Comics about mathematics, science, and the student life.

Framing

Trying to fence the perfect area of your house to look presentable on camera.

If only I could make a “bubble of sound” around me…

Toy Model Regression

Physicists: Simplifying until anyone can solve the problem.

“Next: I can write a series of papers doing progressively more complicated perturbations and expansions.”

Numerical Instability

Machine learning is really about praying that things all work out.

That platform is only balancing because I’ve had to tune the mass of that left sphere perfectly. It practically took a neural network to figure out the right mass.

Inspection

Grad students think that lines in a research paper are much more significant than they really are.

“Do you think you should maybe polish up this draft a bit for clarity?”

“What? This isn’t a draft! I spent a whole thirty minutes working on it. Everyone I want to understand this will be able to, and the others will just have to figure it out.”

Linear Theory

The trick to getting your linear theory to work is making the data points bigger.

“So the size of the dots indicate your error bars?”

“Oh no, I only add those in when I’m really desperate.”

Ising

The Ising model is what everyone starts with.

Most condensed matter research nowadays is just a list of footnotes to the Ising model.

Narrow Band

The narrow band which is what you know of your research field resembles that of the visible band in the electromagnetic spectrum.

If you work diligently, you might get to double the width of your knowledge.

Spherical Cow

Trusting a physicist to do a rigourous job probably won't end well.

Honestly, was it that much of an approximation to take the complicated world economy and transform it into a series of springs?

Up To Date

Becoming a polymath back in the day was a lot easier than now.

“Oh look, I think I see the new shipment on the horizon! You better get started on this pile.”

Perspective

Science can be seen as a loosely-grouped collection of islands or a continent in which we arbitrarily erected borders.

Let’s not forget that the divisions in science are mainly a human construct.