3061: Water Balloons
| Water Balloons |
 Title text: Update: The physics department has recruited an astronomer who studies meteor fireballs. |
Explanation
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This explanation is incomplete: Created by a BOT SHORT CIRCUITING DUE TO A WATER BALLOON - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page! |
The comic graphs the mass vs the lifetime of three objects: mesons, water balloons and planets. Mesons, which are subatomic particles, have a very low mass and a very short lifetime, as they naturally decay into other fundamental particles.[actual citation needed] "Flying water balloons" are depicted as having a mass centered around 1 kilogram, but the area outlined covers a very broad range of mass (from grams to hundreds of kilos), and a lifetime centered around 1 second (but the area outlined covers from fractions of a second to a couple of hours), indicating the approximate amount of time that the a water balloon survives after being thrown through the air. (Not all water balloons break on impact, and some are thrown directly into someone's face, thus flight time would be very short.) Finally, planets have a very large mass and a very long lifetime, as they tend to exist for billions of years.
This comparison is somewhat absurd because the objects being compared - mesons, water balloons, and planets - do not have much in common.
The text below the image states that meson particle physicists and planetary scientists are usually evenly matched in water balloon fights, as water balloons are outside of the area of expertise of both departments. In real life, water balloon fights are completely unrelated to particle physics or planetary science. They may also be not directly related to various other academic disciplines, though one might assume that more generalized physicists might study similar objects with the mass and lifetime of water balloons (if not water balloons themselves!), and other topics of education might also confer an 'advantage' (for example, biologists may study similarly-sized bodies of creatures, whilst chemists may monitor chemical reactions that could take an equivalent time to complete). This all suggests that deep specialization in a field of study deprives a normal person of their basic aptitude to perform in more 'everyday' activities, but at least it equally disadvantages each of the two teams of researchers and makes for a more satisfyingly competitive match-up than with one team clearly far more proficient than the other.
The title text overturns this by stating that "The physics department has recruited an astronomer who studies meteor fireballs". This is likely referring to the fact that meteors are closer to water balloons in terms of their mass and lifetime than either mesons or planets, so having an astronomer with this area of expertise would be advantageous in a water balloon fight against scientists who study either of the latter. While "space rocks" that become meteors may have been around for approximately the age of the solar system (and longer than at least some planets), and may then sit on/beneath the ground for anything up to geologically significant lengths of time, being an actual meteor (and a flaming one, at that) implies we're only considering the period of time the space-rock is traveling through the Earth's atmosphere, specifically ending before it becomes a meteorite. This is a period of time that may be anything from a few seconds (the normal upper limit to the visible 'fireball' stage) to possibly a minute or two (starting from its first shallow-angle grazing of the atmosphere until it finally lands/burns up/passes back out of the atmosphere). Thus, by one team bringing in a more capable player (especially one arguably more closely aligned to their opponents), they apparently now have an unfair advantage.
Other absurd uses of linear regression are seen in 605: Extrapolating, 1204: Detail and 2893: Sphere Tastiness.
Transcript
- [Graph with Y axis using an arrow indicating mass from 10-30 kg to 1030 kg on a logarithmic scale and X axis, also on a logarithmic scale labeled "Lifetime" running from 10-20 to 1020 seconds.]
- [There are three elliptical blobs on the graph, one on the lower left corner labeled "Mesons" another on the upper right corner labeled "Planets", and the last one in the middle (1kg mass, 1s lifespan) labeled Flying water balloons. There are two bidirectional arrows pointing from the center blob to the two other blobs.]
- [To the left of the chart are Cueball and Ponytail. Ponytail is throwing a water balloon, and Cueball is dodging from one. To the right are Megan and Hairy. Megan is preparing to throw a water balloon, and Hairy is slipping in a puddle of water, with a water balloon having landed near his foot with a "Sploosh!".]
- [Caption below the panel:]
- In the annual water balloon fight, meson particle physicists and planetary scientists are usually evenly matched, since they're both equally far outside their areas of expertise.
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What if you're an expert in impostor syndrome? Caliban (talk) 08:45, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
- WHAT?!??!!!! ⯅A dream demon⯅ (talk) 15:06, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
That "Flying Water Balloons" bubble reaches from about 10-3 to 102 kg. That's 1mg (kinda' hard to manipulate) to 100kg (very hard to lift, especially without breaking the balloon). -- Dtgriscom (talk) 16:59, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
- Firstly: you seem to mix-up g and kg. Secondly: Water balloons can leak, assuming the 10-3 (which is 1g) wasn't measured while it popped in flight.172.71.99.171 10:39, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
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