invisibility
Original: invisibility on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1 (narration caption over a woman presenter gesturing at a screen showing diagrams of waves bending around an object):
Presenter: So, the array of miniaturized split ring resonators perform a rapid heuristic calculation, bending all incident electromagnetic radiation around the interior object.
Panel 2:
Presenter: Effectively the object is visually undetectable from any angle!
Panel 3 (a man in the audience):
Audience member: Wow. What inspired you to work on invisibility cloaks?
Panel 4 (the presenter, smiling):
Presenter: Pure curiosity.
Flashback caption: 20 years earlier...
Panel 5 (a man approaches the same woman, younger):
Man: We need to talk.
Woman: I'm busy. Always especially now.
Panel 6 (the man walks away; the woman looks off thoughtfully):
Woman: There's got to be an easier way.
Votey:
The woman's face, sweating slightly.
Woman: Now I just need to eliminate sound and I'll be safe.
Presenter: So, the array of miniaturized split ring resonators perform a rapid heuristic calculation, bending all incident electromagnetic radiation around the interior object.
Panel 2:
Presenter: Effectively the object is visually undetectable from any angle!
Panel 3 (a man in the audience):
Audience member: Wow. What inspired you to work on invisibility cloaks?
Panel 4 (the presenter, smiling):
Presenter: Pure curiosity.
Flashback caption: 20 years earlier...
Panel 5 (a man approaches the same woman, younger):
Man: We need to talk.
Woman: I'm busy. Always especially now.
Panel 6 (the man walks away; the woman looks off thoughtfully):
Woman: There's got to be an easier way.
Votey:
The woman's face, sweating slightly.
Woman: Now I just need to eliminate sound and I'll be safe.
Alt text
A four-panel SMBC comic followed by a flashback and a votey. A woman presenter stands beside a screen showing diagrams of waves bending around an object, explaining that an array of miniaturized split ring resonators bends all incident electromagnetic radiation around the interior object, making it visually undetectable from any angle. A man in the audience asks, 'Wow. What inspired you to work on invisibility cloaks?' She smiles and answers, 'Pure curiosity.' A caption reads '20 years earlier...': a man approaches the same woman, younger, and says, 'We need to talk.' She replies, 'I'm busy. Always especially now.' As he walks away, she muses, 'There's got to be an easier way.' The joke: she invented invisibility not out of scientific curiosity but to dodge a relationship confrontation. Votey panel: a close-up of her sweating face as she says, 'Now I just need to eliminate sound and I'll be safe' — implying she's still avoiding people years later.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.