Comics about mathematics, science, and the student life.

The Right Book

Left panel: A person clenching their fist says, "I'm going to read more books!" Right panel (Caption: Five hours later): A friend comes up to the person, who is sitting at their desk on their laptop. The friend asks, "So, what are you reading?" The person replies, "Oh, nothing. I haven't found the right book."

The solution? Spend ten more hours browsing book recommendations!

13 Apr 2022

Reminders

A one dimensional axis labelled "Number of emails", increasing to the right. On the left, there's an "X" which says, "Collaborators and messages you want", while on the right, there's an "X" which says, "Reminders for events". Caption: I never hesitate to delete reminders, because I'll just get ten more.

As the event approaches, the number of emails asymptotes to infinity.

11 Apr 2022

Measurement Problem

Left panel: A professor stands at the board and addresses the class. "Even though you are all theoretical physicists, it's good to have contact with the experimental side of things. So how would you propose we measure this quantity in an experiment?" Right panel: A student answers, "Um, we ask the experimenters?" The professor says, "Not what I was going for, but that probably is the practical thing to do."

Theoretical physicists are nothing if not resourceful.

08 Apr 2022

Depth

A one-dimensional graph with the axis being "Depth of knowledge". On the far left, there's the "Beginner". Then there's "Advanced", followed by "Finishing a PhD thesis", with "Crazy" just after.

Are you sure that digging into one topic for so long is a good example of “work-life balance”?

06 Apr 2022

Tag Along

A person labelled "Mathematics" says, "Do you need to tag along with everything?" The person labelled "Physics" responds, "It's just a coincidence!"

“It just so happens that everything you do has applications in the real world!”

04 Apr 2022

Motivation

Left panel (Intrinsic): A person sits with a book and says, "I just love reading!" Middle panel (Extrinsic): A mother says to their child, "If you read your book, we'll go out for ice cream." Right panel (Textbook): A book with a caption saying, "A strange historical anecdote that has little relevance anymore."

The last panel always makes me think of how my first quantum theory courses began with going the “historical route”.

01 Apr 2022

Exposition Problem

Left panel (Research): Scientific leader says to a researcher, "This is a great discovery!" Right panel (Exposition): Leader says to another researcher, "Could you focus more on new discoveries than research?"

If only we placed as much emphasis on creating good exposition.

30 Mar 2022

Citation Trail

Graph of the overlap with the original claim as a function of citation trail. The message gradually has less overlap, and becomes corrupted later.

This is why you want to deal with the original source.

28 Mar 2022

Tweak

A graduate student is with their supervisor. Graduate student: "Here's my work." Supervisor: "Hmm...why didn't you try what I usually do?" Graduate student: "But look at what I *did*!" Supervisor: "Yes, yes, that's great. Now, can you do this?"

Ah, the joys of being blinded by your usual ways.

25 Mar 2022

Paper Space

A winding journey from "Start Writing" to "Paper Complete". Includes "Initial burst", "Heavy revision", "Multiple dead ends", "Finding the story", and "Final edits".

My hope is that I will be able to set up trail markers to avoid chunks of this winding path in the future.

23 Mar 2022