2013-01-20
Explanation
This comic contrasts the attitudes of mathematicians and physicists toward computational proof tools like Wolfram Mathematica. In the first panel, labeled "In Mathematics," a professor reviews a student'''s proof and objects that an entire step consists of nothing more than "Mathematica said so." For mathematicians, every step of a proof must be rigorously justified from axioms and prior theorems, so deferring to a computer program is unacceptable -- it is not a real proof.
In the second panel, labeled "In Physics," a bearded professor reviews the same kind of work but has the opposite complaint: "What a waste. Half of this proof could be replaced by '''Mathematica said so.'''" Physicists are generally more pragmatic and results-oriented, caring more about whether the answer is correct and useful than whether every step is derived from first principles. To a physicist, laboriously proving something by hand when a computer can verify it instantly is a waste of time.
The votey panel adds a third discipline -- "Biology" -- where a scientist screams in horror: "Aah! There are numbers on this paper!" This is a playful jab at biology'''s reputation (at least stereotypically) as the least quantitative of the natural sciences, where practitioners are less comfortable with heavy mathematical formalism. The cartoonist'''s note simply reads "BURN," acknowledging the deliberate roast.