![[1130] Pseudoscience](/comics/2019-11-19-1130-pseudoscience.png "[1130] Pseudoscience")
Sorry for posting the new strip one day late. I’m not sure if we’ll be able to post two updates this week.
Here they are, the places 11 to 20 of this year’s artwork contest!
- Male judge: And what do we have here?
- Yuna: A perpetual motion machine!
- Male judge: It’s impossible to build a perpetual motion machine!
- Female judge: It’s pseudoscience!
- Yuna: But here’s one standing right in front of you!
- Female judge: How’s your “perpetual motion machine” supposed to work?
- Yuna: The molybdenum inside the rods is arranged in a way to induce quantum foam fluctuations in the krypton surrounding it. Thus, excess vacuum energy can be harvested as predicted by the Hawking-Unruh-Williams equations!
- Male judge: Molybdenum? Did you make up that word?
- Female judge: Krypton? The stuff from the Superman comics?
- Yuna: But! But…!
- Male judge: And what do we have here?
- Matthew: An American flag made out of light bulbs that blink “Jesus Christ be praised!” in Morse code.
- Female judge: Marvelous!
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See Yuna, this is why you always bring a periodic table to the science fair. It works as a nice backup, too.
God bless America
Wait till they see my box that plays different songs depending on which buttons you press! Also it has a diagram of an atom on it, so you know I used SCIENCE to make it.
Jesus Christ be praised!
And this is how you make evil mad scientists people. I hope those two get their share of karma.
https://xkcd.com/987/
Most teachers are liberals so… nope
Yet another one of my people.
Those that are “too smart for their own good” or in the case of Sheldon Cooper “One lab accident away from becoming a supervillain”
She also made up quantum physics, foam, and Stephen Hawking.
Plus those rods are clearly too small to house vacuum cleaners.
And so we see tge problem with the modern world, that problem being is its run by morons!
dang, that’s a solid pseudo-science explanation that is close enough to make sense that I’d believe its just reality being stupid and not even made up, like vacuum decay which I learned about recently and is TERRIFYING!
I bet both of those teachers failed or never took basic chemistry.
These people
the worldare just asking for an Atomic Boyscout scenario. Don’t make us root for the Yuna Machine, and not poor widdle Yuna.Predictable scenario so far, seen this coming from miles away.
Then again, this comic series have been running relatively hand-in-hand with real world’s realism, so that is to be expected.
I really hope that they aren’t science teachers.
And honestly, I would deduct marks from that kid for the fact that it isn’t science. But I’m and Australian agnostic, so I have no US patriotism nor belief. All I could appreciate about his project is the mechanism which makes the Morse code.
science fairs are a f*cking joke lol
And this is how mad scientists are created.
“Fools! I’ll show them….I’ll show them all!”
Sam Signorelli wrote:
Don’t forget the evil laughter at the end.
MUAHAHAHAHA!
I am hoping Yuna “layeth the smacketh down“! With help from Ye Thuza, of course!!
Serious @$$ whooping
I had a “science” teacher who didn’t believe solar power would ever be useful despite the satellites using them as early as the 50s and 60s.
Lowin Bayrod wrote:
^^^ this
Jack wrote:
It also works great for job fairs. I still have that periodic table with a background of holographic bubble wrap, one of the companies brought.
It’s probably a good thing they’re so dumb, as science fairs in reality are just an excuse for teachers to cash in on genuinely intelligent ideas that they WISH they had the imagination to develop.
“The imagination and creativity of a juvenile mind surpasses the execution of even the most learned members of science and philosophy.”
In all fairness, it’s not *really* a perpetual motion machine. It *is* exploiting a gradient, it’s just that the gradient is the ZPE energy potential. Still, managing to overcome the mechanical losses is pretty good. Wonder what she’s using for bearings.
DANGER DANGER DANGER DANGER!!!
*runs around in panic with warning lights in the background*
IMPENDING MAD SCIENTIST RAMPAGE EVERYONE TAKE COVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Those two really shouldn’t be judging a science fair if they can’t even name all the noble gasses.
Had to click on the German to see if it adapted the message for its native country.
Nope.
Stereotypes are fun! Like, you know, had the German version had a kid making…well, let’s not go there.
And, of course, in the case of American schools, very, very wrong. Unfortunately wrong to a degree, but still wrong.
On a vaguely related note, why are the comments folded by default? It breaks comment-links like
http://www.sandraandwoo.com/2019/11/19/1130-pseudoscience/#comment-581044and prevents reloading the page for new comments without losing the position.To those “people” a periodic table would be a piece of furniture you only use part of the time.
Those two should be careful making fun of Yuna when her perpetual motion machine can double as a perpetual spanking machine.
Nachum wrote:
Well, it IS established that S&W takes place in the US.
As an American… Yeah that’s probably pretty accurate, really.
Also, as someone doing yet another Skyrim playthrough, I read the “Jesus Christ be praised” part in Eorland Greymane’s voice.
Gods be praised!
Pig Lota wrote:
…do you read Questionable Content? ’cause I do, and that’s where I recently learned about vacuum decay.
Also, I suspect that the reason the pseudo-science sounds so good is because (to the best of my knowledge as a random guy that finds science cool) all the stuff that’s properly explained is genuine…
Another event that will be highlighted in her biography as a supervillain or Dictator of the world…if there is anyone alive to write it…
I saw a somewhat similar situation when i was a judge for a science fair held at my undergrad (I was a chemistry major, for context). One of the presenters did a quite impressive work on studying petrification of wood, but was not considered for an award because the other judges thought it was too “creationist” as he was able to somehow accelerate the process ( i forget how, it was a while ago) and produced what appeared to be petrified wood.
I thought it was an interesting work,
that being said *maybe* he had creationist motives, but I saw no indication of it and regardless it appeared to be solid work.
Asrial wrote:
A table of when certain women expect their periods?Asrial wrote:
These “teachers” clearly did not pass high school science class, or just haven’t used basic chemistry since then, so have forgotten it. Mind you, here in Ontario, you only have to memorize the elements up to calcium in freshman science, because we are not ready to talk about how the transition metals react differently than everything that came before. That explanation waits until grade 11 (Junior year).
As a high school science teacher myself, my questions would be, “Can you tell me how you used the scientific method in the development of your project?” and “Are you sure you have accounted for all the energy going into the system and all the energy coming out? What are all the sources of energy losses?” The kid with the blinking Morse code display would not have satisfactory answer to those questions. Regular incandescent light bulbs blinking on and off will tend to burn them out quickly.
That explanation took it from being a Kind 1 perpetual motion machine (my initial assumption) to a Kind 2 perpetual motion machine. Mind you, a better name for it would be “Zero-Point Energy Generator,” which lots of physicists are trying to develop.
@ Lowin Bayrod:
Indeed, the boy with the american flag is going to get no points because it really doesn’t qualify as an experiment (and anything to downgrade somebody who would be so jingoistic), and he’s going to be called to the councelor’s office for the microaggression and inappropriate display of religion in public school.
That said, I do agree that elementary school science fair judges are dumb enough to simply dismiss a science fair project because its conclusions are “impossible” or “unscientific” (by which they mean “I don’t believe you could get those results because they don’t match my worldview.”)
And…in their defense, the chances that an elementary school student is going to come up with a revolutionary new technology that turns modern models of the world and physics on their heads is slim to none.
AGAINST their defense, Yuna displayed an ability to defend her technical achievement well beyond the level of most elementary schoolers, and absolutely deserved a bit more attention to see what she did, examine her process, and grade her on that basis. Even if she made a gross error, an elementary schooler who can display the level of documentation and understanding of the scientific and invention processes is deserving of high marks in a science fair.
well it could be worse, she could have lost to the kid with ‘working paper mache volcano’
No no no… This damn thing is a zero point reactor… Soon it will blast away whole solar system.
“Ware she becomes a mad scientist.”
Why get mad or go mad. As has been demonstrated the teachers are either mad or just very stupid.
Sadly I have had to deal with incumbent grade school teachers and yes the stupid is strong with those ones. Makes you wonder how they even graduated high school. I know that dedicated teachers colleges are not strong on either math or science in their programs.
Now getting angry I can see. She will be an angry scientist.
It is part of the multi-step program towards apathy.
That will last until such time as she can break free from the bonds of the public school system.
Then she will need to avoid the pitfalls of the corrupted post secondary education system which will engender either true madness or fury or both.
@ Evonix:
Shades of A Miracle of Science, a long-defunct webcomic that is, in my opinion, eminently worth checking out if you aren’t already aware of it.
Yeah yeah, American theists bad. We get it. But a timed blinking flag is a legit impressive project for a little kid.
BTW, this is unrealistic. Modern teachers are WAAAAAY more likely to chide that boy than cheer.
David Nuttall wrote:
1) Yup, that’s a US thing too.
2) There’s, hydrogen and helium, then lithium beryllium, boron carbon everywhere, nitrogen all through the air, with oxygen so you can breathe, and fluorine for your pretty teeth, neon to light up the signs, sodium for salty times-
MAG-NES-I-UM, aluminium silicon! PHOS-PHOR-US, then, sulfur, chlorine, and argon! PO-TASS-I-UM, then calcium so you grow strong! SCAN-DI-UM, titatium-vanadium-and-chromium-and-manganese!
THIS IS, THE PERIODIC TABLE…
df82 wrote:
To be fair, the overall strip as of late has been nothing but stating how bad life is and there’s nothing good to live for.
Which would be fine if it didn’t feel like the writer was holding back and would just fully embrace the cynicism. You know like having David and Ye Thuza divorcing and having a mess of a custody battle with their kids, or Sandra wanting something so bad (like a new cellphone) and resorting to shoplifting to get it. Cause you know that’s how it is with people in real life.
Gad, these judges are probably worse than the teachers at Springfield Elementary during the Science Fair week in “The Simpsons” (after all, they overlooked Lisa’s exhibits and gave 1st Prizes to the likes of Bart and Ralph)…if not the entire town where the smart have no say in any matter and the stupid folks have all the power…
It took me a while to realize that “pseudoscience” might be a label well applied to the patriotic/religious project …
Construction, yes. Skill with a soldering iron can be valuable. Engineering, maybe. Science, no. There’s no question being explored apart from “did I put it together right?”
i know how this feels.. back in 6th grade i built a working Ion engine (albeit a very weak one.)
the kid who won built the “superbowl toilet” out of and old commode and cardboard boxes.
@ Syaoran:
You’re assuming that Yuna wasn’t ALREADY an evil scientist.
One of my father-in-law’s favorite stories from childhood is when he got sent to the principal’s office in second grade because he was trying to convince his teacher that negative numbers existed.
This rings many bells.