2013-10-01
Explanation
This comic features August Mobius (depicted as an elderly Victorian-era gentleman) delivering the classic "when I was a boy" lecture to a younger person. However, instead of the usual cliched hardships like walking uphill both ways, Mobius describes walking in the snow every day in no shoes on a "non-orientable surface for which the notions of beginning and end were meaningless." The caption at the bottom reads: "August Mobius found a lot of applications for his discoveries."
The joke is a math pun referencing the Mobius strip, the famous mathematical object discovered by August Ferdinand Mobius in 1858. A Mobius strip is a surface with only one side and one edge, created by taking a strip of paper, giving it a half-twist, and joining the ends. It is indeed "non-orientable" (a real mathematical term meaning you cannot consistently define "left" and "right" on its surface) and the notions of beginning and end are meaningless because you can trace a path along it that returns to its starting point without ever crossing an edge. So the old man'''s complaint about walking to school is literally accurate for someone walking on a Mobius strip -- the walk truly would never end.
The votey panel shows the elderly Mobius saying "In fact, I'''m still walking to school now!" -- the perfect punchline, since on a non-orientable surface with no beginning or end, he would indeed still be walking forever, never arriving at his destination.