# ­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:** 213
**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:** [May 6, 2025, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4243 "2025-05-06T19:56:08Z")
The video invokes a magic spell that teleports the money to you. But done correctly, it will teleport _just_ the money, and not the smelly gunk and crud adhered to the money or even infused with it. So really it should just smell like metal or paper. ---
**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:** [May 6, 2025, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4244 "2025-05-06T20:31:49Z")
Nothing like that new-money smell. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2025, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4245 "2025-05-06T20:45:53Z")
Not watching a video. Any spoiler? Would it end up being enough mass to make the base really hot? Sterile so not a compost pile.., ---
**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:** [May 6, 2025, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4246 "2025-05-06T20:47:39Z")
It’s under 3 minutes. But in short, it would spread out like the Great Molasses Flood of 1919, killing thousands, or if you made a building for it (like Scrooge McDuck) it would violate building code by exceeding ground pressure limits. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2025, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4247 "2025-05-06T20:50:08Z")
Turns out teleporting an enormous pile of coins to a place near you is a bad idea, because coins don’t like to be in a pile and they will crush you. More to the point, everyone else will just start using other means of exchange rather than acknowledging you as sole owner of all the world’s wealth. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2025, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4248 "2025-05-06T22:32:58Z")
I’ve speculated about a worst-case scenario regarding dark matter– or rather, the anomalous movement of galaxies and galaxy clusters that is presumed to be caused by dark matter. It’s basically, what if we never find _ **anything** _? No experiments confirming new weakly interacting particles. No new heavy particles turning up in colliders. No verifiable extensions to the Standard Model, and all the hypothetical extensions are purely ad-hoc for the sole purpose of predicting dark matter. What if postulating “dark matter” contributes no more understanding than saying “a wizard did it”? What if the anomalous movement of galaxies and galaxy clusters is simply a hole in science– forever? What would be the epistemological consequences for a defeat of science on that scale? ---
**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:** [May 6, 2025, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4249 "2025-05-06T22:50:20Z")
It’s sort of bound to happen eventually. At a certain point our particle accelerators won’t be able to probe deeper and our cosmological observations won’t get any better. We’ll have to throw up our hands at that point and say physics is done. Maybe we’re already there but we should probably give it another couple centuries to be sure. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2025, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4250 "2025-05-07T06:27:27Z")
Orbital-size accelerators. We already got the vacuum; all we need are the guide magnets. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2025, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4251 "2025-05-07T14:19:58Z")
With current technology you’d need an accelerator the circumference of the Oort Cloud. ---
**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:** [May 7, 2025, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4252 "2025-05-07T16:07:30Z")
Good bet by the time we could build one out in the Oort cloud, our tech will have improved a wee bit. But your point stands; we’re stuck back in Kansas, Toto. Oz is a long, long, _long_ way away. In time and in space. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2025, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4253 "2025-05-08T00:52:30Z")
The problem is that the predicted unification energies (let alone Planck scale) are so ridiculously high that mere tweaks don’t even begin to cover the orders of magnitude we fall short. We’d have to be able to accelerate particles by [Oh My God](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh-My-God_particle#) energy levels _per nanometer_ over hundreds of kilometers to even get close. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2025, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4254 "2025-05-08T01:08:02Z")
But the point of the comic is beyond that: it is what if knowing more is not just technically impossible by any imaginable scale, but _fundamentally_ unknowable? ---
**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:** [May 8, 2025, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4255 "2025-05-08T01:17:15Z")
But even more fundamental is that there might not be a difference between those things. You can say that it’s impossible to measure the position and momentum of a particle with perfect accuracy because any means of probing it must perturb it slightly. You can also say that it’s a fundamental characteristic of quantum mechanics arising from the nature of waves. But those are exactly the same thing! The characteristics of the universe limit what can be technically achieved. And there’s no reason to think there’s anything more fundamental than that. I’m not sure we’ll ever really know what goes on inside of a black hole because I’m not sure there _is_ anything inside one. Since nothing comes out except for totally scrambled information that lives on the surface, the universe has no obligation to “run the physics” on the inside. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2025, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4256 "2025-05-08T01:18:26Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > what if knowing more is not just technically impossible by any imaginable scale, but _fundamentally_ unknowable? We-ell, not quite that bad. By postulating dark matter at all, even particles that only interact via gravity, we’re still supposing that the ultimate laws of physics describe such particles and that their existence is a result of those laws. Discovering those may be technically unachievable but even that would be better than a “hole in science” like my utterly nihilistic agnostic scenario. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2025, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4257 "2025-05-08T12:51:33Z")
> **[Globe Safety](https://xkcd.com/3086/)** [![](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/globe_safety.png) ](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/globe_safety.png) “Frankly, given their extreme gravitational fields and general instability, even 12-inch globes should probably be banned.” ---
**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:** [May 8, 2025, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4258 "2025-05-08T20:12:22Z")
If you’ve got the tech to stably compress an Earth-sized mass into a 4-inch sphere, a black hole is really the least of your concerns. Kids: Spaghetti for lunch _again_? ---
**Author:** ![Ponderoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponderoid/32/19221_2.png) [@Ponderoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponderoid)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2025, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4259 "2025-05-08T20:27:57Z")
Thanks, ChatGPT. [![](https://i.gyazo.com/8bf0babad727c86f254718df824dc6c4.png) ](https://i.gyazo.com/8bf0babad727c86f254718df824dc6c4.png) ---
**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:** [May 8, 2025, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4260 "2025-05-08T20:36:25Z")
I, uh… that’s certainly an image of my post. Gotta give it props for the Strangelovian sunglasses on the kids. For the record, I was referencing spaghettification: > **[Spaghettification](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghettification)** > > In astrophysics, spaghettification (sometimes referred to as the noodle effect) is the vertical stretching and horizontal compression of objects into long thin shapes (rather like spaghetti) in a very strong, non-homogeneous gravitational field. It is caused by extreme tidal forces. In the most extreme cases, near a black hole, the stretching and compression are so powerful that no object can resist it. Within a small region, the horizontal compression balances the vertical stretching so that A tiny, dense object will have strong tidal forces that act to stretch things out in the vicinity (before going splat on the surface). Including the children themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Ponderoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponderoid/32/19221_2.png) [@Ponderoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponderoid)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2025, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4261 "2025-05-08T20:45:50Z")
I misread the word “stably” as something to do with stabbing and my mind went to a strange place. 🙂 [![](https://i.gyazo.com/34d8d5d001d68af3409515f665207762.png) ](https://i.gyazo.com/34d8d5d001d68af3409515f665207762.png) ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2025, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574/4262 "2025-05-10T16:42:18Z")
> **[Pascal's Law](https://xkcd.com/3087/)** [![](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/pascals_law.png) ](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/pascals_law.png) “Reductio ad absurdum fails when reality is absurd.” > **[Ruina montium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruina_montium)** > > Ruina montium (Latin, "wrecking of mountains") was a mining technique in Ancient Rome described by Pliny the Elder (Natural History 33.21), who served as procurator in Spain. It is thought to draw on the principle of Pascal's barrel. Miners would excavate narrow cavities down into a mountain, whereby filling the cavities with water would cause pressures large enough to fragment thick rock walls. > Pliny described the process as follows: > What happens is far beyond the work of giants. The mountai... [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574.md?page=212) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574.md?page=214)