xkcd.com

xkcd.com: A webcomic of romance and math humor.

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xkcd.com
14 Feb 02:42

Bad Map Projection: Zero Declination

'The zero line in WMM2025 passes through a lot of population centers; I wonder what year the largest share of the population lived in a zone of less than 5° of declination,' he thought, derailing all other tasks for the rest of the day.

xkcd.com
12 Feb 02:42

Installation

Do YOU remember the skylight being this big?

xkcd.com
10 Feb 04:57

Carbon Dating

This dating is corroborated by the presence of stone tools at the site, rather than earlier and less effective helium ones.

xkcd.com
06 Feb 19:39

Dinosaurs And Non-Dinosaurs

Staplers are actually in Pseudosuchia, making them more closely related to crocodiles than to dinosaurs.

xkcd.com
05 Feb 04:45

Binary Star

The discovery of a fully typographical star system comes with a big asterisk.

xkcd.com
02 Feb 16:51

Groundhog Day Meaning

Originally, the ceremony used a variety of rodents and mustelids, but over time most people agreed it made sense to standardize on a specific individual ground squirrel in Pennsylvania.

xkcd.com
30 Jan 17:36

Proof Without Content

There's also a proof without content of a conjecture without content, but it's left as an exercise for the reader.

xkcd.com
28 Jan 20:39

Chemical Formula

Some of the atoms in the molecule are very weakly bound.

xkcd.com
27 Jan 00:57

Early Arthropods

'Ugh, I'm never going to be like spiders. My descendants will all just be normal arthropods who mind their own busines and don't do anything weird.' --The ancestor of a bunch of eusocial insects

xkcd.com
24 Jan 02:42

Double-Pronged Extension Cord

'Oh, and can I borrow 50 sacks of loose flour, a pile of lithium-ion batteries, a bucket of bleach, and a bucket of vinega--' 'NO!!!!!!'

xkcd.com
21 Jan 23:42

Cost Savings

Unfortunately, my scheme to trick NASA has now taken over a decade longer than planned and has run way over budget.

xkcd.com
20 Jan 02:57

Aurora Coolness

I've had countless nights where the line never left the bottom zone of the graph, but the few moments where it's climbed all the way to the top have made up for them all.

xkcd.com
16 Jan 15:36

International Station

Welcome to the International Space Station Exclamation Point!

xkcd.com
14 Jan 20:39

16 Part Epoxy

Some surfaces may seem difficult to glue. But if you research the materials, find tables of what adhesives work on them, and prepare your surfaces carefully, you can fail to glue them in a fun NEW way that fills your house with dangerous vapors.

xkcd.com
13 Jan 04:57

Sailing Rigs

I wanted to make the world's fastest yawl, so I made the aft sail bigger, but apparently that means it's not a yawl anymore! It's a real ketch-22.

xkcd.com
10 Jan 05:45

Planetary Alignment

We're going to need to modify the surface to mount it on the test stand. Which ocean basin do you like the least?

xkcd.com
07 Jan 20:39

Superstition

It's important to teach yourself to feel responsible for random events, because with great responsibility comes great power. That's what my wise Uncle Ben told me right before he died; he might still be alive today if only I'd said rabbit rabbit that year!

xkcd.com
06 Jan 03:57

Tensegrity

Some people argue that the tension and compression in the human skeleton is technically tensegrity, but it's missing the defining characteristic: making people say 'wtf, how is that thing floating?' when they see it.

xkcd.com
03 Jan 01:42

Conic Sections

They're not generally used for crewed spacecraft because astronauts HATE going around the corners.

xkcd.com
31 Dec 22:39

Anyone Else Here

Anyone else watching this Youtube video in 1954? If so, my last trip definitely messed with the timeline.

xkcd.com
29 Dec 23:54

High Altitude Cooking Instructions

1,300,000-1,400,000 ft: Ask a crew member to show you how to use the ISS food warmer.

xkcd.com
26 Dec 16:36

Truly Universal Outlet

Building Inspectors HATE This One Weird Trick

xkcd.com
25 Dec 01:42

Sauropods

Vertebrae Georg

xkcd.com
23 Dec 04:57

Funny Numbers

In 1899, people were walking around shouting '23' at each other and laughing, and confused reporters were writing articles trying to figure out what it meant.

xkcd.com
20 Dec 04:45

Pole Vault Pole

My goal in life is to be personally responsible for at least one sports rule change.

xkcd.com
18 Dec 00:42

Telescope Types

I'm trying to buy a gravitational lens for my camera, but I can't tell if the manufacturers are listing comoving focal length or proper focal length.

xkcd.com
16 Dec 04:57

Jumping Frog Radius

Earth's r_jf is approximately 1.5 light-days, leading to general relativity's successful prediction that all the frogs in the Solar System should be found collected on the surface of the Earth.

xkcd.com
12 Dec 23:42

Apples

The experimental math department's budget is under scrutiny for how much they've been spending on trains leaving Chicago at 9:00pm traveling at 45 mph.

xkcd.com
11 Dec 03:42

Fishing

'That's definitely above the catch-and-release size minimum for planetesimals.' 'I'm going to throw it back anyway.'

xkcd.com
09 Dec 02:57

Hyperacute Interdynamics

Our models fall apart where the three theories overlap; we're unable to predict what happens when a nanometer-sized squirrel eats a grapefruit with the mass of the sun.