Alt-text:
Their calculations show it will ‘pass within the distance of the moon’ but that it ‘will not hit the moon, so what’s the point?’
The number one thing I love about Randall Munroe’s particular brand of nerd humor is how genuine he is. His fascination with the natural laws of the universe is just that. It’s not something he uses to hold himself over other people or to create in-groups and out-groups of people who know and people who don’t. Even when his content is too complex for the average person it never has that subtextual “well you just wouldn’t get it because you’re not smart enough” vibe that so much other nerd humor has (looking at you big bang theory). He’s genuinely inviting the reader to learn about whatever it is, whether they ultimately do or don’t. He doesn’t have that weird inferiority complex people get sometimes where people feel the need to defensively push others away from their interests to feel better about the fact that their interests happen to be niche in some way. He doesn’t use it as a vehicle to fuel his ego. I’ve joked before that he’s my “celebrity crush” but it’s really just that he truly, genuinely wants to show you something he thinks is cool (and at least a little humorous) and as someone who’s met a LOT of snobby nerds, I’ve always deeply respected that he isn’t one. - sincerely, a professional vibe-checker (like, actually).
If it gives a whistle, maybe we can hear it.
Back in my day sound didn’t travel through space
See how far we have advanced.
then how did we hear Neil Armstrongs famous quote???
His mouth emits raw radio waves which reach all the way to earth. You don’t wanna know what type of electromagnetic radiation his ass emits :o
Is that Dr. Becky reporting?
Maybe we should build a warp drive to go meet it.
I bet you could convince large corporations that it has lots of valuable resources and they would jump right on it
Truth
