0613: "Threesome"

[Kaijyuu]

Anyone else notice how the two in the comic get closer and closer each panel? I imagine by the fourth or fifth, they'd be making out.

[Farnk]

if just one person would outweigh the others... it would make it so much easier to find an approximate solution...

[Kleppner]

Being a physics major, I mentally groaned.

[Simplex]

Anyone else notice how the two in the comic get closer and closer each panel? I imagine by the fourth or fifth, they'd be making out.

I blame gravity.

Polygamy being compared to string theory is worth all the cookies in the universe!

[Monika]

Yippie, finally a science comic again \o/ .

I rarely post here, but I do have to point to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aiq_oaIvyak

And more cookies to the polyamorous string theory person!

[obvious]

Congrats on the cookie.

Never a direct comparison to physics, I get that, but there sure is a lot of physics involved. I mean you've got coefficient of friction, angular momentum, velocity, acceleration, mass, viscosity of lubricants, rates of evaporation. It may be biology, but there sure is a lot of physics and chemistry involved.

[TheGirlWhoStoleTheHat]

I had to look it up, but now I get it!

[DSDM]

*smiles and nods, waits for Friday's comic*

[silvanio]

Great comic.

I'm sure this has been done before, but I had to laugh that at 9:00 EST this is on the "Google Trends" list...



Based on the trending graph, it's on the rise again.

[Beacons!]

The last line of dialogue in the last panel is totally unnecessary. Good pun though.

[radtea]

Never has being a computational physicist been so sweet...

I'm tempted to send this to one of my old theory profs who would sometimes argue that my tendency to drop the tediously elegant algebra and cut to the chase with a numerical solution was "hiding behind a computer."

[space_raptor]

It must be nice to be a famous webcomic artist and be able to get away with stuff like this. ugh.

[chrth]

Actually, as a dedicated polyamorist, I can tell you that group sex is more comparable to string theory: laypeople think you're crazy if you try and explain it, it's very appealing to those with a novice's awareness of the field, actually implementing it can get messy, and there's a wide number of possible solutions, none of them inherently more obvious than the others.

Congratulations, you are the first person I have ever seen who has compared sex to physics.

I award you a cookie.

Um ... http://xkcd.com/435/

[podbaydoor]

Haha, I love how blasé the guy is about the horrific pun she let loose. "Ah, yes."

[Cytoplasm]

Indeed, podbay!

It's a wonderfully simple comic (and by simple I mean it flows).

[kjsharke]

Has anyone pointed out that, as a physicist, I can provide solutions to the three body problem - albeit not in a closed form, and chaotic. The details were worked out by Lagrange, and a Finnish dude called Sundman (iirc).

Yes, but they would converge very slowly, is that any better?

[Imagist]

Has anyone pointed out that, as a physicist, I can provide solutions to the three body problem - albeit not in a closed form, and chaotic. The details were worked out by Lagrange, and a Finnish dude called Sundman (iirc).

Does this mean I can haz polygamy, albeit in the form of an infinite sum of r^{1/3}?

This particular solution should be even easier to solve, given that for sex, oscillation is desired, and Euler solved for systems where three bodies oscillate along a rotation line a long time ago.

[Aelfyre]

All in favor of renaming the n-body problem to "the gravitational orgy problem"?

Aye!

[10nitro]

I spilled the nachos in my lap when I read about the people who didn't even get the joke but thought it was a good comic because it was about sex! You're the primary reason for the xkcd backlash!

To clarify, that's not why I like it. I like it simply because it is an joke that I don't get. If every comic were like this, I would likely leave xkcd. However, once-in-a while, comic that I don't get is nice. When I first started reading xkcd many of the jokes were beyond my grasp, they represented some arcane deep magic that I was yet to understand. They represented the the strange foreign lands of understanding that I had only glimpsed. The information was shrouded, it held my awe with it's mystique, these were not ideas I was going to learn in school (anytime soon, anyway), they would be my own journey. They were thoughts of enlightenment, the thoughts of true wizards. As of recent, my sky has been getting a little small*, there seems less to explore. Sure, I don't claim to know everything, but I see the path. The knowledge I see myself learning no longer appears an adventure, but (except in moments of sarcasm)a walk down a (rather long) clear path. The comic was refreshing reminder that there is still some lands out there I haven't seen, some adventure.

* yes, that was a Firefly reference
[edit]so the forum DOESN'T start counting at 0 (somehow I had seen a post by someone with 0 posts, it was their only post). So THIS is my hundredth post.[/edit]

[Math_Mage]

The last line of dialogue in the last panel is totally unnecessary. Good pun though.

xkcd comics don't like to freeze at the punchline. There's usually a hint of some conversation to continue or action to be taken (in Black Hat Guy's case, action that often involves shooting people). There are a couple of notable exceptions, "Glass Necklace" being one of them.

[Misopogon]

That's pretty ambitious -- Misopogal and I are still having trouble with the two-body problem: whenever the sum of our energies is negative, both tend to trace out ellipses.

[cynicalbastard]

And if you have some Trojans around?

[Iridos]

I wonder about the 3rd person...
but I guess we'll never know....

[brakos82]

Great comic.

I'm sure this has been done before, but I had to laugh that at 9:00 EST this is on the "Google Trends" list...



Based on the trending graph, it's on the rise again.

I just went to Google Trends, and one of the "examples" was XKCD.com vs Pennyarcade.com (which, by the way, we're winning )

[FoolishOwl]

Does anybody know why, when looking at the first page of this thread, I get a "jsMath" button?

[Quaternion]

if just one person would outweigh the others... it would make it so much easier to find an approximate solution...

My first thought after reading the comic was how could Randall let such a great "your momma" opportunity slip

[dragondave]

Actually, there's a good reason not to get involved in the n-body orgy.

When doing computational modelling of the n-body problem, there's an issue with the point particles getting so close to each other at the end of a time step since the particles attract each other with such force on the next time step that they accelerate past each other incredibly quickly.

The way of getting around this problem on the cheap is to implement 'artificial softening' of the gravitational force at very small distances (typically, closer than the objects sizes) to 1/r, not 1/r².

Quite frankly, if I ever get involved in an orgy, I don't want my penis being 'artificially softened'...

http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/N-body_simulations

[Achmos]

Anyone else notice how the two in the comic get closer and closer each panel? I imagine by the fourth or fifth, they'd be making out.

Wow, I didn't actually see that before. >_>

Then again, I just now noticed that the two characters are also mutually tidal locked.

[LordHuffnPuff]

Yippie, finally a science comic again \o/ .

I rarely post here, but I do have to point to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aiq_oaIvyak

And more cookies to the polyamorous string theory person!

I actually came to this topic only to post this video. Half-hoping that it hadn't been done, half-hoping that surely, somebody here must be faster than I.

[Regularjoe]

Great comic.

I'm sure this has been done before, but I had to laugh that at 9:00 EST this is on the "Google Trends" list...



Based on the trending graph, it's on the rise again.

Looks like the angry video game nerd has xkcd beat through, with "plumbers don t wear ties".

[10nitro]

Does anybody know why, when looking at the first page of this thread, I get a "jsMath" button?

The button appears on any page of the fora that uses a math markup that I'm not familiar with, but is generally used for displaying complex equations.

gmalivuk uses it in his sig to render the `(subsilver still sucks)' message, I don't know why.

[dragondave]

Presumably, looking at the source, to obfuscate the text.

Code: Select all

(su b silve r \   sti ll\ s uc ks )

Quite why is unknown; potentially to stop google indexing it as actual content.

Dave.

[ritvax]

I just think it's funny when he stick figures talk about sex or have sex. Stick figures! You have to use a lot of imagination. I think RM could make a whole book of stick figures having sex, and I'd buy it.

[10nitro]

I just think it's funny when he stick figures talk about sex or have sex. Stick figures! You have to use a lot of imagination. I think RM could make a whole book of stick figures having sex, and I'd buy it.

rule34: there's porn of it on the Internet
rule35: if it's not on the Internet, it will be created

I'm proposing that rule36 be 'and there are people how would pay to see it'

[Math_Mage]

I just think it's funny when he stick figures talk about sex or have sex. Stick figures! You have to use a lot of imagination. I think RM could make a whole book of stick figures having sex, and I'd buy it.

rule34: there's porn of it on the Internet
rule35: if it's not on the Internet, it will be created

I'm proposing that rule36 be 'and there are people how would pay to see it'

This is a corollary of the actual Rule 36 according to TV Tropes and Urban Dictionary:

If it exists, it is someone's fetish. No exceptions.

OTOH, Encyclopedia Dramatica has a different Rule 36, so YMMV.

[Simon17]

I just think it's funny when he stick figures talk about sex or have sex. Stick figures! You have to use a lot of imagination. I think RM could make a whole book of stick figures having sex, and I'd buy it.

Please don't encourage him.

[sethstorm]

Great comic.

I'm sure this has been done before, but I had to laugh that at 9:00 EST this is on the "Google Trends" list...



Based on the trending graph, it's on the rise again.

Going for a double pun?

[Air Hadoken]

Computer Scientists, on the other hand, would have less problem with three bodies, and more so with 3-SATisfaction...

Well, there's a reason why NP-complete problems are referred to as the "hard" problems...

Not to mention that computer scientists don't find 3-SAT impossible. It just takes a very long time to complete. I fail to see how this is actually a problem in this context.

[Monika]

I wonder about the 3rd person...
but I guess we'll never know....

Oh, that's trivial. An anonymous stranger from a bar. An anonymous *male* stranger from a bar. See how easy it is:
"Hey guys, who wants a threesome?"
A short time later:
"Oh, you meant 1 girl + 2 guys? That's not what I thought."

Also, see SMBC 25 Jun 2009.

[Math_Mage]

I just think it's funny when he stick figures talk about sex or have sex. Stick figures! You have to use a lot of imagination. I think RM could make a whole book of stick figures having sex, and I'd buy it.

Please don't encourage him.

Irony alert: your sig.