# ­xkcd thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** comic-strips\ **Created:** [May 28, 2020, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574 "2020-05-28T00:57:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 210
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2025, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4183 "2025-04-11T23:47:26Z")
> **[Anachronym Challenge](https://xkcd.com/3075/)** [![](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/anachronym_challenge.png) ](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/anachronym_challenge.png) A 9 Iron is still mostly iron, though. Carbon steel is more iron than cast iron! I did learn that sidewalk chalk is usually gypsum, not chalk. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2025, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4184 "2025-04-11T23:50:46Z")
My glasses are made of glass. I didn’t know that about sidewalk chalk. I wonder about blackboard chalk. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2025, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4185 "2025-04-12T00:29:39Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > My glasses are made of glass. Mine aren’t. At some redundancy, a pitcher’s rubber isn’t rubber. Neither is a rubber eraser. Sandpaper generally isn’t made with sand. Pencil lead isn’t. Of course baby oil isn’t made of babies, nor motor oil from motors. But that’s cheating the comic’s theme pretty hard. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2025, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4186 "2025-04-12T00:32:38Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > A 9 Iron is still mostly iron, though. Carbon steel is more iron than cast iron! I maintain that element Fe is properly named “steel”, and “iron” is a common alloy of steel. Oh, and Cueball has lost his marbles. Off of his list, that is. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2025, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4187 "2025-04-12T00:44:57Z")
Huh. Never quite connected marbles with marble. > [@LSLGuy](#): > > Pencil lead isn’t. Was never lead, though. Though graphite was mistakenly thought to be lead. Sort of an interesting philosophical point. In a sense, it was lead, because it was thought to be lead. They had a name that included both the element that we recognize as lead today and graphite, and that name was lead. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2025, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4188 "2025-04-12T04:03:03Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > [xkcd: Anachronym Challenge](https://xkcd.com/3075) > > [https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/anachronym\_challenge.png](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/anachronym_challenge.png) You missed the title-text: “I have to pay with paper money.” > [@puzzlegal](#): > > My glasses are made of glass. Perhaps yours are, but most are made of acrylic these days. I remember a while back that I wanted glass lenses, but the optometrist said they’d be too heavy. > [@LSLGuy](#): > > Of course baby oil isn’t made of babies, nor motor oil from motors. But that’s cheating the comic’s theme pretty hard. And spring rolls aren’t made of springs. But the comic did say that it was only for stuff where the product is named for the stuff it’s made of. That doesn’t apply to baby oil, motor oil or spring rolls. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2025, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4189 "2025-04-12T04:03:13Z")
Oh, huh. I thought pencils were actually made with lead once upon a time. > [@LSLGuy](#): > > > [@puzzlegal](#): > > > > My glasses are made of glass. > > Mine aren’t. No, most aren’t. I need to go to one of the few places that will do that to get it. > [@dtilque](#): > > but the optometrist said they’d be too heavy. They are heavier. I don’t get huge lenses. I see better, though. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2025, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4190 "2025-04-12T13:14:03Z")
While most externally-worn corrective lenses these days are plastic, I think it’s usually polycarbonate, not acrylic. Acrylic scratches way too easily. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2025, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4191 "2025-04-12T13:59:06Z")
You can get polycarbonate for high-impact “safety glasses”, but it creates even more distortion than whatever the standard plastic is. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2025, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4192 "2025-04-12T14:33:48Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > While most externally-worn corrective lenses these days are plastic, I think it’s usually polycarbonate, not acrylic. Acrylic scratches way too easily. Doing a bit of research, there is a low-cost plastic lens material called CR-39. It’s technically a polycarbonate, but not what most people mean when they use that term. It does scratch more easily than polycarbonate. It’s not an acrylic, so I was wrong there. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4193 "2025-04-15T07:22:17Z")
At long last I get the double slit experiment: [![](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/the_roads_both_taken.png) ](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/the_roads_both_taken.png) And phomo is not bad either. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4194 "2025-04-15T07:24:44Z")
It’s pretty good, aside from rhyming “could” with “could” ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4195 "2025-04-15T08:36:12Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > And phomo is not bad either. That comment might make more sense if you had included the title-text: > [@](#): > > “When you worry that you’re missing out on something by not making both choices simultaneously by quantum superposition, that’s called phomo.” ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4196 "2025-04-15T09:39:07Z")
I have a feeling that this is another case where Randall worked backward from the pun. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4197 "2025-04-15T11:44:36Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > > “When you worry that you’re missing out on something by not making both choices simultaneously by quantum superposition, that’s called phomo.” Poorly constructed pun. Worry causes “womo”. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4198 "2025-04-15T12:47:41Z")
And “I” with “recombined.” ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4199 "2025-04-15T21:41:44Z")
Oh, and in the previous strip, he didn’t have to pay for everything with paper money, though it probably would be more convenient than paying in nickels. ---
**Author:** ![N9IWP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/n9iwp/32/3154_2.png) [@N9IWP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/N9IWP)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4200 "2025-04-15T21:47:24Z")
Newish what-if on what would happen if the sun went out, definitely tongue in cheek: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/X7sbn9LMZOg/maxresdefault.jpg "What if the sun suddenly went out?") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7sbn9LMZOg) Brian ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4201 "2025-04-16T04:39:29Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Oh, and in the previous strip, he didn’t have to pay for everything with paper money, though it probably would be more convenient than paying in nickels. No, I don’t think nickels qualify. They’re still made of nickel, or at least partially so. I don’t think the percentage has changed since they started making them. Canadian nickels, OTOH, have changed. Originally, they were 100% nickel; now they’re mostly steel with a nickel plating. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2025, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4202 "2025-04-17T13:36:45Z")
> **[de Sitter](https://xkcd.com/3077/)** [![](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/de_sitter.png) ](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/de_sitter.png) “Our anti-de Sitter club is small at the moment, but I’ve started corresponding with the conformal field theory people.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574.md?page=209) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574.md?page=211)