xkcd

by **SirMustapha** » Thu Jun 02, 2011 2:23 am UTC

Arancaytar wrote:New theory: Randy just successfully trolled Wikipedia again. Remember Malamanteau.

And therefore Randall proves he's awesome: causing a minor disruption on some website.

Working at NASA couldn't possibly be as rewarding as that.

by **Randomizer** » Thu Jun 02, 2011 5:28 am UTC

No, no, you see, right now he's fine-tuning the process of using his comics to "program" people's behavior by seeing how each comic affects how his readers interact with Wikipedia - but his next step is to use the power he's gained to get people to do his scientific research for him. He won't need to work for NASA, he'll be his own NASA, and we'll be building rockets to the outer reaches of the solar system for him in short order. :wink:

by **Daedalus733** » Thu Jun 02, 2011 5:47 am UTC

Random article:
Jerome Weston, 2nd Earl of Portland
Richard Weston, 1st Earl of Portland
Order of the Garter
Chivalric Order
Knight
Warrior
Combat
Violence
Psychological Manipulation
Social Influence
Conformity
Unconscious Mind
German Philosophy
Philosophy

by **atrahasis** » Thu Jun 02, 2011 3:29 pm UTC

Daedalus733 wrote:Random article:
Jerome Weston, 2nd Earl of Portland
Richard Weston, 1st Earl of Portland
Order of the Garter
Chivalric Order
Knight
Warrior
Combat
Violence
Psychological Manipulation
Social Influence
Conformity
Unconscious Mind
German Philosophy
Philosophy

+1 Insightful

by **pennypyro** » Thu Jun 02, 2011 9:29 pm UTC

here's mine:
List of Doctor Who serials
Science fiction on television
Science fiction
Genre
Literature
Letter (alphabet)
Grapheme
Greek language
Greeks
Nation
Sovereign state
State (polity)
Social sciences
List of academic disciplines
Academia
Community
Interaction
Causality
Event (philosophy)
Philosophy

by **richierocks** » Thu Jun 02, 2011 9:41 pm UTC

Toilet -> Plumbing fixture -> System -> Element (mathematics) -> Mathematics -> Quantity -> Property (Philosophy) -> Modern Philosphy -> Philosphy
8 steps.

by **Arancaytar** » Fri Jun 03, 2011 4:21 am UTC

pennypyro wrote:here's mine:
List of Doctor Who serials
[...]

Speaking of Doctor Who, I actually found another exception:

Day of the Moon
Doctor Who (series 6)
Television in the United Kingdom
Electronic program guide
Broadcast programming
Television
Telecommunication
Transmission (telecommunications)
Telecommunication

Also, the Philosophy loop has been shortened again, to Philosophy <-> Metaphysics.

by **Rilian** » Fri Jun 03, 2011 5:55 am UTC

suweid wrote:Blew my extended mind right off! It's true! I tested on three articles!

I tried it, got stuck in a loop.

Stargazer712 wrote:Mathematics
Quantity
Property
Modern Philosophy
Philosophy

I guess it's been changed because when I did it, property linked back to mathematics.

by **SirMustapha** » Fri Jun 03, 2011 2:18 pm UTC

It's bizarre. Someone already linked to an article on Wikipedia itself that acknowledges the "Philosophy" phenomenon, even giving an approximate figure or articles that follow that pattern (93%), and people are STILL treating this as a phenomenal discovery.

by **dragonfiremalus** » Fri Jun 03, 2011 3:31 pm UTC

I am a physics major working with a prof over the summer on computer modeling of electrons. It is a sad truth that as I am programming, half the time I am pulling the necessary equations of Wikipedia.

by **tioko** » Sat Jun 04, 2011 7:18 am UTC

The alt text is true! I started at a random article, which was "St. Francis' College, Letchworth", and ended up in Philosophy! Here's the chain:

Spoiler:

Oh, but I'd like to note that I clicked the *second* link on "List of academic studies", since the link "academic" was in bold.

by **sakeniwefu** » Sat Jun 04, 2011 2:50 pm UTC

I happened to have the XBOX article open when I first read the comic, but this one's hilarious.

Philosophy
Modern philosophy
Property (philosophy)
Quantity
Mathematics
Element (mathematics)
System
Scientist
Biologist
Biological classification
Taxonomic rank
Subphylum
Vertebrate
Penis
Sexual intercourse
Pornography
Pornography in Japan
Bunko Kanazawa

by **ptdf** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 11:28 pm UTC

Here's a different representation for 100 random articles

by **Dustyskulls** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 11:28 pm UTC

I FOUND AN EXCEPTION!!!!

High context culture <----> Low context culture
They are eachother's first un-bracketed links. Fortunately (or unfortunately), they're thinking about merging the two articles, but nothing has been decided.

TELL EVERYONE
PROTECT THE CONJECTURE !!!!!!

by **Mighty Jalapeno** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 11:59 pm UTC

33 articles to get from My Blue Heaven (Steve Martin Film) to Philosophy. Neat!

by **Aelfyre** » Mon Jun 06, 2011 7:37 pm UTC

I am not going to read this entire thread to see if this has been posted.. but this simplifies the process

http://ryanelmquist.com/cgi-bin/xkcdwiki

by **Kuroshii** » Mon Jun 06, 2011 10:00 pm UTC

Sorry to point this out if someone else has already pointed it out, but the trivia isn't entirely true. It took a few tries, but I found that I can get in a loop that won't lead to philosophy. One such example is between high context culture and low context culture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_context_culture

by **SirMustapha** » Tue Jun 07, 2011 1:32 am UTC

Kuroshii wrote:Sorry to point this out if someone else has already pointed it out

"Someone else" as in, maybe, about 100 other people in this thread?

Geez, people! THERE'S A WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE ON THAT PHENOMENON! Is it too hard to search?

by **ConMan** » Tue Jun 07, 2011 5:33 am UTC

SirMustapha wrote:
Kuroshii wrote:Sorry to point this out if someone else has already pointed it out

"Someone else" as in, maybe, about 100 other people in this thread?

Geez, people! THERE'S A WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE ON THAT PHENOMENON! Is it too hard to search?

ConMan wrote:Hey, wow, I just discovered something: If you pick a random forum thread, and click the next page link in it, and keep doing that, you'll notice that lots of people don't bother reading the whole thread and post functionally identical things!

by **MidnightJava** » Tue Jun 07, 2011 7:09 am UTC

It took me 12 clicks from [random article] "Edward Lake (New Zealand)" to "Philosophy".

by **Arancaytar** » Tue Jun 07, 2011 8:55 am UTC

The recent revision history of Philosophy is highly entertaining.

by **dazza1995** » Wed Jun 08, 2011 5:05 am UTC

gruene wrote:Found an exception to the "Philosophy" rule:

Thoroughfare leads to Road, which in turn leads back to Thoroughfare.

Also interesting. The path to philosophy went through mathematics in almost every case.

not true thoroughfare leads on to place if it is done correctly

by **Plasmic-Turtle** » Wed Jun 08, 2011 6:35 am UTC

I am NEVER going to let my Philosopher boyfriend see this comic.
He's always going on about how much cooler philosophy is than science as it is.

Even Suncheon, South Korea leads to Philosophy. Sorry for still being fascinated, I got behind in the comics and hadn't heard of it before...

by **tastelikecoke** » Wed Jun 08, 2011 10:40 am UTC

What's philosophy?
Help
What's Wikipedia?
What is a forum?

by **ginbot** » Wed Jun 08, 2011 4:49 pm UTC

I was using Body text (as I felt that was the jist of the alt text)

1983 Los Angeles Dodgers season ->
...
Lascaux
...
Mucous membrane
loops with
Buccal mucosa

by **phlip** » Thu Jun 09, 2011 1:31 am UTC

ginbot wrote:Mucous membrane
loops with
Buccal mucosa

The first link on Mucous membrane (currently) is to "Germ layer"... the lede counts as part of the article body, not just the stuff in the later sections...

by **DavidRoss** » Thu Jun 09, 2011 7:47 am UTC

Wikipedia now has "Biology" -> "Natural Science" -> "Biology". There seem to be a lot of recent edits to the first sentence of the Natural Science Wikipedia entry, which lists examples of natural sciences. The edits involve reordering the list and the reason given is that they should be alphabetically ordered, but methinks that the real reason is that someone wanted a counter-example to Randall's observation. An earlier version was:

Biology -> Natural Science -> Mathematics -> Quantity -> Property -> Modern Philosophy.

So, the alt-text might have to say that all links lead to Modern Philosophy unless modified to intentionally make that not true.

by **DavidRoss** » Thu Jun 09, 2011 7:57 am UTC

Sien wrote:I must say that this really reminds me of the Collatz Conjecture. Mostly the idea of a "web" of numbers/articles that once you reach, it ultimately leads you to 1/philosophy.

So, yeah... keep bringing the loops!

Yeah, me too. Both of those remind me of hiking in on certain trails where if you allow for a moment's distraction, you're headed down a canyon you might not soon climb out of.

At least with Wikipedia, it is a finite (albeit changing) set, so you can show loops, whereas Collatz has to be tested over all natural numbers.

by **DavidRoss** » Thu Jun 09, 2011 8:04 am UTC

tioko wrote:The alt text is true! I started at a random article, which was "St. Francis' College, Letchworth", and ended up in Philosophy!

Ah, no. More likely, you've shown that the alt text is true for a small subset of the Wikipedia entries. Reminds me of Homer Simpson - prior to naming his first-born - testing to ensure there were no offensive nicknames other kids might come up with ("Bart, Cart, Dart, Eart... Nope, can't see any problem with that.")

by **ginbot** » Fri Jun 10, 2011 4:34 pm UTC

@phlip. Yea, I posted a different msg stating results work if you use the first legit link. But, the msg looked too similar and got rejected. I like your graph/chart btw.

by **Diagonalization** » Sun Jun 12, 2011 3:42 am UTC

Just an "FYI" everyone: on his blog "Leiter Reports," Prof. Brian Leiter made note of the following website that is dedicated solely to documenting how a given wikipedia page connects to the "Philosophy" page. Essentially, all that you have to do is type in the title of a wikipedia page, and it will do the rest:
http://xefer.com/wikipedia

by **Sumino** » Sun Jun 12, 2011 7:17 am UTC

My roommate and I found one that didn't work: "Language" takes you in a circle that ends at "Language".

by **Diagonalization** » Sun Jun 12, 2011 7:26 pm UTC

Sumino wrote:My roommate and I found one that didn't work: "Language" takes you in a circle that ends at "Language".

I just tried "Language" and I got to philosophy pretty easily. Did you click on a hyperlink in parentheses or in italics? I was led to "philosophical" which redirected me to the "philosophy" page. Of course, someone might have read your post and changed it in the mean time...

by **Sumino** » Mon Jun 13, 2011 8:28 am UTC

Someone changed it! Ah, the power of the XKCD fanboys. Gotta love 'em!

by **thrush** » Mon Jun 13, 2011 6:29 pm UTC

I was disappointed that it took me eleven clicks to get there from Kevin Bacon.

by **Pfhorrest** » Tue Jun 14, 2011 2:47 am UTC

thrush wrote:I was disappointed that it took me eleven clicks to get there from Kevin Bacon.

Which raises an interesting question: what is Bacon's Erdos number, or conversely Erdos' Bacon number? How many clicks from Kevin Bacon to Paul Erdos, and back? And can we score renaissance philosophers and scientists by their Francis Bacon numbers? (Incidentally, and surprisingly, it's also 11 clicks from Francis Bacon to Philosophy).

by **phlip** » Tue Jun 14, 2011 2:55 am UTC

Pfhorrest wrote:Which raises an interesting question: what is Bacon's Erdos number, or conversely Erdos' Bacon number? How many clicks from Kevin Bacon to Paul Erdos, and back? And can we score renaissance philosophers and scientists by their Francis Bacon numbers? (Incidentally, and surprisingly, it's also 11 clicks from Francis Bacon to Philosophy).

I don't think Bacon has a finite Erdos number... or at least, I'm not aware of any mathematical papers he's been involved in. Erdos has a Bacon number of 3, 4 or 6, depending on how you count it.

by **Isaac356** » Tue Jun 21, 2011 3:20 am UTC

I might make a simple web crawler, if I find the time.

EDIT: Wow, seven days later. I apologize, I haven't been able to keep up with xkcd lately.

by **DragonHawk** » Tue Jun 21, 2011 1:01 pm UTC

Sweet Zombie Jesus, I can't believe people are *still* posting about this. OH MY GOD I GOT FROM POINT A TO POINT B!! Next I'll go make potty like a big boy...

by **tashage** » Fri Jun 24, 2011 5:09 am UTC

21 clicks from "List of highways numbered 11A"

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