Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

calculate

2018-07-09 View on smbc-comics.com → 1 revision
calculate
Votey panel for calculate
This explanation is incomplete or may contain errors. It was generated by AI and has not yet been reviewed by a human editor.

Explanation

This comic features a flirtatious pickup scenario where someone asks "Hey baby, you wanna calculate the area under those curves?" -- using mathematical integration as a double entendre about the other person's body. The person responds enthusiastically with "I love spreadsheets!" but is then corrected: "No, I'm talking about integration, the mathematical concept of integrals. It's like calculus."

The explainer goes on to describe integration in increasing technical detail -- "calculating the area in square or cubic units, like you put fingers next to each other" -- while the other person's enthusiasm visibly deflates. The final panel shows the first person asking "Do you ever feel like you need to learn to be sexier?" The comic plays on the classic nerd-fails-at-flirting trope: the character starts with a genuinely clever mathematical pickup line but then ruins it by being unable to resist actually explaining the math, turning a flirtatious moment into an unwanted calculus lecture.

View History (1) Original Comic
← Previous Comic Next Comic →