simple
Original: simple on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Student: Professor, why are mathematicians so certain that everything should reduce to simple axioms? Why can't it be more complex?
Professor: It's an observed fact.
Panel 2:
Professor: If you look at math textbooks, the broad introductory texts are all large and full of color and pictures.
Panel 3 (with a graph):
Professor: As you advance in your mathematical career, the books become shorter, grayer, and with fewer words and more symbols.
Graph: The y-axis is labeled "PLAINNESS OF MATH TEXT" and the x-axis is labeled "PROFUNDITY OF MATHEMATICS." An upward-rising curve passes through three labeled book icons, from colorful to plain: "LET'S LEARN ALGEBRA!" (a bright, illustrated book), "ADVANCED CALCULUS" (a plainer book), and at the top "EIGEN-FRACTAL RECURSIVE QUASI-DIMENSIONAL ANTI-MANIFOLD PEDRULATION TECHNIQUES NO HELP FUCK YOU" (a sparse arrow point).
Panel 4:
Professor: This suggests that the very deepest math — the book of the universe — will be an infinitesimally small piece of paper, overwritten with a single infinitesimally small symbol.
Panel 5:
Student: What do you think the symbol means?
Professor: "This universe left as an exercise for the reader."
Votey:
No text. A hand-drawn image of a hand making the middle-finger gesture, with motion/emphasis lines radiating outward around it (framing it like the single infinitesimal symbol of the universe).
Student: Professor, why are mathematicians so certain that everything should reduce to simple axioms? Why can't it be more complex?
Professor: It's an observed fact.
Panel 2:
Professor: If you look at math textbooks, the broad introductory texts are all large and full of color and pictures.
Panel 3 (with a graph):
Professor: As you advance in your mathematical career, the books become shorter, grayer, and with fewer words and more symbols.
Graph: The y-axis is labeled "PLAINNESS OF MATH TEXT" and the x-axis is labeled "PROFUNDITY OF MATHEMATICS." An upward-rising curve passes through three labeled book icons, from colorful to plain: "LET'S LEARN ALGEBRA!" (a bright, illustrated book), "ADVANCED CALCULUS" (a plainer book), and at the top "EIGEN-FRACTAL RECURSIVE QUASI-DIMENSIONAL ANTI-MANIFOLD PEDRULATION TECHNIQUES NO HELP FUCK YOU" (a sparse arrow point).
Panel 4:
Professor: This suggests that the very deepest math — the book of the universe — will be an infinitesimally small piece of paper, overwritten with a single infinitesimally small symbol.
Panel 5:
Student: What do you think the symbol means?
Professor: "This universe left as an exercise for the reader."
Votey:
No text. A hand-drawn image of a hand making the middle-finger gesture, with motion/emphasis lines radiating outward around it (framing it like the single infinitesimal symbol of the universe).
Alt text
A five-panel SMBC comic. A student asks a bearded professor why mathematicians believe everything should reduce to simple axioms instead of being more complex; the professor says "It's an observed fact." He explains that introductory math textbooks are large and full of color and pictures, but as you advance, the books become shorter, grayer, and full of symbols instead of words. A graph plots "plainness of math text" against "profundity of mathematics" as a rising curve passing through increasingly plain book icons: a colorful "Let's Learn Algebra!", a plainer "Advanced Calculus", and at the top a sparse, hostile title ending "...techniques no help fuck you." The professor concludes that the very deepest math — the book of the universe — will be an infinitesimally small scrap of paper bearing a single infinitesimally small symbol. The student asks what the symbol means; the professor answers, "This universe left as an exercise for the reader." Votey: a small hand-drawn image of a hand raising its middle finger, surrounded by emphasis lines — the punchline that the universe's single ultimate symbol is an obscene gesture.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.