![[0243] Matchbox Cars And Quantum Physics](/comics/2011-02-07-0243-matchbox-cars-and-quantum-physics.png "[0243] Matchbox Cars And Quantum Physics")
This strip is based on a post by lifeform7 about his 5 year old daughter on Reddit. I liked her line so much that I wanted to make a comic strip out of it. I asked lifeform7 for their permission and offered to buy his daughter a gift at Amazon.com. I received the following reply:
my daughter would love it if you used our dialogue, and would appreciate a donation in her name. she likes helping children, […]
Since I’m now finally having a well-paid job, I think I should give a fair share of my money to those who are living in less fortunate conditions. As you may know I’m particularly concerned about the situation of the Burmese people. Therefore I want to support the German division Helfen ohne Grenzen e.V. of the charity Help without Frontiers on a regular basis from now on. This charity helps Burmese refugees in Thailand, for example by operating hospitals or schools. I will donate them €50 every month starting this month, as long as I’m able to afford this.
- David: I don’t understand this stuff. If the universe is everything, how can it be expanding? Like… what’s past the edge of the Universe?
- Yuna: I know, Dad! I know!
- David: Come again?
- Yuna: Past the edge of the Universe is everything that hasn’t happened yet!
- David: Our daughter is a genius.
- Ye Thuza: I’m afraid of that too. Last week I caught her re-enacting the double-slit experiment with Cloud’s old Matchbox cars.
- Caption: Based on a true story.
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Thath’s a clever lil sport! Hope she doesn’t try to experiment with splitting the atom..
@Draco Blair:
Oh yes… who knows what else might end up split in the process…
This is the first S&W comic that makes me doing a little research on the internet to find out Double-Slit Experiment, quite interesting experiment…..
Imagine what the future Yuna will become, a genius superheroine? or the genius supervillainess?
So smart, yet she still plays with dolls that don’t have genitalia.
David’s expression in panel 3 is priceless.
Brilliant! It’s so simple and clever, I foresee a bright future for Yuna. Glad for the new comic, keep up the good work.
Excellent strip and great actions/reactions
Sorry about posting twice but I was wondering, is Sandra older than Cloud? She looks taller than him and I got that impression from strip 92 (though those events may not have occurred at the same time but I digress), was just wondering.
dot dot dot.
*crow flies overhead* “Ahoo! Ahoo!”
genius. just pure genius.
shifting threads, I do have a question… will Cloud get a rival eventually? (he’s named after a Video game’s main character/hero, he’s bound to get one.) If so… might I make a suggestion at the name?
“Seth.”
now, mind you, perhaps not a “I can beat you up” or a “I’m going to blow up the planet if you don’t stop me” enemy/rival, but more of a… bad boy “I want to steal your girlfriend” type. I dunno, i’ve just had that suggestion for a few days but have been away from computers at the time. Take it to heart, don’t, you’re choice your comic, i’m just the guy reading it.
…and then Yuna went back to acting out the temporal paradox that would occur if a person traveled through time and met her past self, with Barbie dolls.
I bet she can see up to the 6th dimension, and can turn her tongue into a mobius strip.
Woha, what? That really isn’t half bad.
My full esteem to that little girl (both Yuna and lifeform7s dauther)
In regard of Yuna: It appears that you need a higher intellect to use magic 😉
But I have a question that might be to much for her:
What happens if Pinocchio says: “My nose will grow now.” ?
@ Sparks:
Fully agreed. He’s like: “Wait, what”?
@ Haru Takami:
Not bad, I was thinking about a Vincent Valentine variant, too.
Both is quite unlikely I’m afraid ^^’ But lets see what comes around.
@ Blitzkrieg1701:
Damn, I wanted to say that too XD”’ Why are you always so quick with such stuff? 😮
Pinocchio’s nose will grow. As him claiming it will is untrue originally, paradox magic kicks in and it does in fact grow,, followed shortly by the implosion of the heads of those trying to figure out how that makes sense.
@ Someone:
regarding the Pinocchio paradox, the answer is basically it depends on whether or not he thinks he’s telling the truth,not if he is, since it only grows when he lies. (ei: if he says his nose is going to grow thinking that he’s lying for some reason or because he’s about to lie, the nose won’t grow, because he was to the best of his knowledge telling the truth, if on the other hand he says his nose will grow expecting it not to because he thinks he’s telling the truth, then it will grow. not really a paradox.
regarding the genuice child thing, one of my freind had a similar incident, her daughter beat the towns chess master in 12 moves when she was 3 and a half.
@Someone: My future self told me to write that 😀
i think kids are just more in tune with nature and the physical world, as adults we tend to lose that connection. not to mention that the way of thinking, their brains always find the obvious because they don’t know they should be looking for other answers…. thats why 6 year olds will always build a bigger tower out of legos than an architect or a CEO in a set period of time. XD
“Based on a true story”? I’d love to hear that.
Taki wrote:
Regarding those brain-sick people who play with “dolls” that HAVE genitalia I’d rather say: “SMART girl!” ^^
Cute but the initial question is flawed. It’s expanding like the surface of a balloon, not like a spreading puddle – so there’s no edge, no beyond.
I’m curious as to how she can re-enact the double slit experiment with matchbox cars. I mean, how can she show that light separates in all directions but only light the superposes in-phase remain visible, all with physical metal objects?
Tim wrote:
I thought of that… but to get the correct outcome she’d only need to turn the matchbox cars into something like a fluid, which is a talent many younger siblings possess.
@ Rawlo:
Your explanation is quite accurate.
But the actual question is: Does the nose grow when he is lying or does it grow when he’s lying intentional? ^^ There’s a big difference, but fair enough.
But if you look at this from an algebra-like view it would equal A => -A, which is impossible.
(Try making value part for this XDD )
Too bad you answered it so quick 😛 I actually hoped to get some more confused answers XD’
Here is an old one. Maybe you can solve it:
There are 2 doors but only one leads to your destination.
There are two doorguards. One is always lying, the other one is always telling the truth.
You can only ask one question and you don’t know which guard is which.
What question do you need to ask to learn which door is the correct one?
PS: If you have a good taste for movies (or just know some old riddles) you might already know this one 😛
@ Blitzkrieg1701:
Touché XD
@ Haru Takami:
Almost forgot this:
In the end Seth comes together with Larisa ’cause he likes to dramatically stand in front of burning things XD”’
Yes. Yet another FF7 refference 😮
I wonder how much does her IQ(is my grammar right?)
“Nothing” is beyond “everything.” So theoretically, there is nothing beyond the edge of the universe, because the universe contains everything.
I love this, so much.
I’m interested to know if she has any new theories on the results of the double slit experiment.
I see “Yuna Girl Genius” happening in the not too distant future.
Not to mention she can kick butt thanks to moms special tutoring.
Just think of her as a modern day Laura Croft / Agatha Heterodyne in the making.
Kids minds aren’t as hemmed in by language yet. So making that connection is more possible when young. The language you speak does frame a lot of how you perceive the world/universe. As I once heard, there are certain Native American languages which understanding relativity is a piece of cake because the base concepts are a part of the language.
@ Baughbe:
So, people with more diverse languages (for instance, knowing Spanish and Italian wouldn’t count because they’re both Latin-Based Languages) can think in a wider area? Makes sense, since differing languages tend to have differing philosophies behind them.
Expanding onward into the future! As a kid all I did with my matchbox cars was shoot them off ramps into a bucket.
hb6x8 wrote:
The events in the first and third panel of strip #92 did not happen at the same time.
Larisa is a couple of months older than Sandra who is a couple of months older than Cloud.
Actually every kid is a genious the older ones just don’ understand or don’ think much of what they say. When I was a kid I had my theories about timetravel, the changing the past part at least. 😀
@ Someone: @ Hoheh: @ Rawlo:
Ummm about the Pinocchio thing… no matter how many times did I read those ideas my internal CPU still fried itself. XD
@ Someone:
At the two door one, I hated that one when I was a kid cuz noone knew how to solve it. I didn’ see the movie you mean, but I saw it in an old cartoon and the answer goes: Ask one guard what would the other one say witch one is the correct door. No matter witch one you ask they’ll both point out the wrong door cuz the truth teller will say the liar would point the wrong one out as correct and the liar would lie and say the truthteller would point out the wrong one as the correct one. (I know this didn’ make much sense, but you know how hard it is to write such a long explanation in a different language? :p)
just as long as she doesn’t start trying to reenact anything along the lines of Schrodinger, think you (and Woo) will be fine. >)
Just my two cents, but that theory only works if the universe is everything and it is only “expanding” simply because we are discovering it. Still, I don’t know about quantum physics and Yuna is a genius :D.
That just blew my mind…
The Universe isn’t EVERYTHING, it’s only everything that exists within the cinfines of our dimension. Past the Edge of the Universe is a neverending plane of existance that houses ALL universes/dimensions/whateveryouwannacallit.
Also when the universe expands it doesn’t take up space in this plane, it creates its own space, so from the outside it looks the same size always.
The REAL question is what exists outside of the neverending, infinitly expanding, all encompassing plane that our universe calls home?
I think my brain just exploded
@ Sam:
That’s only 1 of 3 possible theories, the other 2 theories are equally valid, but they both involve an infinite universe. And while it may be infinite it DOES still have an edge and therefore, an outside. So the initial question still holds for 2 of the 3 possible theroies, meaning that there is a 2/3 chance that his question is valid overall, since this is above 50%, we have to assume that his question is valid until it can be proven that it isn’t.
@ gaboris:
It makes sense and it’s correct ^^
And your english is good enough I guess. I can’t really gauge(?) that since it’s also not my motherlanguage 😛
btw: The movie I was talking about is Labyrinth.
It’s an slightly older movie from and with David Bowie but it’s well done and pretty funny with some music parts without turning into a Disney movie XD
You just have to keep in mind that it is an older movie which is why some things don’t look as realistic as they could today ^^ But I still recommend wachting it.
PS: There was a parody of the door riddle (I can’t remember from where I got that) containing 3 guards.
One is telling the truth, one is lying and one is stabbing people who ask tricky questions.
Thank you wikipedia for getting my head out of the gutter and explaining what the double slit experiment is.
the 2 guards one line… and one telling the truth also happened on my anime, on the very earlier episodes 🙂 (para & dox)
@ Novil:
cool, cheers mate, got another question, why isn’t Yuna named after a FFVII character? I’m almost 70% sure this will be the last question I have for your impressive comic
@ Someone:
I did know the answer, and it was through a good taste in movies, I remember watching that as a kid.
heres a couple, of riddles in return (even if they’re not strictly speeking, riddles)
how many 1cm diameter ball bearings can you put into an empty 12L cylindrical bucket
and second riddle:
you’ve just arrived in a wood cabin in the middle of winter, you need heat and light desperately, and you have a wood stove and a gas lamp, but only one match, what do you light first?
@ Someone:
nearly forgot to mention, from what I can see A => -A is possible (admiteedly algebra isn’t my strong suite, ask me about geomtry on the other hand… ) but if A is 0 or greater then it is equal too or greater then -A. it only doesn’t work if A is less then 0.
Anyone else think 1st panel Ye Thuza is really adorable?
@ Someone:
Heh I still get embarrassed when someone says my english is good, but still thx. 😉
Yeah I meanth the Labirinth as well, didn’ see it yet, but saw the Nostalgia Chick review on it and I heard it’s real “interesting” so I’ll look it up somewhat later. 🙂
Hehe I need to find that parody I love those things. X)
@ Rawlo:
Riddle one: Too much to count and I get bored of it fast so I don’ know, but the basics are that 1L=1dm^3 so ti should be 12dm^3=12*10^3*1cm balls. The CPU in my head just fried. :p
Riddle two: I’d light the lamp first cuz it almost always lights up and a wood stove may burn out before the wood catch fire and may need more tries. Belive me I know. XP
IF this was a trick question then my bad I’m no good at those. XD
Beyond the edge of the universe is just empty vacuum, and it’s this vacuum that is causing the expansion, not some undiscovered anti-gravity force.
@ Rawlo:
Yeah watched is a kid too, but it was made before I was born XD’
gaboris already solved the ridles ^^”’
Sorry for the misunderstanding but A is not a value 😡
It’s a statement that can either be true (A) or not (-A)
And the symbol “=>”(It’s an arrow) means “implies” (I hope that’s the right word…)
For example: If A means “the wall is white” A => -A would mean: “The wall is white implies the wall is not white”
And I think we can agree that this is impossible.
I could post the classic “knights and knaves” example with statments A, B and C.
But that might take up some space and I think we got off far enough from the actual topic here anyway >_>’
brb: Eating at the restaurant at the
endedge of the universe!@ gaboris:
I think that parody was from an other webcomic. Something with stickman figures…
sorry, can’t remember that cryptical name XD”’
@ Landbark:
Yeah, but the everything that we refer to when we say “the universe is everything” is “everything” within the reference frame of the universe in which it is referenced. The boundary limitations of the universe are such that the universe can never be complete and coherent at the same time (you can look up Bertrand Russel’s “Russel’s Paradox,” and Godel’s incompleteness theorem on this). This means that a universe in which everything has already happened would be self-contradictory, and not just counterintuitive. It also seems counterintuitive, though, to say that the universe expands in order to allow for that which has not yet occurred. Of course, though, we shouldn’t expect a child to intuit the incompleteness requirements of the universe in an intuitive manner, or to extend the rules of the universe of logical propositions to the universe of physical reality was well as someone like Wittgenstein.
What I think is that there really is nothing for the universe to expand into, but more and more space is being created as the universe expands. Of course, not that I’m a physicist, and there is probably some other explanation.
@ Lemon:
Actually it is a widly accepted view that the Universe creates its own space-time as it expands. There are explanations and evidence to back this claim up, but most of it is stuff that Einstein couldn’t even figure out, so I’m not 100% sure what they are.
Someone wrote:
It’s okay, I’ll search for it, maybe it’ll turn up somewhere. 😉