Comics about mathematics, science, and the student life.

Hammer and Nail

All the things in the world are free particles or harmonic oscillators.

If you make the mistake of asking a physicist if this is realistic, they will tell you with glee how accurate we can make models that only use these ingredients.

Gravity Well

Working isn't everything.

Work isn’t everything.

Jarring Count

The trouble of writing grant proposals.

I hope I don’t have to give that left jar to someone else, or else I’m going to be broke.

References

Paper: "As was shown in Ref.[4], their results are completely in agreement with ours." Person: "But where am I supposed to look? The paper is sixty pages long!" Caption: Would it really kill us to reference where in a document we are referring to?

Seriously, could there be anything more annoying than failing to specify where items of interest are? I know, it’s not “conventional”, but come on.

Update: And yes, thats a typo. I don’t have the original anymore, so there’s nothing I can do to fix it!

Cheating

Person 1: "Are you cheating on our homework?" Person 2 (looking at their device): "I'm trying, but the material is so advanced that I can barely follow the solutions!"

The best strategy to defend students from copying.

To The Brim

Person 1: "Are you sure that's going to fit?" Person 2 (filling a container labelled 'stuff in your life' and getting near the brim): "Oh yeah, look at all of that room!"

“If it’s not in danger of overflowing, you’re not doing it right!”

Definition

(Dictionary entry) Physicist: A person who works very hard to avoid exactly solving the problem they set for themselves.

“Okay class, we’ve spent a lot of time writing down these complicated expressions. Well, it turns out we can’t actually evaluate these, so we’re just going to use some tricks to get approximate solutions.”

Strategic Email

"Wow, this student once again emailed me just as I sat down. I guess I'll start with their email before getting to the 97 others." Caption: My new email strategy: schedule emails to be sent right as they check their mountain of email.

Don’t tell me Handwaving never gives out good advice for academia!

Enthusiasm

A rapidly growing function depicting how the number of pieces of chalk broken scales with the enthusiasm of the professor.

The best is when they break a piece, pause, try again, and break another piece a few moments later.

Breakthrough

"Hmm, this part of the grant application is asking us why we should be doing this research. What should I say?" "Just say it will change the world if we can make a breakthrough." "Is that likely?" "Heck no, but there's no reason to tell them that!"

Ah, there’s nothing more relaxing than writing grant applications. They really make you indulge in your biggest fantasies for your research.