integral
Original: integral on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Boy (glasses, dark hair): Dad, can you explain integral calculus?
Dad (glasses): Oh, it's stupid.
Panel 2:
Dad: You draw a curve, and you say how much is under the curve. Made broadly, it's a kind of fancy multiplication that functions as they do something.
Panel 3:
Dad: That's it? People spend their entire lives on this stuff and that's all it is?
Dad: Well, the thing is, outside of about two and a half kinds of functions, the integral, everything goes right to shit.
Panel 4:
Dad: It's like living in a world where everyone looks nice but carries a switchblade. You meet an innocent little function and then you ask about its integral and out comes the square root of the loss of the marble tangent of a to the e to the goddamn son of a bitch.
Panel 5:
Boy: Why, why does the universe work this way?
Dad: It is proof that god exists and wants us to suffer.
Votey:
A disembodied speech bubble: Right on, losers!
(A crescent moon floats in the sky above clouds.)
Boy (glasses, dark hair): Dad, can you explain integral calculus?
Dad (glasses): Oh, it's stupid.
Panel 2:
Dad: You draw a curve, and you say how much is under the curve. Made broadly, it's a kind of fancy multiplication that functions as they do something.
Panel 3:
Dad: That's it? People spend their entire lives on this stuff and that's all it is?
Dad: Well, the thing is, outside of about two and a half kinds of functions, the integral, everything goes right to shit.
Panel 4:
Dad: It's like living in a world where everyone looks nice but carries a switchblade. You meet an innocent little function and then you ask about its integral and out comes the square root of the loss of the marble tangent of a to the e to the goddamn son of a bitch.
Panel 5:
Boy: Why, why does the universe work this way?
Dad: It is proof that god exists and wants us to suffer.
Votey:
A disembodied speech bubble: Right on, losers!
(A crescent moon floats in the sky above clouds.)
Alt text
A five-panel comic in which a boy with glasses asks his bespectacled dad to explain integral calculus. The dad dismisses it as stupid, describing it as drawing a curve and saying how much is under it, a fancy kind of multiplication. When the boy is surprised people spend their lives on it, the dad explains that outside of about two and a half kinds of functions, everything 'goes right to shit.' He compares it to a world where everyone looks nice but carries a switchblade: you meet an innocent little function, ask about its integral, and out comes a monstrous expression ending in 'the goddamn son of a bitch.' In the final panel the boy asks why the universe works this way, and the dad replies that it is proof that god exists and wants us to suffer. Votey: a crescent moon floats in a cloudy night sky while a disembodied speech bubble shouts 'Right on, losers!'
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.