Luke Surl Comics
The latest from LukeSurl.com
@lukesurl on Twitter
- Got to do an essay on which Olympic event is the easiest, but it's so obvious I'm not sure what I'll write. There's nothing to discus!2012/02/04
- TIL It turns out that TIL stands for 'This Is Lies' #themoreyouknow2012/02/04
- Horror film night with Beyoncé. She didn't like my choice & smashed up my DVD player. "If you liked it you should have put 'The Ring' on it"2012/02/03
- Guns don't kill people, bullets kill people #duh2012/02/03
- I have a part-time job capitalising occasional letters for a word processor but I'm busy this weekend. Anyone able to cover my shifts?2012/02/03
That maths fact is actually true y’know.
But the comic itself is reassuringly false. I sure as hell wouldn’t go out with anyone who didn’t use apostrophes.
In this case you can have an inequality if ‘u’ belongs to a set of imaginary numbers
This is one of the best ever.
Canuck makes a good point, but a possible defense is that a complex function is generally written as f = u + i*v where u and v are both real. I think defining u explicity in the toon might spoil the flow…
My housemate who got a 1st in Maths (and like a super-mega first at that) advised me on this one, and apparantely even if “u” is a simple muliple of i the expression is still invalid.
Cause see, if you multiply 1 by 3 that makes it more, but if you multiply -1 by 3 it’s less, so how do you know which it is for i?
If Emily2781 understood that, she’s probably not that much unlike SkywalkerGuy. She should give him a break lol.
Damn straight, the < inequality is only defined for real numbers, I suppose you could define a partial order on the imaginary line for it to make sense if u is strictly imaginary but as Warren says, that would enter a whole world of pedantry that would probably make Emily2781's eyes roll right out of their sockets.
Ah… yes… I absolutely hate being rude to webcomic makers, but recently your comics have sort of fallen short. I really hate saying that, believe me. They’re just not as funny as they used to be. I’m comparing your last few to maybe two or three months ago, of course. I’m not going to bash you without giving you some sort of comparison. I know, I know, I don’t make webcomics and have no right to randomly start telling someone they could do better, but I just thought I’d get this out there, you know?
*sigh* Nonetheless, this particular comic was a good one.
I actually agree with Zerp. Comics from a few months ago were better than the recent ones.
Nonetheless, this is one is FANTASTIC.
It took me a couple of seconds, but I got it
Hilarious 
*is far too amused*
Bleh. I wouldn’t go out with anyone who regularly used text-speak anyway.
And following up on Zerp’s point, since you give us this for free, even a mild chuckle is worthwhile.
@Zerp64 & @Mkop
Cheers for the feedback. I’m always trying to improve so it’s good to know what works and what doesn’t.
Generally speaking, the sort of humour I’m doing is a hit or miss game, so sometimes they’ll be a string of hits, sometimes a string of misses. Hopefully next week’s comics will be on the better side of that equation.
P.S. Second to commenting, voting yay or nay on IsItFunnyToday.com is the best way to let me know what works and doesn’t. Plus, that site allows you to sign up to a special RSS feed which only delivers the ‘toons which rate above 60% funny.
Actually the complex numbers can be totally ordered – for example lexicographically:
u + iv < x +iy if (u < x) or (u = x and v < y)
(where < is any total ordering on the reals)
They just can't be totally ordered by the (arguably intuitive) ordering by absolute magnitude.
Well, regardless of what others say, I personally believe your webcomics are consistent in how well they work. I’ve enjoyed virtually (slight pun) every one of them.
I suppose tastes differ from person to person though. I particularly enjoy many of the obscure references and intellectual jokes you make.
Thanks for the great work, Luke! Keep on keeping on!
As the 3 and the u have a space in between them it is invalid. No program i have run across will evaluate across this gap and in person the missing operator kinda kills any possiblity of bringing the u. I hate to debate syntax but since the 3 and < are directly next to each other and then a break before 'u', no operator can be said to be tying 'u' into the inequality. As such, 3 is not imaginary, i is, statement invalid/illogical/"does not compute".
I absolutely love the comic. It made my day a bit better
Now my picky math side must kick in:
@Canuck (and Warren): There is no natural ordering on the complex numbers!! In general, there’s no good way to define a + bi i unless you explicitly define a partial/total order as mentioned above. The only canonical way is using the modulus, which would be OK (although awkward) to do, and would allow you to say 2i > i, or even ui > i for positive real numbers, u. Unfortunately, his intuition still doesn’t work, since -i is a “simple” (scalar) multiple of i, and -i > i makes no sense at all.
LOL, dude that is just too funny!
RT
http://www.online-privacy.tk
Haha, I love the math dialog in these comments. I have to further disagree (slightly).
@Berkley: Even when considering the modulus, “ui > i” does not hold true for “positive numbers, u” seeing as u is a positive real number in “0.1i > i,” yet the modulus of the left side is smaller than the modulus of the right side. Even more, if the modulus was what was being consider in the inequality “i <3 u," u would just have to be greater than 1/3 to make it true. But the fact that no modulus signs are present makes the inequality too ambiguous and therefore (in my mind) wrong.
Lol that was pretty good.
Are you folks for real? I <3 u means I love you. The nerd didn't get it. Turn the <3 90 degrees.
what are these degrees you speek of and by rotation can you give me the tranformation matrix?
T = [[ 0, 1],
1, 0]]
Reflection about the line ‘y=x’ actually.
You just wish you were a math nerd too.
This is fucking amazing. What a day-brightener.
And apparently this particular ‘comic’ was a ‘hit,’ as it’s front-page on digg. Thanks for sharing man, rofl. If this was you, the fact that you actually said that is brilliant and worth a purple heart or some shit.
Thanks for the nice words everyone. I should give credit to Wendy Wood of http://www.gilbertandgrim.com for some technical advice on how to create this (fake) conversation
Very nice.
Not sure how this is worth 1270 diggs.
i dnt get it lmao :S
you, americans are going way too wierd
OH WOW hilarious
LOL!
hahah
“I don’t understand… this can only be true if u are imaginary”
Much better joke this way XD
But if u is imaginary it still doesn’t make any sense… which is bigger, i or -i?
Win
Hay it’s hilarious…feel bad for yah…hahahaha….<3 for everyone.
That violates the laws of math!
@berkeley, @CaptainCanuck
the equation is totally wrong. there’s even no assigned value for u and you wouldn’t know the value of i (i,-1,-i, 1) unless you solve it from the original equation which wasn’t given.
Lolz..for me its so funny..
wow you guys are completely ruining the joke by over-analyzing the mathematics.
But that’s half the fun!
(BTW starting sentences with conjunctions yay)
I can’t believe I’m actually stepping in to comment on this. Complex numbers support no total ordering. The joke in the comic stands, despite whinging about values of u, moduli, etc.
i is neither positive nor negative, therefore any inequality with it would be invalid regardless of what the coefficient is because inequalities compare REAL values.
damn this is awesome.
she just freakin’ quit.
nice one.
Interestingly…Emily2781 almost has the first few values of “e”. e = 2.718 approx
I wonder was that intentional?
And if the skywalker fella was really a math freak…he should have seen the space between “i” and the “<" sign…especially when she had said "i think " twice in the previous two lines…
I don’t see it as hit or miss. To me, it’s eather hilarious or just very funny. And I don’t mind a few ‘just very funny’ s in a row. =D
Thanks and keep it up Luke!
Doh, either
That is brilliant, can’t believe I never noticed that one… you rock.
Just to spoil everyone’s day, Captain Canuck is wrong. The complex numbers do no have a natural ordering, and hence inequalities are meaningless. For example, 1 is a complex number. So is 1 > i or is i > 1? The only way to “force” an inequality on the complex numbers is to define a metric on the space. This was not indicated, however.
… you definitely need more than just a metric (there is a natural metric on C, that induced by the magnitude). You need to define partial order… which would be precisely an inequality.
neither of you are ever getting laid
*sigh* We’ve been over this in the comments above five trillion hyperboles of times, can we drop it? Inequalities with imaginary numbers don’t exist. Drop it, please?
F*ck, I can’t get the window closed!
2(LOL) + i <3 !
“The force is strong with this one”
that’s math all over your face yo!
Holy crap! 51 (now 52) comments! Is this a record, Luke?
I think so. http://www.lukesurl.com/archives/198 has 43 at the mo’ and I think that was the previous title-holder.
hi digg
Not sure which came first, but this is on qdb: http://qdb.us/299631
When i first glanced at this I was really confused b/c my usual username is emilycat27….
but lol.
WIN!
Wait… can’t you have an inequality with imaginary numbers?
Gwen, dear, would it please you to read the previous comments? Sorry if I sound condescending, but there has been extensive debating. BTW, the conclusion is no. No imaginary number is inherently bigger than any other.
All hail Kingdom of Green!