#xkcd No. 3158
Date: 2025-10-22
Title: Shielding Chart
Alt text: Sharks can occasionally travel short distances through air when pursuing prey, but their attenuation coefficient is pretty high.
https://xkcd.com/3158/
xkcd
#xkcd No. 3159
Date: 2025-10-24
Title: Continents
Alt text: The inflection point was probably in late 1966 or 1967, so when Neil Armstrong flew to space on Gemini 8, plate tectonics was not widely accepted, but when he landed on the Moon three years later it was the mainstream consensus.
https://xkcd.com/3159/
![Description:
A spacecraft has broken into two pieces while orbiting Earth. The command module is separated from the service module above visible continents.
Transcript:
[Text at the top of the panel]
Voice from spacecraft: HOUSTON, THE VIEW IS SUPERB. WE CAN SEE THE CONTINENTS SPREAD OUT BELOW US, RIGHT WHERE THEY'VE BEEN SINCE THE EARTH FORMED.
[Caption at the bottom of the panel]
I STILL CAN'T BELIEVE WE DEVELOPED SPACEFLIGHT BEFORE WE FIGURED OUT THAT THE CONTINENTS MOVED.](/proxy/post_attachment/886856/ebd732d0f6.png "Description:
A spacecraft has broken into two pieces while orbiting Earth. The command module is separated from the service module above visible continents.
Transcript:
[Text at the top of the panel]
Voice from spacecraft: HOUSTON, THE VIEW IS SUPERB. WE CAN SEE THE CONTINENTS SPREAD OUT BELOW US, RIGHT WHERE THEY'VE BEEN SINCE THE EARTH FORMED.
[Caption at the bottom of the panel]
I STILL CAN'T BELIEVE WE DEVELOPED SPACEFLIGHT BEFORE WE FIGURED OUT THAT THE CONTINENTS MOVED.")
#xkcd No. 2942
Date: 2024-6-5
Title: Fluid Speech
Alt text: Thank you to linguist Gretchen McCulloch for teaching me about phonetic assimilation, and for teaching me that if you stand around in public reading texts from a linguist and murmuring example phrases to yourself, people will eventually ask if you're okay.
https://xkcd.com/2942/
#xkcd No. 2945
Date: 2024-6-12
Title: Broken Model
Alt text: In addition to eating foxes, rabbits can eat grass. The grass also eats foxes. Our equations chart the contours of Fox Hell.
https://xkcd.com/2945/
#xkcd No. 3178
Date: 2025-12-8
Title: Hyperacute Interdynamics
Alt text: Our models fall apart where the three theories overlap; we're unable to predict what happens when a nanometer-sized squirrel eats a grapefruit with the mass of the sun.
https://xkcd.com/3178/
#xkcd No. 2943
Date: 2024-6-7
Title: Unsolved Chemistry Problems
Alt text: I'm an H⁺ denier, in that I refuse to consider loose protons to be real hydrogen, so I personally believe it stands for 'pretend'.
https://xkcd.com/2943/
#xkcd No. 2946
Date: 2024-6-14
Title: 1.2 Kilofives
Alt text: 'Oh yeah? Give me 50 milliscore reasons why I should stop.'
https://xkcd.com/2946/
#xkcd No. 3249
Date: 2026-5-22
Title: Neutrino Project
Alt text: We definitely put the pool in a mine for shielding. It was absolutely not to hide it from the funding people.
https://xkcd.com/3249/
#xkcd No. 2948
Date: 2024-6-19
Title: Electric vs Gas
Alt text: An idling gas engine may be annoyingly loud, but that's the price you pay for having WAY less torque available at a standstill.
https://xkcd.com/2948/
#xkcd No. 2952
Date: 2024-6-28
Title: Routine Maintenance
Alt text: The worst was the time they accidentally held the can upside down and froze all the Earth's magma chambers solid.
https://xkcd.com/2952/
#xkcd No. 2955
Date: 2024-7-5
Title: Pole Vault
Alt text: Ugh, and we JUST went through this yesterday with javelin.
https://xkcd.com/2955/
#xkcd No. 2949
Date: 2024-6-21
Title: Network Configuration
Alt text: If you repeatedly rerun the development of technological civilization, it turns out that for some reason the only constant is that there is always a networking utility called 'netcat', though it does a different thing in each one.
https://xkcd.com/2949/
#xkcd No. 2951
Date: 2024-6-26
Title: Bad Map Projection: Exterior Kansas
Alt text: Although Kansas is widely thought to contain the geographic center of the contiguous 48 states, topologists now believe that it's actually their outer edge.
https://xkcd.com/2951/
#xkcd No. 3241
Date: 2026-5-4
Title: Horizontal Stabilizers
Alt text: It started as a mistake that everyone was afraid to admit to, and then it stuck because removing it 'looks silly.'.
https://xkcd.com/3241/
![Description:
Cueball and Ponytail watch an airplane. A flashback shows factory workers making its odd shape.
Transcript:
Panel 1:
Cueball: WHAT'S WITH THE LITTLE WINGS ON THE TAILS OF AIRPLANES? DO THEY REALLY NEED THEM?
Ponytail: THEY'RE HORIZONTAL STABILIZERS. THEY SERVE A CRUCIAL AERODYNAMIC ROLE.
Panel 2:
[Caption text at the top:]
PREVIOUSLY, AT THE AIRPLANE FACTORY...
Manager Cueball: THESE WINGS YOU MADE ARE WAY TOO SMALL! THE PLANE IS SUPPOSED TO BE MUCH BIGGER!
Worker Cueball: SORRY! WE'LL START OVER.
Manager Cueball: NO, THERE'S NO TIME. JUST MAKE IT LONGER AND PUT BIGGER WINGS ON THE NEW SECTION.](/proxy/post_attachment/1057470/7c25c91bfe.png "Description:
Cueball and Ponytail watch an airplane. A flashback shows factory workers making its odd shape.
Transcript:
Panel 1:
Cueball: WHAT'S WITH THE LITTLE WINGS ON THE TAILS OF AIRPLANES? DO THEY REALLY NEED THEM?
Ponytail: THEY'RE HORIZONTAL STABILIZERS. THEY SERVE A CRUCIAL AERODYNAMIC ROLE.
Panel 2:
[Caption text at the top:]
PREVIOUSLY, AT THE AIRPLANE FACTORY...
Manager Cueball: THESE WINGS YOU MADE ARE WAY TOO SMALL! THE PLANE IS SUPPOSED TO BE MUCH BIGGER!
Worker Cueball: SORRY! WE'LL START OVER.
Manager Cueball: NO, THERE'S NO TIME. JUST MAKE IT LONGER AND PUT BIGGER WINGS ON THE NEW SECTION.")
#xkcd No. 3162
Date: 2025-10-31
Title: Heart Mountain
Alt text: Even geology papers about Heart Mountain are like, "Look, we all agree this 'volcanic gas earthquake hovercraft' thing seems like it can't possibly be right, but..."
https://xkcd.com/3162/
![Description:
A figure goes to check on the geology department. They peek in to see a presentation about a mountain sliding sideways, then return to their friend.
Transcript:
Panel 1:
Cueball: WE HAVEN'T CHECKED IN ON THE GEOLOGY DEPARTMENT FOR A WHILE. I WONDER IF THEY'RE DOING OKAY.
Panel 2:
Megan: I'LL GO SEE WHAT THEY'RE UP TO.
Panel 3:
[Megan peeks into a room where a geologist is giving a presentation.]
Geologist: 49 MILLION YEARS AGO, HEART MOUNTAIN, WYOMING SLID SIDEWAYS 15 MILES LIKE A GIANT STONE HOVERCRAFT.
[A chart shows a diagram of rock layers with an arrow labeled "90 MPH".]
Panel 4:
Megan: ...THEY'RE NOT OKAY.
Geologist (shouting from off-panel): HEY, YOU COME UP WITH A BETTER EXPLANATION](/proxy/post_attachment/893000/30bbca9cd7.png "Description:
A figure goes to check on the geology department. They peek in to see a presentation about a mountain sliding sideways, then return to their friend.
Transcript:
Panel 1:
Cueball: WE HAVEN'T CHECKED IN ON THE GEOLOGY DEPARTMENT FOR A WHILE. I WONDER IF THEY'RE DOING OKAY.
Panel 2:
Megan: I'LL GO SEE WHAT THEY'RE UP TO.
Panel 3:
[Megan peeks into a room where a geologist is giving a presentation.]
Geologist: 49 MILLION YEARS AGO, HEART MOUNTAIN, WYOMING SLID SIDEWAYS 15 MILES LIKE A GIANT STONE HOVERCRAFT.
[A chart shows a diagram of rock layers with an arrow labeled \"90 MPH\".]
Panel 4:
Megan: ...THEY'RE NOT OKAY.
Geologist (shouting from off-panel): HEY, YOU COME UP WITH A BETTER EXPLANATION")
#xkcd No. 2975
Date: 2024-8-21
Title: Classical Periodic Table
Alt text: Personally I think mercury is more of a 'wet earth' hybrid element.
https://xkcd.com/2975/
#xkcd No. 2950
Date: 2024-6-24
Title: Situation
Alt text: We're right under the flight path for the scheduled orbital launch, but don't worry--it's too cold out for the rockets to operate safely, so I'm sure they'll postpone.
https://xkcd.com/2950/
#xkcd No. 2953
Date: 2024-7-1
Title: Alien Theories
Alt text: They originally came here to try to investigate our chemtrail technology, and got increasingly frustrated when all their samples turned out to just be water ice with trace amounts of jet exhaust.
https://xkcd.com/2953/
#xkcd No. 2960
Date: 2024-7-17
Title: Organ Meanings
Alt text: IMO the thymus is one of the coolest organs and we should really use it in metaphors more.
https://xkcd.com/2960/
#xkcd No. 2956
Date: 2024-7-8
Title: Number Line Branch
Alt text: Attention all passengers: This is an express sequence to infinity. If your stop is not a power of two, please disembark now.
https://xkcd.com/2956/
#xkcd No. 3163
Date: 2025-11-3
Title: Repair Video
Alt text: The statue should be in the likeness of whatever sculptor posted the sculpting tool repair video that was most helpful during the installation of the statue.
https://xkcd.com/3163/
![Description:
A stick figure sits at a desk watching a video on a laptop. On the floor, a humidifier labeled "E-21" makes a loud clicking noise.
Transcript:
[The comic is a single panel. Text is shown coming from a video on a laptop.]
Video Voice: HEY ALL! DOES YOUR E-21 HUMIDIFIER MAKE AN ANNOYING CLICKING NOISE? MINE DID, BUT I FINALLY FIGURED OUT THAT THERE'S AN EASY FIX, SO I MADE THIS VIDEO IN CASE ANYONE ELSE...
Person at desk: OH MY GOD. YES. YES.
[A humidifier on the floor makes a noise.]
Sound effects: CLICK CLICK
[Caption below the panel:]
I KNOW THERE'S MORE IMPORTANT WORK IN THE WORLD, BUT I FEEL LIKE THESE PEOPLE DESERVE, AT MINIMUM, A STATUE.](/proxy/post_attachment/896002/f6415d6d74.png "Description:
A stick figure sits at a desk watching a video on a laptop. On the floor, a humidifier labeled \"E-21\" makes a loud clicking noise.
Transcript:
[The comic is a single panel. Text is shown coming from a video on a laptop.]
Video Voice: HEY ALL! DOES YOUR E-21 HUMIDIFIER MAKE AN ANNOYING CLICKING NOISE? MINE DID, BUT I FINALLY FIGURED OUT THAT THERE'S AN EASY FIX, SO I MADE THIS VIDEO IN CASE ANYONE ELSE...
Person at desk: OH MY GOD. YES. YES.
[A humidifier on the floor makes a noise.]
Sound effects: CLICK CLICK
[Caption below the panel:]
I KNOW THERE'S MORE IMPORTANT WORK IN THE WORLD, BUT I FEEL LIKE THESE PEOPLE DESERVE, AT MINIMUM, A STATUE.")
#xkcd No. 3179
Date: 2025-12-10
Title: Fishing
Alt text: 'That's definitely above the catch-and-release size minimum for planetesimals.' 'I'm going to throw it back anyway.'
https://xkcd.com/3179/
![Description:
Two stick figures, Megan and White Hat, are fishing from a boat. The view shows their lines extending deep underwater and getting snagged on the seabed.
Transcript:
[A single panel comic showing two figures in a boat on the water, with a cross-section view of the deep water below.]
Figure with hat: IT FEELS LIKE A BIG ONE! AT LEAST 10²⁴ KILOGRAMS](/proxy/post_attachment/929563/44c73e1ab0.png "Description:
Two stick figures, Megan and White Hat, are fishing from a boat. The view shows their lines extending deep underwater and getting snagged on the seabed.
Transcript:
[A single panel comic showing two figures in a boat on the water, with a cross-section view of the deep water below.]
Figure with hat: IT FEELS LIKE A BIG ONE! AT LEAST 10²⁴ KILOGRAMS")
#xkcd No. 2974
Date: 2024-8-19
Title: Storage Tanks
Alt text: We're considering installing a pressurization system to keep the tanks at constant pressure solely to deter them.
https://xkcd.com/2974/
#xkcd No. 3164
Date: 2025-11-5
Title: Metric Tip
Alt text: The package weighs 7 kg 9 oz.
https://xkcd.com/3164/
![Description:
A stick figure wearing a tilted hat stands next to another stick figure. They are having a conversation about height.
Transcript:
Panel 1:
[A figure with a hat speaks to another figure.]
Figure with Hat: HOW TALL ARE YOU?
Second Figure: 5 FT 24CM
Caption below the panel: WHEN SWITCHING TO METRIC, MAKE THE PROCESS EASIER BY DOING IT IN STEPS.](/proxy/post_attachment/897920/63a6193934.png "Description:
A stick figure wearing a tilted hat stands next to another stick figure. They are having a conversation about height.
Transcript:
Panel 1:
[A figure with a hat speaks to another figure.]
Figure with Hat: HOW TALL ARE YOU?
Second Figure: 5 FT 24CM
Caption below the panel: WHEN SWITCHING TO METRIC, MAKE THE PROCESS EASIER BY DOING IT IN STEPS.")
#xkcd No. 2957
Date: 2024-7-10
Title: A Crossword Puzzle
Alt text: Hint: If you ever encounter this puzzle in a crossword app, just [term for someone with a competitive and high-achieving personality].
https://xkcd.com/2957/
