Sign up

xkcd.com

Not verified No WebSub updates No webmention support Valid

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

Public lists
Featured
Fetched

xkcd.com Valid

Sail Physics

Turning in other directions can be accomplished by using a magnetized centerboard and ocean currents, since a current flowing through a magnetic field induces a Laplace force.

xkcd.com Valid

Modern

Scholars are still debating whether the current period is post-postmodern or neo-contemporary.

xkcd.com Valid

Deposition

P.S. If you have time travel, come to my birthday party Saturday!

xkcd.com Valid

Pascal's Law

Reductio ad absurdum fails when reality is absurd.

xkcd.com Valid

Globe Safety

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

xkcd.com Valid

About 20 Pounds

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

xkcd.com Valid

Unstoppable Force and Immovable Object

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

xkcd.com Valid

Jupiter Core

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

xkcd.com Valid

Chess Position

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.

xkcd.com Valid

PhD Timeline

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

xkcd.com Valid

Tennis Balls

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.

xkcd.com Valid

Air Fact

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

xkcd.com Valid

Anchor Screws

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

xkcd.com Valid

de Sitter

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

xkcd.com Valid

The Roads Both Taken

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

xkcd.com Valid

Anachronym Challenge

I have to pay with paper money.

xkcd.com Valid

Push Notifications

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

xkcd.com Valid

Tariffs

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

xkcd.com Valid

Stargazing 4

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.

xkcd.com Valid

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.

xkcd.com Valid

Orogeny

Most properties can only boast INDOOR heated floors.

xkcd.com Valid

Terror Bird

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.

xkcd.com Valid

Rock Identification

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

xkcd.com Valid

SawStart

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.

xkcd.com Valid

Cosmic Distance Calibration

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.

xkcd.com Valid

Square Units

The biggest I've seen in a published source in the wild is an 80-fold error in a reported distance, which I think came from a series of at least three unit conversions and area/length misinterpretations.

xkcd.com Valid

Lungfish

I know having so many base pairs makes rebasing complicated, but you're in Bilateria, so shouldn't you at LEAST be better at using git head?

xkcd.com Valid

Planet Definitions

Under the 'has cleared its orbital neighborhood' and 'fuses hydrogen into helium' definitions, thanks to human activities Earth technically no longer qualifies as a planet but DOES count as a star.

xkcd.com Valid

Off By One

It does come at the small cost of a LOT more off-by-40-or-50 errors.

xkcd.com Valid

Water Balloons

Update: The physics department has recruited an astronomer who studies meteor fireballs.