You speak of time as it passes within the Universe, because that’s the only context possible.
Now many of the product manuals are online so you do have to google them.
And, even if you don’t have to, it’s often easier. You can search the electronic manual for the specific information, rather than having to read through it.
Not to mention searching Google for the manual instead of searching your house
That’s why I download and save any manual I think I might need to consult later.
Although the cooling effect on Earth would be dramatic (and cataclysmic), the sun would not look remotely dark if it were one giant sunspot. The interior of a sunspot is still as bright as an arc lamp–it just looks dark in comparison to the rest of the surface. It would seem a little more dim than usual, but anyone that’s been through a partial solar eclipse knows that even if you reduce the total light by 90%, it still basically looks like daylight.
Eh, maybe you can envision some alternate universe where the laws of astrophysics are completely different and sunspots are still very, very bright, and dark only by comparison. Heck, maybe in that alternate universe, they don’t even completely cover the surface of the Sun. Here in our universe, though, they’re completely dark.
Good thing we have all these warm caves, then. Otherwise the solid oxygen snow would be a real problem. Too bad we still have to hibernate through most of the dark period.
Hey, what’s that new bright thing in the sky? Haven’t seen that before. And it’s putting out some funny radio signals.
Almost a real-life OnOff star.
But not like the real OnOff star.
I understand this comic but I’m not really sure what, if anything, the joke is supposed to be. And I pride myself on getting people’s weird jokes. This just seems to be a depiction of an alternate reality where the (real) solar cycle has a more profound impact on the sun’s light output, which I guess is supposed to tie with the 1980s and 2000s being worse than other periods, along with how people group themselves into generations. But then, saying things got brighter after 2014-ish hardly lines up with popular conception of the last 6 years or so.
I guess this is just a really niche concept that tickled Munroe’s brain enough to graph it out. That’s fine, I guess, it’s his comic. Or maybe he’s hedging his bets when the sun really does turn dark in 2025 and everyone can go “There’s an XKCD for everything!!”
You had it at the beginning, and then you threw it away. The comic is depicting an alternate reality where the sun physically dims and brightens. The graph showing brightness in the last decade has no symbolic or metaphorical significance whatsoever.
Fair enough. I do think you’re right, there’s no deeper meaning to ascribe to this. But I do think I’ll put a few bucks down on “sun goes dim in 2025” just to be safe.
Part of the humor is the contrast between the cosmic implications of the alternate sunspot cycle, and the banality of people using it for clickbait “generational-signifier” articles.
I’m not following; what elements have “symbols” rather than abbreviations, other than old alchemical ones?
Also, it now occurs to me: half an hour after the Big Bang, just what was the science textbook printed on?
ETA: and btw, is the verdict back on whether there was in fact a very tiny amount of primordial beryllium? Sources I’ve found differ.
The things you think are abbreviations of element names are technically symbols.
Well I’m whooshed so you’ll have to spoon-feed it to this senile old duffer.
I’m not sure about dtilque’s comment, but I believe the answer is Oxygen = Octium = O. The systematic name is just the digits of the atomic number translated to nil/un/bi/tri/quad/pent/hex/sept/oxt/enn. Mostly only relevant for new elements (like Unnilquadium).
IUPAC is who calls them symbols. If you want to know for sure why, you’ll have to ask them. My guess is that they’re meant to be used in all languages, not just in English. Even languages that use the Latin alphabet may not use all the letters, but the chemists who speak those languages still use the same symbols. Also some of the symbols are based on names from other languages, notably Latin.