2012-04-10
Explanation
This comic tackles the classic philosophical question "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" -- a question traditionally used to mock medieval scholasticism as pointlessly abstract. Here, an engineer-type character decides to actually answer it using physics. He calculates that the minimum possible area is the Planck area (about 2.6 times 10 to the negative 70th square meters), and the area of a pin head is about 7.6 times 10 to the negative 6th square meters. Dividing the pin area by the Planck area gives roughly 3 times 10 to the 64th, meaning between one and about 30 vigintillion angels could fit.
He proudly declares "Q.E.D. Another bullshit philosophy problem falls before the might of the engineering mind." A bystander then points out that there is no historical evidence that people ever seriously debated that question -- it was always used as a caricature of pointless theological hair-splitting, not an actual topic of scholastic debate. The engineer dismisses this by asking "Can you build a spaceship out of history?" When told no, he declares "Then history is bullshit too!" -- revealing a comically narrow worldview where only engineering-applicable knowledge has value.
The votey panel extends this joke with someone telling the engineer "You can't build a spaceship out of all those Orson Scott Card novels you read!" to which he defiantly responds "Yet." This adds another layer by showing the engineer's inconsistency: he dismisses non-engineering disciplines but also values science fiction novels, which are equally non-functional for building spaceships.