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My Geek Credentials
I was perusing, and enjoying, The Week In Pictures at Power Line when I encountered the image below. It produced the only audible chuckle of the entire post. I’m a geek. Case closed.
If you don’t understand the humor, you’re normal. Lucky you.
Published in Humor
Very good. Even the nose grows, but the cartoonist missed the opportunity to produce a W.C. Fields nose to match the car color. Maybe in a larger format.
I don’t get it. Sorry.
Clue: It’s the same car in both panels.
Google “Doppler”
Relativity?
Doppler shift, Gary.
And, yes, I find it funny, too.
Red shift is (like I would know) the same principle as the way a fast moving train’s horn or bell appears to shift tone as it approaches and then leaves where you’re standing. “dingdingDingDINGDINGDingdongdongdong…”
If it were going fast enough for the doppler shift to matter, the onlooker wouldn’t even see it.
Yeah, I got it, but more like the groan of a bad pun than an audible chuckle.
Oh.
Nice to see you. Happy and Blessed Easter. And yes, Doppler. Although I had to think for a minute.
Have to confess that my first reaction was, “Oh, no. Not another of those “What color is this [fill in the blank]” Internet things.
The color is not the only clue. The length of the car is also.
Don’t beat yourself up, Gary. It took me five minutes to get it.
Hmmmm…what?
Science joke? Maybe? Yeah.
But why?
Oh, color change! (I missed the elongated nose)
Something change?
Something shift?
Doppler!
Groan.
What does this have to do with Trump?
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(Just kidding. Thank you for the break from Trump, Mueller and all of the rest of that stuff.)
(Actually, could we be going through the Doppler Effect with Trump, etc. That the sound of a siren and sight of an ambulance shift as they go beyond the observer? That our perception shifts? And that neither observer is per se, wrong? Humm. Deep thoughts on an early Easter morning.)
The physics of light – red shift and blue shift.
I think those of us with a more technical education (my undergrad degree is from Stevens Tech) got it immediately.
As I looked at the picture, in my head I automatically overlayed the Doppler shifting sound of the engine.
I liked it, though thought it weirdly out of place in the photo stream. (I look forward to Hayward’s weekly cartoon collection.) Has relativity been in the news lately, and I missed it? Maybe because of the recent black hole pictures?
Whatever: it’s a safe bet that the driver is exceeding the speed limit — at least for what appears to be a residential neighborhood.
Stirring from some far disused corner of my memory, I could hear and see my astronomy prof explaining how one could tell how stars were moving relative to an observer.
It took me several minutes but I did get it without looking it up. I’m proud of myself:)
I too was proud I puzzled it out. Now if I can just find my wallet.
Saw that yesterday. Originally thought it was some kind of red pill/blue pill reference, but that didn’t make sense. I didn’t get it until I read “I’m a geek” in Terry’s post. Oh…red shift.
Hayward often has some good subtle sciency cartoons in TWIP. Overall, I thought yesterday’s compendium was relatively weak compared to his usual great job, but I still appreciated it. Especially Diana Rigg.
Oh, Mrs. Peel.
Memories!
Not funny, because the panels don’t demonstrate that it is the same car. A license plate would help. It is a cartoon, so it is not intuitive to assume anything from elongation of the wheels. Maybe on the opening slide of an astrophysics presentation, there would be some context.
It took me a minute to figure out the gag, most of that minute being spent in determining that it was the same car in both panels.
It got a chuckle out of me,too. And my wife pops up with”what’s so funny?”
I got one word out before she realized the deep breath ahead of it was trouble. End of explanation.
I needed help too, even though I knew it was the same car.
I think that’s why it got a chuckle out of me, that it included both red/blue shift and foreshortening/elongation.
My first thought was “that is one hell of a speeding ticket”
First I had to overcome a brief flashback to Mr. Natural (sorry, I am of the Woodstock and R Crumb comix generation) but then I got it. Yeah, it took a few extra seconds, but then, I was a Eng Lit major.
Cheers!