Set
Original: Set on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Main comic:
A woman with reddish-brown hair is enthusiastically explaining something to two children seated at a desk, one of whom holds an open book labeled "PRINCIPIA".
Woman: Oh yeah, this one's way better. Instead of just asserting that counting numbers exist, they define zero. Zero represents the empty set. They define one finger to represent the set CONTAINING the empty set, and so on.
Caption (below panel): Never ask a mathematician how to teach children.
Votey:
A close-up, loosely sketched face of the woman, still talking.
Woman: Actually, let's start with the transcendentals, since that's most of numbers anyway.
A woman with reddish-brown hair is enthusiastically explaining something to two children seated at a desk, one of whom holds an open book labeled "PRINCIPIA".
Woman: Oh yeah, this one's way better. Instead of just asserting that counting numbers exist, they define zero. Zero represents the empty set. They define one finger to represent the set CONTAINING the empty set, and so on.
Caption (below panel): Never ask a mathematician how to teach children.
Votey:
A close-up, loosely sketched face of the woman, still talking.
Woman: Actually, let's start with the transcendentals, since that's most of numbers anyway.
Alt text
A cartoon woman with reddish-brown hair leans excitedly toward two children at a desk; one child holds an open book labeled "PRINCIPIA." She says: "Oh yeah, this one's way better. Instead of just asserting that counting numbers exist, they define zero. Zero represents the empty set. They define one finger to represent the set CONTAINING the empty set, and so on." A caption beneath reads: "Never ask a mathematician how to teach children." In the votey aftercomic, a loose close-up sketch of the same woman's face continues: "Actually, let's start with the transcendentals, since that's most of numbers anyway." The joke: a mathematician tries to teach kids basic counting using rigorous set-theoretic foundations from Principia Mathematica, then escalates absurdly into transcendental numbers.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.