Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

This comic is about the naming convention for antimatter particles. A physics professor explains that antimatter emerges naturally from the equations, and a student asks a question. The student wants to know: since Dirac discovered antimatter, why do we call them "antimatter" and not "Diracticles" (a portmanteau of "Dirac" and "particles")?

The professor reacts with visible frustration, and the next panel shows a newspaper headline: "PHYSICS PROFS RETIRE EN MASSE" with the subheadline "Cite 'extreme and unremitting boredom.'" The joke is that physics professors have to deal with students who, rather than engaging with the deep and fascinating physics of antimatter, fixate on trivial questions about naming conventions. The pun "Diracticles" is deliberately terrible, compounding the professors' despair. It parodies how students sometimes miss the profound content of physics in favor of superficial observations.