[2011-Aug-23] Doin' Your Mom

[Eric]

The math is wrong. It is adding a time quantity with a unitless quantity. This makes no sense, unless we're working with a unit system where time is measured with a dimensionless unit. Does a standard system like that exist? If so, is the age given by the math reasonable?

I agree. Less about being pedantic about units, and more about joke clarity. Maybe I'm just dense this morning, but it took me way too long to realize the significance of + 0.75. Could have said "twice your kid's age plus 9 months" and it would have been accurate plus clear.

I would hope that the average SMBC reader is sharp enough to realize quickly that 0.75 years = 9 months. If you have to explain the joke, it's no longer funny.

That they would probably be able to. But if you ask the average SMBC reader "How many months are 0.75?" I bet the majority will not have a good answer.

[Gangler]

That was my thought, though I was able to gather from context that 0.75 was supposed to somehow represent the period of time between conception and birth. You really need some kind of unit of measurement there though. I'm no mathematician, so maybe leaving that up to the imagination like that is commonplace in formulas, but if you're just Joe Nobody reading this then it looks odd.

[Bobbo, The amazing Robert ...]

I think everyone is reading too much into this. The math is perfectly valid considering that the equation is linear, thus every value in the range has a single preimage in the domain. So technically, when you substitute a valid tuple into the equation, it is only true for that one value.

[Gangler]

I don't know what any of that means. Is that right? Would this formula work if we were measuring in days?

[Eisbreaker]

I don't know what any of that means. Is that right? Would this formula work if we were measuring in days?

If the equation was ...+0.75 yrs then yes. Then you would simply need to do some unit conversion:
(0.75 * 365) = 273.75
The fraction means you'd have to have the conversation at 18:00, This is all way too specific for a stupid joke in a webcomic.

Edit: I just realized that if you're obsessed enough and take time to account for leap years and such, you could in fact pinpoint the exact moment you were conceived with this equation by using your and your father's age as points of reference... Creepy.

[Gangler]

Why would you have to figure that out? I would think your parents probably know anyway. No reason to resort to math unless they're being secretive about it for some reason. I was conceived on the third day after my parents' wedding ceremony. Pretty quickly became evident that it is not hard to impregnate her. Between that and the subsequent cancer during the pregnancy their "Happy newlyweds" stage didn't last terribly long. I chuckle at that sometimes. Sweet shit that was a terrible way to start a marriage XD

Compare to my aunt and uncle who decided not to have children. They're still like happy newlyweds to this day, except a little bit mellower. Shit just got didactic.

[Eisbreaker]

With this you can find the exact time, down to the minute, probably even second, is all I'm saying.

[smiley_cow]

Probably not. Most people aren't pregnant exactly nine months. The most accurate you can get is if you subtract 40 weeks from your date of birth you'll be right in the centre of the two week period you were most likely conceived in.

[Gangler]

Why do you wanna know so bad anyway?

[Eisbreaker]

For science!

I don't, I just have nothing else to ponder today.

[Gangler]

Sounds like what you need is less a formula and more an Private Investigator.

[Lethal Interjection]

Probably not. Most people aren't pregnant exactly nine months. The most accurate you can get is if you subtract 40 weeks from your date of birth you'll be right in the centre of the two week period you were most likely conceived in.

But that's still easy to figure out if you know the date of conception. And most parents I've had conversations with on the subject are not certain when their due date is. And it would be a little sad if they were, for the most part.

[saxindustries]

I wrote a short perl program for figuring out what day you can say this to your kid, based on the subtracting 40 weeks idea:

Code: Select all

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use DateTime;
use DateTime::Format::Natural;

#ARGV[0] is your kid's birthday, you can just write it as "Aug 23, 2011"   
#ARGV[1] is your birthday, same idea - just write it naturally

my $parser = DateTime::Format::Natural->new;

my $kid_bd = $parser->parse_datetime($ARGV[0]);
my $parent_bd = $parser->parse_datetime($ARGV[1]);

my $diff = $kid_bd->subtract_datetime($parent_bd);
my $doin_the_mom = $kid_bd->add($diff)->subtract(weeks => 40);

print $doin_the_mom->ymd."\n"

Example output:

Code: Select all

perl smbc-day.pl "August 23, 2011" "November 7, 1985"
2036-09-01

If my kid's born today, I get to brag about doing his mom at his age in September 2036.

[Guest]

Zach must have written The BU in "burn"...
It would only be revealed against the black of the comic border.

Came here to say this, and actually had a very similar progression of events and series of diagrams in my head. Thanks for saving me the effort
Together with this:

The votey definitely said 'Buying' when I first saw the comic, but now it says dying. I think Zach just realised he wrote the wrong word, and erased it in that time.

I think your explanation makes even more sense. Perhaps with the (condoms) line?

[5of0]

Ah hell, forgot to log in. Ah well.