2013-06-02
Explanation
This is a long-form philosophical comic about what the author calls "The Falling Problem." A parent explains to a child that when you study physics, you realize that if you were dropped from a plane without a parachute, you could calculate with great precision how long it would take to hit the ground, your speed, and how much energy you would deposit into the earth. And yet, you would still be just as dead as a gorilla dropped from the same height. Understanding the nature of reality does not grant you mastery over it.
The parent then applies this metaphor to medicine: they explain that doctors can describe exactly why grandpa is very sick, what each cell is doing wrong, why it started doing wrong, and roughly when it began -- but they cannot tell the cells to stop. When the child asks why they cannot build a machine to fix it, the parent says it is the same reason you cannot make a parachute while falling from a plane. The child asks if it is because it is too hard, and the parent corrects them: "Nothing is too hard. Many things are too fast." This is a poignant observation about how some problems in medicine and science are not unsolvable in principle, but we simply cannot develop solutions fast enough to help specific patients in time.
The comic ends with the child suggesting they could solve the falling problem with a jetpack and asking the parent to get the parts. The parent warmly replies, "Thats all I do, kiddo" -- implying this optimistic, engineering-minded approach to seemingly impossible problems is exactly the spirit of scientific research. The votey adds a darkly humorous twist: "The jet pack is a metaphor for overthrowing the government."