I’m Pretty Sure This Is What That Official at NSF Was Watching

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I will just mention that this guy doesn’t really look like Brian Greene. And that I’m disappointed the word “heterotic” couldn’t be worked in there somewhere.

And also that ordinary one-dimensional strings don’t form knots in higher dimensions of space, so extra-dimensional bondage requires extended objects. So really the guy in the cartoon should probably be “Dr. Polchinski.”

Comments

9 responses to “I’m Pretty Sure This Is What That Official at NSF Was Watching”

  1. ollie Avatar

    Strictly speaking, “ordinary” (as in, say, smooth or P. L.) strings don’t knot themselves in 3-space either. 🙂

    Of course closed loops do, and yes, so do non-smooth (or non- polygonal ) strings and non-compact strings, etc.

  2. helvio Avatar
    helvio

    Hmmm, I thought that this cartoon was just a rip-off of the excellent ‘hyper-bondage’ xkcd cartoon in the recent xkcd vs The New Yorker cartoon-off.

  3. Sunrisemix1 Avatar
    Sunrisemix1

    I don’t know what kind, but its got to be some kind of awesome when my favorite science feed mentions my favorite webcomic. 🙂

  4. anonymous this time Avatar
    anonymous this time

    I am pretty sure I have never seen the real Dr Greene in a tie, either.

  5. A. Avatar
    A.

    Mouse over the red button below the comic for more compactification-related excitement.

  6. Blake Stacey Avatar

    “If inflation persists for more than four Planck times, consult your physician immediately.”

  7. Sili Avatar
    Sili

    At least there was one for the chemists today.

    I don’t think I’ve ever seen orbifolds used in humour before. Pity I can’t even wrap my head round differential geometry (dispite having passed the exam once …).

    Linky, since Blake isn’t tooting his own horn for some reason.

  8. Qubit Avatar

    He might not look like the real Brian Greene, but he definitely has an imaginary likeness. 😉

  9. Mike Avatar
    Mike

    That picture gives me a large hadron.