analogy
Original: analogy on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Title caption (top of panel): THING I HATE: "DOWN TO EARTH" EXPLANATIONS THAT DON'T ADD ANY CLARITY
Panel 1:
A woman with dark hair, holding her hands up near her chest, speaks.
Woman: THE FARTHEST KNOWN OBJECT IN SPACE IS 13 BILLION LIGHTYEARS AWAY. IF LIGHT YEARS WERE GRAINS OF SAND, THAT WOULD BE 13 BILLION GRAINS OF SAND.
Votey:
A rough sketch of the same woman gesturing, with a speech bubble.
Woman: IF LIGHTYEARS WERE DISTANCE, WHICH THEY ARE, THAT'D BE 13 BILLION AMOUNTS OF DISTANCE.
Panel 1:
A woman with dark hair, holding her hands up near her chest, speaks.
Woman: THE FARTHEST KNOWN OBJECT IN SPACE IS 13 BILLION LIGHTYEARS AWAY. IF LIGHT YEARS WERE GRAINS OF SAND, THAT WOULD BE 13 BILLION GRAINS OF SAND.
Votey:
A rough sketch of the same woman gesturing, with a speech bubble.
Woman: IF LIGHTYEARS WERE DISTANCE, WHICH THEY ARE, THAT'D BE 13 BILLION AMOUNTS OF DISTANCE.
Alt text
A title caption reads: "THING I HATE: 'DOWN TO EARTH' EXPLANATIONS THAT DON'T ADD ANY CLARITY." Below, a woman with dark hair holds her hands up near her chest and says, "The farthest known object in space is 13 billion lightyears away. If light years were grains of sand, that would be 13 billion grains of sand" - an analogy that swaps in 'grains of sand' but keeps the same enormous number, so it explains nothing. In the votey (a rough black-and-white sketch of the same woman), she doubles down: "If lightyears were distance, which they are, that'd be 13 billion amounts of distance."
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.