2012-04-25
Explanation
This comic imagines a spy scenario where secret messages are hidden in the most secure location possible: the even-numbered problems of a math textbook. A spy boasts to his handler, "Our messages have already passed through your cryptographers unnoticed" -- not because of any clever encryption, but because they were hidden "in plain sight." The messages were placed in the even-numbered problems of a calculus textbook, purchased from a university bookstore.
The narration explains: "No one will ever find them. Because no one will ever look." The final panel shows the textbook page, where spy instructions like "The plan to assassinate Lord John Roxton will be delayed 12 minutes" and "Agent Thursday has been unmasked. He is Gabriel Syme and works for Scotland Yard" are interspersed with legitimate calculus problems like "dy/dx = y/x" and "dy/dx = 1/y." The joke is that students famously skip even-numbered problems in math textbooks because those are the ones without answers in the back of the book, making them the perfect hiding place.
This is a joke that resonates deeply with anyone who has taken a college math course. Professors often assign odd-numbered problems because students can check their work against the answer key, meaning the even-numbered problems go completely untouched. The votey panel adds a final layer: when the spy'''s secret is revealed, the handler asks, "Are you going to look at evens now?" and the response is a defeated "...No." Even knowing there are spy secrets hidden there, no one can bring themselves to actually do the even-numbered math problems.