Title text:
‘This HAZMAT container contains radioactive material with activity of one becquerel.’ ‘So, like, a single banana slice?’
Transcript:
[Cueball holds a stick while talking with Megan and White Hat.]
Cueball: This stick is one meter long.
Megan: Cool.
White Hat: That’s a nice stick.[Cueball holds a smallish rock.]
Cueball: This rock weighs one pound.
Megan: I’d believe it.
White Hat: Looks like a normal rock.[Cueball holds a small battery.]
Cueball: This battery is one volt.
Megan: Seems fine.
White Hat: Might need a recharge.[Cueball holds a capacitor while Megan and White Hat panic.]
Cueball: This capacitor is one farad.
Megan: Aaaaa! Be careful!!
White Hat: Put it down!!
Source: https://xkcd.com/3106/
I used to teach AP physics to kids on the weekends. One asked me why Farads were so big. I had to explain that there’s a fixed ratio between Farads, Volts, and Joules. One of them had to be crazy big or crazy small.
See also Coulombs.
Caps are especially scary because they can develop their own charge through static electricity, so large value caps are often shipped with their terminals tied together.
“This magnet has one tesla”
That stucks ;-)
It is not that much though. You could easily make an electromagnet with magnetic flux density of multiple tesla in it’s core.
And you can get 1F capacitors in bulk from China for a few dozen dollars each.
Those things are still dangerous and scary. The 1T magnet way more so than the capacitor.
Most neodymium magnets have like 7 Tesla at their surface.
Only criticism is the use of non-metric weight units when everything else is SI-based.
Guys you’re not gonna believe this:
Their names are Cueball, Megan, and White Hat?
I remember reading about their names in explainxkcd. I think the only one never named in the comics is Cueball.
For a while, there was a blog, but I don’t think it named any character.
🚲
