2011-08-30
Original: 2011-08-30 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1 (caption): They say Kekule was imagining a snake eating its own tail when he understood the structure of benzene.
Elderly bald man with a long gray beard (thought): If it's shaped like a ring of alternating bonds, all the pieces come together.
Panel 2 (caption): They say Einstein understood relativity when he imagined a man in an elevator.
Man with dark hair and a mustache (thought): If you were in an elevator accelerating up, it'd be the same from your perspective as being in a gravity field.
Panel 3 (caption): Sometimes I wonder what the scientists who figured out particle self-interaction were imagining...
Man with glasses and a beard, fingers pressed together (thought): When nobody's observing, the particle likes to interfere with itself.
Votey:
A large blue circle (a stylized particle) with a thick black horizontal line across its middle (a closed, contented eye/mouth) says: Oh hey.
Elderly bald man with a long gray beard (thought): If it's shaped like a ring of alternating bonds, all the pieces come together.
Panel 2 (caption): They say Einstein understood relativity when he imagined a man in an elevator.
Man with dark hair and a mustache (thought): If you were in an elevator accelerating up, it'd be the same from your perspective as being in a gravity field.
Panel 3 (caption): Sometimes I wonder what the scientists who figured out particle self-interaction were imagining...
Man with glasses and a beard, fingers pressed together (thought): When nobody's observing, the particle likes to interfere with itself.
Votey:
A large blue circle (a stylized particle) with a thick black horizontal line across its middle (a closed, contented eye/mouth) says: Oh hey.
Alt text
A three-panel SMBC comic, each panel pairing an orange caption about a famous scientist's imagined thought experiment with a portrait of a man thinking. Panel 1 caption: 'They say Kekule was imagining a snake eating its own tail when he understood the structure of benzene.' An elderly bald man with a long gray beard thinks: 'If it's shaped like a ring of alternating bonds, all the pieces come together.' Panel 2 caption: 'They say Einstein understood relativity when he imagined a man in an elevator.' A mustached man thinks: 'If you were in an elevator accelerating up, it'd be the same from your perspective as being in a gravity field.' Panel 3 caption: 'Sometimes I wonder what the scientists who figured out particle self-interaction were imagining...' A bearded man with glasses, fingertips pressed together, thinks: 'When nobody's observing, the particle likes to interfere with itself.' The joke implies the mental image is a particle being sexually self-interactive. Votey: A big blue circle stand-in for the particle, with a thick black line as a blissful closed eye/mouth, says contentedly, 'Oh hey.'
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.