe3d8d5-3c/s500x750/465d8370803e96f76c9e1b20922582832fc80982.png)
In the aviation world, they don't use AM/PM times. Instead, all times are assumed to be AM unless they're labeled NOTAM.
METAR [Explained]
Transcript Under the Cut
Decoding a METAR Report:
[A METAR report is shown with annotations. The report is:]
METAR KNYC 251600Z 18035G45KT 6SM VCFCFZVA +BLUP NOSIG LTG OHD A3808 RMK A02 SPL130=
[The annotations are:]METAR "METER" (Usually misspelled) KNYC Station ID 251600Z Time (25:16:002) 18035G45KT Wind speed has been 18,035 knots for a good 45 minutes now 6SM Observer is a size 6 small VCFCFZVA Sorry, the station cat walked on the keyboard +BLUP Weird noise the sky made earlier NOSIG Observer has no significant other :( LTG OHD We overheard someone saying there was lightning A3808 Hey look, an Airbus A380-800! RMK Remarkable! A02 Fanfic Archive equipped with a precipitation sensor SPL130= Observer got sleepy around 1:30
I just realized that I have a couple (2) of these books. They're amazing!
xkcd fans are the only fandom I've had direct experience with where people do the stereotypical nerdy fan thing of referring to installments of the thing they like by their release order numbers instead of their titles