2010-12-17
Explanation
This comic depicts the classic scenario of a child repeatedly asking "Why?" in response to every answer a parent gives. It begins with the father telling his child to go to their room. The child asks "Why?" and the father explains he is upset because the child was cheating on homework. Each successive "Why?" forces the father into increasingly scientific and technical explanations: photons were emitted from a lamp and bounced off the child to form an image in his eyes, his photoreceptor cells respond to electromagnetic radiation, electromagnetic radiation photoisomerizes his 11-cis retinal, photons carry energy, and energy is proportional to frequency.
After being driven from a simple disciplinary matter all the way down to fundamental physics by the relentless chain of "Why?" questions, the father snaps and says "Go to your room!" -- exactly where the conversation started, creating a perfect loop. The graph at the bottom shows that the "potential length of these conversations" has an inverse relationship with "human desire for children" over "human history," humorously suggesting that the more parents have experienced this exhausting interrogation cycle, the less enthusiasm they have for having children.