border
Original: border on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Advisor (a man with curly hair and round glasses, in a suit): Mr. President, I'm afraid we can't build your border wall.
President (offscreen / second figure): What? Why?
Panel 2:
Advisor: The 'Coastline Paradox' tells us that because coastlines are self-similar, the concept of length doesn't apply. The smaller the measuring stick we use, the greater the length we will measure.
Panel 3:
Advisor: Part of the U.S.-Mexico border is the "coastline" of the Rio Grande. Therefore we must conclude that any border wall would be of infinite length.
Panel 4:
Advisor: Therefore, it will cost infinity dollars, which will be a non-starter with deficit hawks.
Panel 5:
President: What if we just use bigger measuring sticks?
Advisor: No can do.
Panel 6:
Advisor: That'd result in us losing an arbitrarily small quantity of land, which would make us look weak on the world stage.
Panel 7:
Advisor: If the Russians get word that we're measuring a fractal-dimension border with a Euclidean ruler, they'll land troops in Washington by tomorrow morning.
Panel 8:
President: This is a tough situation. I'd better call the Secretary of Mathematics.
Panel 9:
(A desk and phone, no dialogue.)
Panel 10:
President (on the phone): Hello, I need to measure a thing.
Panel 11:
Secretary of Mathematics (a woman with curly hair, sweating, holding a phone): Whoa, slow down. Could you please state the problem more generally?
Votey:
Secretary of Mathematics (resting her head on her hand, exasperated): What's "measure"? What's "thing"? Define your terms.
Advisor (a man with curly hair and round glasses, in a suit): Mr. President, I'm afraid we can't build your border wall.
President (offscreen / second figure): What? Why?
Panel 2:
Advisor: The 'Coastline Paradox' tells us that because coastlines are self-similar, the concept of length doesn't apply. The smaller the measuring stick we use, the greater the length we will measure.
Panel 3:
Advisor: Part of the U.S.-Mexico border is the "coastline" of the Rio Grande. Therefore we must conclude that any border wall would be of infinite length.
Panel 4:
Advisor: Therefore, it will cost infinity dollars, which will be a non-starter with deficit hawks.
Panel 5:
President: What if we just use bigger measuring sticks?
Advisor: No can do.
Panel 6:
Advisor: That'd result in us losing an arbitrarily small quantity of land, which would make us look weak on the world stage.
Panel 7:
Advisor: If the Russians get word that we're measuring a fractal-dimension border with a Euclidean ruler, they'll land troops in Washington by tomorrow morning.
Panel 8:
President: This is a tough situation. I'd better call the Secretary of Mathematics.
Panel 9:
(A desk and phone, no dialogue.)
Panel 10:
President (on the phone): Hello, I need to measure a thing.
Panel 11:
Secretary of Mathematics (a woman with curly hair, sweating, holding a phone): Whoa, slow down. Could you please state the problem more generally?
Votey:
Secretary of Mathematics (resting her head on her hand, exasperated): What's "measure"? What's "thing"? Define your terms.
Alt text
A nine-panel SMBC comic. A curly-haired advisor in a suit tells the President that they can't build the border wall. He explains the 'Coastline Paradox': because coastlines are self-similar, the smaller the measuring stick used, the greater the length measured, so length doesn't really apply. Since part of the U.S.-Mexico border follows the "coastline" of the Rio Grande, any border wall would be of infinite length, costing infinity dollars and angering deficit hawks. The President asks, "What if we just use bigger measuring sticks?" The advisor says no: that would lose an arbitrarily small amount of land and look weak, and if the Russians learn the U.S. is measuring a fractal-dimension border with a Euclidean ruler, they'll invade Washington by morning. The President decides to call the Secretary of Mathematics. He picks up a phone and says, "Hello, I need to measure a thing." The Secretary, a sweating curly-haired woman, replies, "Whoa, slow down. Could you please state the problem more generally?" In the votey aftercomic, she rests her head wearily on her hand and adds, "What's 'measure'? What's 'thing'? Define your terms." The joke: a mathematician's instinct to generalize collides comically with a simple practical request.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.