Comics about mathematics, science, and the student life.

Framing Failure

Left panel: A frame with a bunch of Xs, indicating failures. A person off-panel says, "I need a bigger frame." Right panel: There's now a much bigger frame with the failures all in the bottom-left corner, indicating the much larger possibility space. The person says, "That's better!"

In tough situations, look for possibility.

12 Jun 2023

The Top

A woman stands at the top of a hill labeled, "Life Accomplishments". She says, "Finally, I've made it! Those years paid off." (Pause) "But now what?"

This is why setting “infinite game” types of goals is probably a good thing.

09 Jun 2023

Beautiful

A mathematician and her friend are talking. Her friend says, "You're always saying math is beautiful. How can I see it too?" The mathematician lifts up a hand and says, "Spend years studying it." She says, "Is there something a little...faster?" The mathematician says, "It's an acquired taste."

As attributed to Euclid: “There is no royal road to geometry.”

07 Jun 2023

Weird

A scientist walks with her friend. He asks, "So you just spend every day failing?" She lifts her arms in the air and responds, "And the few times I succeed each year makes it worthwhile!" He says, "Scientists are weird."

“That one time, I went about a decade without any real breakthrough. But it felt really good when I had it!”

05 Jun 2023

Geometric

A manager sits at his desk in a meeting with his worker. He says, "I'm concerned about your lack of progress." She says, "Don't worry, I chipped away at half of what was left. I'm sur I'll do the same tomorrow." The manager responds, "You've said this for the last month." She shrugs and says, "You can't argue with a geometric series."

“At least I converge.”

02 Jun 2023

Error Diagnosis

Two researchers are walking together. One asks his friend, "What was the most important programming skill you learned as a researcher?" She says, "How to search online for my error messages."

Searching online: The new “library research” skill.

31 May 2023

Migration

A bunch of dots representing different researchers in various fields. There is one particular clump of researchers though, and all the others have arrows indicating a migration to the same field. Caption: The Great Hot Research Field Migration.

I suppose the corollary is that researchers figure out which buzzwords to include in their grant applications to boost their chance at receiving funding.

29 May 2023

Signpost

Left panel (What I'd like): A researcher stands near a sign which points to the right and says, "Good Research Ideas". Right panel (Reality): A researcher looks to another, who points behind her and says, "Maybe there's something over there?"

“I’ve been meaning to send a graduate student down that way, but I suppose you could try as well.”

26 May 2023

Order of Operations

A visualization of the order of edits in a paper. Instead of being orderly from the start of the paper to the end, it ping-pongs back and forth many times.

The fun part is when a change here implies a rewrite there, there, and there.

24 May 2023

Cluster Queue

A researcher climbs a ladder and adds another box labelled "Job" to a complicated contraption that already has many similar boxes in its queue, while a robotic arm moves from the queue to the current jobs being executed. The researcher says, "You can never submit too many jobs to the cluster."

If you’re not always computing something, what are you really doing?

22 May 2023