xkcd

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Title text:

Reductio ad absurdum fails when reality is absurd.

Transcript:

At the left, a teacher is holding a pointer, pointing at a picture on the screen.]

[The picture shows a hydraulic lift, with a small fluid vessel on the left connected to a tube at the bottom, which connects to a large vessel on the right. On top of the large vessel is a weight labeled 1000 and a Cueball. The fluid in the large vessel is labeled with an upward arrow. Megan's hand is over the small vessel, with a downward arrow indicating that she's pressing on it.]

[Cueball, Hairbun, and Blondie are sitting at school desks going right to left.]

Cueball: No, that can't be right.

Cueball: If hydrostatic pressure worked that way, then you could use it to make machines that exert near-infinite force.

Cueball: And ancient people could have demolished entire mountains just by drilling small tunnels and filling them with water.

[Caption below comic:]

When I first learned about Pascal's law, I tried to disprove it by showing that it would lead to absurd consequences, but it turns out hydraulic presses and ruina montium are both real things.

Source: https://xkcd.com/3087/

explainxkcd for #3087

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submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
 

Title text:

Frankly, given their extreme gravitational fields and general instability, even 12-inch globes should probably be banned.

Transcript:

[A standard globe of the Earth is shown. It stands on a typical stand which holds it by two arms at the poles, so it can turn around like the Earth does. The Earth is turned so it shows Australia at the bottom and most of Asia, including the entire India to the left. Only the very tip of Alaska can bee seen of the Americas. Above the globe there is a double arrow that goes to two small lines that align with the edges of the globe (indicating the diameter). The arrow has been split in the middle and two lines of text is written in the gab. Above this text there is another line of text.]
Remember:
4 inches minimum

[Beneath the globe there are two small drawings. The left shows the Earth and to the left of the Earth there is a double arrow ending at two lines that indicated the diameter of the Earth going from top to bottom. The distance of this is written in inches to the left. From the Earth an arrow points to another drawing, this time the typical depiction of a black hole, with the "hat" shape. A warning sign is shown a the top right of the black hole with an exclamation mark inside.]
7/10"

[Caption Below the Panel:] The Earth's Schwarzschild radius is about 0.35 inches, which is why safety regulations require desktop globes to be at least 4 inches in diameter.

Source: https://xkcd.com/3086/

explainxkcd for #3086

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submitted 5 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
 

Title text:

In addition to gravity, burritos interact through the strong, weak, and electromagnetic forces, which is believed to be a major contributor to their popularity.

Transcript:

[Cueball and Ponytail are standing in front of a pentacle with lit candles at the corners. A black sphere, the oracle, is floating above the middle of the pentacle.]
Ponytail: Dear oracle,
Ponytail: What is the nature of dark matter?
Oracle: It's about 20 pounds.

[Close up of oracle]
Off-panel: What?
Oracle: Dark matter is a particle. It weighs about 20 pounds.
Oracle: It only interacts through gravity.

[Same view as first panel]
Cueball: Only gravity, huh?
Cueball: So none of our experiments are really going to tell us any more about it, then.
Oracle: Afraid not.

[Same view as first and third panels, except Cueball lifted his forearm.]
Cueball: So what do we do?
Oracle: You should go out for burritos.
Ponytail: How will that help?
Oracle: Well
Oracle: Burritos are pretty good.

Source: https://xkcd.com/3085/

explainxkcd for #3085

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Title text:

Unstoppable force-carrying particles can't interact with immovable matter by definition.

Transcript:

[An arrow pointing to the right and a trapezoid are labeled as 'Unstoppable Force' and 'Immovable Object' respectively.]
[The arrow is shown as entering the trapezoid from the left and the part of it in said trapezoid is coloured gray.]
[The arrow is shown as leaving the trapezoid to the right and is coloured black.]
[Caption below the panel:] I don't see why people find this scenario to be tricky.

Source: https://xkcd.com/3084/

explainxkcd for #3084

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rss feed (lemmy.sdf.org)
submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
 

added xkcd to my rss feed and this is the text on all the posts lol

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Juno mission data suggests that Jupiter actually contains Matryoshka doll-style nested copies of every other planet in the Solar System.

https://explainxkcd.com/3083/

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It's important to learn the moves that take you into the vortex, but it's best not to study vortex itself too closely. Even grandmasters who have built up a tolerance lose the ability to play for a few hours after studying it.

https://explainxkcd.com/3082/

FYI: As it's getting somewhat tedious to post new xkcd comics here manually (and get comments into my inbox), I am, after saving here, going to ask the operators of rss.ponder.cat to set up a bot to post these comics to a dedicated community. If that is set up, I will stop posting manually here. I suggest people then subscribe there.

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Rümeysa Öztürk was grabbed off the street in my town one month ago.

https://explainxkcd.com/3081/

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submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
 

After initial tests created a series of large holes in the wall of the lab, the higher-power Scanning Tunneling Tennis Ball Microscope project was quickly shut down.

https://explainxkcd.com/3080/

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'Wow, that must be why you swallow so many of them per year!' 'No, that's spiders. You swallow WAY more ants.'

https://explainxkcd.com/3079/

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The biggest expense was installing the mantle ducts to keep the carbonate-silicate cycle operating.

https://explainxkcd.com/3078/

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Our anti-de Sitter club is small at the moment, but I've started corresponding with the conformal field theory people.

https://explainxkcd.com/3077/

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When you worry that you're missing out on something by not making both choices simultaneously by quantum superposition, that's called phomo.

https://explainxkcd.com/3076/

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NOTIFICATION: Now dismissing a head of the Notification Hydra… NOTIFICATION: Success! You have dismissed a head of the Notification Hydra!

https://explainxkcd.com/3074/

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[later] I don't get why our pizza slices have such terrible reviews; the geotextile-infused sauce gives the toppings incredible slope stability!

https://explainxkcd.com/3073/

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We haven't actually seen a star fall in since we invented telescopes, but I have a list of ones I'm really hoping are next.

https://explainxkcd.com/3072/

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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.

https://explainxkcd.com/3071/

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Most properties can only boast INDOOR heated floors.

https://explainxkcd.com/3070/

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There has long been debate about Big Bird's species, with some experts claiming he was a canary, but recent genetic analysis places him firmly in Cariamiformes.

https://explainxkcd.com/3069/

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'Is it worth anything?' 'I dunno, is the answer to that question worth another $5?'

https://explainxkcd.com/3068/

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Unfortunately, SawStart is one-use-only. Once started, the blade cannot be stopped, and must be replaced with a fresh blade while the running one is carefully disposed of.

https://explainxkcd.com/3067/

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This is the biggest breakthrough since astronomers noticed that the little crosshairs around red giant stars starting to burn helium are all the same size.

https://explainxkcd.com/3066/

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