Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for June 02, 2020

And Dad did this to him on a school night!

Fun facts build character.

“Round and round, the record spins all day!”

Gee Dad, thanks for nothing!

Dad: “And not only that, Calvin, neither of those speeds are the one identified on the record label!”

Calvin: “Never mind all that, when are you getting me something to play streams instead of forcing this antiquated technology on me?”

It’s really true. Even a little reality can totally freak out humans. I can understand how Calvin reacted. I’ve been there so many times in my life.

Kids today: “What’s a record??”

CD’s DVD’s, and BlueRay are constant velocity instead of constant rotation rate.

This is how you make a flat-Earther. Also, a record denier.

Math and physics can be terrifying.

When I was in grade school, I used to play 78 rpm records on the take-up reel of my old Silvertone wire recorder and record them ontothe wire that was feeding it from the smaller spool that contained about two miles of steel wire a bit thicker in diameter than a thread.It turned out quite well for the technology of the day… That was ages ago for that old tube wire recorder. When the wire broke, (As it often times did) You had to first untangle the horrible mess and then tie it in a square knot to resume your playing or recording.Those were fond memories of the day for me. Thank heavens reel to reel tape recorders hit the scene shortly after and I bought a good old Teac.

This on top of Hobbes telling him he’s tiger food!

Linear speed is proportional to distance from center. That’s circular motion for you.

Way to go dad! Tormenting your kid just before bedtime.

This was a classic. I was only thinking about it a few days ago.

That’s me, tonight. Thinking this in terms of spiral galaxies.

And if the record were large enough, the outside edge would go at the speed of light. The math is left as an exercise for the reader, as Professor Abramoff would say.

This was always my father’s favorite one.

did anyone understand what he said?

Science is so scary!

Wait until you get older, Calvin…then there will be things that will REALLY keep you up nights!

Quick way to figure it out, is a good old fashioned game of “crack the whip”

A record? I seem to remember seeing something like that, but the memory is foggy.

EXACTLY!

Math is WEIRD!

Dad always puts a different spin on things, Calvin!

This is what happens when I try to explain to people how technology works. Sometimes it’s better to let people just enjoy it. :)

What’s impressive is that Calvin understood that well enough to be bothered by it.

How he was conceived is gonna kill him!

Never think to much about physics, unless you really want to look like Albert Einstein.

One of my very special favorites!

Confoozuling, to say the least.

Reminds me of the time worn trick of asking someone right before bedtime how Adam and Eve could have had a belly button if they never had an umbilical cord. Every painting or depiction I’ve ever seen of them in church or art books showed them having one.

Now my head hurts.

So MY question is, if I am a jockey in a horse race (oval track), which gate do I want? I don’t want to be crowded up against the rail in the first gate … but I sure don’t want to be on the far outside because (as we have just learned) my horse would have to run farther. … What’s the math to solve this problem?

For once Calvin’s dad tells him a truth about how the world works and it breaks his brain.

Yeah, that would’ve f’ed me up as a kid. …actually, it’s f’ing me up now.

He should never tell Calvin about quantum mechanics.

My reaction is the same as Calvin’s.

H=C×S×pi÷r

How many grooves on a vinyl record?

A similar math/physics quandry that puzzled me was: “How come a mirror changes you from left to right, but not up and down ?”

“Oh, how can you be in two places at once, when you’re not anywhere at alllllllll….”

This one always got me. Consider the physics of a car tire. The hub of the tire is moving at the same speed as the car. The top of the tire is spinning forward, and thus going faster than the car. The bottom of the tire is spinning backward, and thus moving slower than the car. All good? Now the tricky part. The portion of the tire in contact with the road is stopped. It has to be, unless the car is skidding.

Dad is about as good at building Calvin’s mind as he is at building his character.

This one has me thinking, too.

Tomorrow we’ll do the math in polar coordinates.

Spaceman Spiff should have known this instinctively – since he flies around in space, right?!

At least Dad is giving him accurate information in this case. Dad often pranks Calvin with misinformation and then says some version of “If you don’t believe me, check with your Mom!”

And remember, Calvin, there is an infinite number of values for the area of the record, because there is an infinite number of values of pi to choose from.

Well Dad could have got into string theory, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle or Schrodinger’s cat that would have blown the kid’s mind just like it does most P Chem students, particularly the ones who partied.

Really, the best scientific thing that I learned about records at that age was what happened when you played them at faster (or slower) speeds.

Ahh yes, made back when records were still somewhat common but were being eclipsed by CDs and cassettes (1990.) Of course, Calvin’s Dad probably still preferred records over CDs!

Watterson said in some interview that he based Calvin’s Dad on himself and that he’s the one he identifies most closely with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8v09-wlFiM. See this needleOh see my hand Drop, drop, dropping it downoh so gently here it comestouch the flameTurn me upwon’t turn you awaySpin, spinspin the black circle Spin, spinspin the black, spin the black Spin, spinspin the black circle Spin, spinwhoa

Calvin’s dad should have been a bit clearer, the points have different linear speeds but the same angular speed. So he was both right and wrong in saying the points travel at different speeds depending on which speed he was talking about.

Don’t understand this one. I might have expected an eye roll or a yawn.

Once a birdwatcher I knew was wondering why birds can’t just fly out of the way of whirling windturbine blades. I tried to explain how the speed through the air is faster and faster as you measure it further and further from the hub. He looked at me like I was nuts and informed me that it does not.

This.. is why you need to do well in school Calvin.. then, it will be clear to you.

This is second only to the Sunday panel about color film in a black and white world. I love it when his dad messes with him.

I love Dad’s “explanations.”

https://discord.gg/46YMeZ

I think it has something to do with what Einstein said about things going faster get there younger.

And Dad’s point is…?

I’m so glad that I’m not smart enough to get this one. Kinda like the Simpsons episode where Homer goes through the Far Side calendar saying, “I don’t get it… I don’t get it… I don’t get it…”

Put on some Dead or Alive.

Science is fun. And terrifying.

This would be a good time to introduce the concept of the radian.

You can see how Calvin gets some of his traits from his Dad

So this is why the Spacex orbiter has to accelerate to get to the orbit of the space station. They actually have to get passed it so they have to go higher then slow down to lower the orbit and dock. on the other side. Be careful don’t accelerate into the space station!!

This is hilarious!

Oh yeah, Dad: Calvin is definitely your son.

That is so evil. Good on ya, Dad!

New knowledge leads to new questions, some are scary until you need that knowledge.

“You say you want a revolution…”

Usually Dad’s explanations are idiotic. this one was true. that’s what’s worrisome.

And everybody on planet earth goes around once in every 24 hours, regardless of their speed.

Calvin’s mind is spinning 78 rpm.

When I first noticed that, when probably a tad older than Calvin, I was fascinated. What a cool insight! I told my sibs: (nobody cared), my mom: (busy) and my dad: “Whoa, interesting. How fast do you figure the outside point is going?”… and then I learned the formula for the circumference of a circle, an approximation for π (22/7) and that the record I was playing was 10 inches in diameter. So a little under 31 and a half inches per revolution, 33 of those per minute, for about 86 and a half feet per minute.

That was the start of my understanding that math could be fun… with a side helping of finding out that dimensions (feet, inches, seconds etc) can be converted to each other in a systematic way… and THAT insight, eventually, got me a long way toward passing college physics with good grades.

That would have made me want to figure out why.

Calvins eyes tho

How to explain your son ‘What is angular velocity’.

I lost so many brain cells while trying to read this one