
The Talk - based2
http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-talk-4
======
mrfusion
I'd like to see more complex topics explained this way. Imagine an organic
chemistry comic novel!

I think people make a lot of topics seem way more complicated than they need
to be, probably to make themselves feel important.

~~~
joaorico
In that case, I recommend "The Manga Guide to ..." series. [1]

I haven't read all of them, but they're a good attempt. (If you enjoy or can
tolerate the quirkiness of japanese manga style.)

Check out The Manga Guide to Databases

[https://smile.amazon.com/Manga-Guide-Databases-Mana-
Takahash...](https://smile.amazon.com/Manga-Guide-Databases-Mana-
Takahashi/dp/1593271905)

or The Manga Guide to Statistics

[https://smile.amazon.com/Manga-Guide-Statistics-Shin-
Takahas...](https://smile.amazon.com/Manga-Guide-Statistics-Shin-
Takahashi/dp/1593271891/)

or The Manga Guide to Linear Algebra

[https://smile.amazon.com/Manga-Guide-Linear-
Algebra/dp/15932...](https://smile.amazon.com/Manga-Guide-Linear-
Algebra/dp/1593274130/)

[1] [https://www.nostarch.com/manga](https://www.nostarch.com/manga)

From the top Amazon review on The Manga Guide to Databases:

"STORY: A friend loaned me this book to show her, so I gave it to her and
asked her to try it. If she read the first 10 pages and it was boring, she
should stop. If she liked it, she could keep it until she was done. She opened
it on the spot and was 20 pages in before she realized she still was standing
in the middle of our kitchen. One day later, she was finished and said it was
"cool" and that she liked it.

I asked her if she learned anything or if it was just a story and she started
talking. She said a little bit and talked about tables and how information is
stored in columns and rows. She talked in a 9 year old's language and
vocabulary, but basically explained to me the concept and benefits of
centralized data stored in a single database. She made a couple other comments
whose specifics I can't remember, but clearly articulated database ideas. It
was somewhat surreal hearing these things come from a 3rd grader's mouth. She
didn't feel like she had learned very much. I told her I probably could count
on my fingers how many people at my work (300 people total - manufacturing
industry, not IT) knew more about databases than she did, based on what she
had finished telling me."

~~~
charia
Thanks for the links! I have to take Linear Algebra after this winter break
and the manga guide to Linear Algebra looks like it could be a good primer to
my course.

~~~
joaorico
Make sure you pick up Axler's "Linear Algebra Done Right". It is my definite
pick for someone entering the topic. And the second edition has a solutions
manual floating around, which is very useful for practice (more importantly,
every theorem proof in a math book is the solution to a practice problem...).

------
SamBam
Heh heh, I like the dig at Penrose at the end.

(Only because I used to argue the exact same thing with my dad when I was a
teen, and we had both read his books, and I have a human bias that when I read
something that agrees with me, I smile, feel vindicated, and don't think about
it further.)

~~~
joaorico
Scott has talked about Penrose's books and ideas several times, one of them in
direct conversation with him:
[http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2756](http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2756)
[http://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/lec10.5.html](http://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/lec10.5.html)

------
devilsavocado
For a more in-depth, but still funny and entertaining, explanation of quantum
computing check out 'Quantum Computing Since Democritus' by Scott Aaronson,
the co-author of this comic.

------
acqq
For the first time viewers: don't miss to hover over the cartoon (or on the
iOS, long press on the image):

"Somewhere in the multiverse, there's a superior universe where all comics are
this dorktastic."

And the big red button at the end:

"Out-nerd me now, Randall!"

\----

And more to read: Scott Aaronson's "Making of The Talk":

[http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3058](http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3058)

~~~
randallsquared
Yeah, I pressed that button, as one does at the end of SMBC comics, and was
momentarily very startled.

------
iopq
I didn't understand any of that.

------
dkonofalski
I understood some of those words. 5/5\. Would read again.

------
qwertyuiop924
Was that last frame a dig at Douglas Hofstadter?

Zach, I think you may have finally surpassed Randall.

~~~
mroll
No, it's a dig at roger penrose

~~~
qwertyuiop924
...Ah. I should have known.

------
adekok
(ex) Nuclear physicist here. I wish I had had this explanation at the start of
my quantum mechanics courses.

------
andrewclunn
On the scale of, "Scientists keep their discoveries hidden," to, "Overly
simplified explanations abound in order to 'popularize' science," we've
definitely gone too far the other way. Of course the only remedy then is more
precise explanation. Favorited.

------
grabcocque
The even bigger problem is that current quantum computers, if indeed they are,
are not heading down the universal quantum computer route, but instead heading
down the route of adiabatic quantum annealing. I mean if you can explain that
to your kids, could you explain it to me?

I would take issue with various claims in the comic anway. The idea that
quantum mechanics is a "generalisation of probability" is itself a
simplification. The wave function can be used to derive the probability
P=Ψ.Ψ*, but it's not probability per se. It does neatly encapsulate why the
Copenhagen Interpretation of the wavefunction leads to a lot of magical
thinking about what the wave function represents.

~~~
tgb
The co-author Scott Aaronson has a chapter in his lecture notes about that
"suspect" subject which does a good job of motivating it:
[http://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/lec9.html](http://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/lec9.html)
His whole book on the subject "Quantum Computing Since Democritus" is
excellent and worth a read.

------
cm127
I'm starting to become skeptical of our understanding of quantum mechanics
because we completely discredited a common theory with only one experiment
over a hundred years ago:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley_exper...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley_experiment)

We never recreated the experiment again until Ernest Wilbur Silvertooth did
about one-hundred years later in the 1980s. He found a possible connection to
the Ether, but by this point every scientist in the world committed to
thinking the opposite; they didn't care for his findings.

People say GR works, but they keep running into weird situations where they
have to keep fudging their mathematical models -- none of the equations work
together, i.e. no unified field theory, -- and everyone is too afraid to
suggest we've been approaching it all wrong.

God, I love how political science has become: funding, faith, pride... The
world didn't care for Galileo's theories, either: it turned their whole world
upside-down.

~~~
timmaxw
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tests_of_special_relativity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tests_of_special_relativity)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tests_of_general_relativity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tests_of_general_relativity)

~~~
cm127
Is that where they explain particle-wave duality, or is that where they
pretend it's not an issue?

~~~
gipp
If you regard particle-wave duality as an "issue" that needs to be "solved,"
(other than perhaps "duality" being a poor choice of term) you're really
approaching this from a strange and incorrect perspective.

