Abstruse Goose Proves That Even The Worst Comics Can Get Worse
by czwheeler
Based off my well known hatred for the web-comic known as “xkcd,” you’d be forgiven for thinking that xkcd is, in my opinion, the worst comic out there. But it’s not true! I read about 30 comics regularly, and xkcd is not the worst of them (it is second worst). The worst comic, for sure, is Abstruse Goose. This comic is terrible. It’s particularly sad because, like xkcd, it had a strong start, though it fizzled and died far faster than xkcd did.
[before we get any farther, I'll mention that the reason xkcd got a hate blog from me and AG got basically nothing was that while AG's crappiness overshadows xkcd's by a moderate margin, xkcd's popularity and drooling fanbase vastly outnumbers AG's. that's why.]
Anyway, Abstruse Goose seems to generally be about one of a few things: Explaining in excrutiating detail how some random technological process works, some faux-eloquent explanation of a simple mathematical fact, or, if those fail, something, anything, to show that scientists are better than you. AG manages to combine a huge amount of “I-know-more-about-science-than-you” with startling quantities of “but-I-am-painfully-unfunny” into a breathtakingly inane, self-important sludge that my usual rule of thumb was to simply never discuss it publicly.
And yet, occasionally a comic can be so terrible that it simply can’t go unmentioned. This happened earlier this week with the following abomination:
[Alt: The useless pawn in this picture represents me.]
So, the infinitude of primes. This proof, oddly, was the subject of one of the worst xkcds in memory as well. I don’t know why this proof (which a friend tried explaining to me in 7th grade, though I didn’t understand it till several years later) is such a problem for nerd webcomic artists, but apparently it is.
In this case, the proof is represented visually by a chess board, whose pieces are saying the proof out loud. Ha ha! it’s a KNIGHT and a ROOK and they are PROVING that PRIME NUMBERS go on FOREVER! GET IT? Also there is a KING and he represents SOMETHING and he is saying “shit.”
ALso there is a pawn. As the alt-text makes clear, the pawn is not important for the chess game – the king is in checkmate with just the knight and the rook. It’s true that the pawn is saying “pwned,” which sounds a little bit like “pawn.” I think this must be where the joke is supposed to be. What else makes sense?
But this doesn’t make sense either. For one thing, it has nothing to do with the proof about prime numbers. I guess if the characters like, made some bet about whether there were an infinite number of primes or not then you could say that with the proof, the pieces were “pwning” the king. Or something. But again, if you just want to make a “pawn” / “pwn” pun, (ARGH), forget the damn numbers and just have the pawn move up a space, put the king in check, have him yell “PWNED!” and be done with it. Short of proving that you know a moderately simple, 2000 year old proof, I don’t see what this gets you.
The caption makes it really irritating. You go to the caption for an explanation or a punchline, or something to make the whole experience of reading the comic worth your time – except in this case, where you get an explanation of the math and nothing else. It’s fantastically boring.
Abstruse Goose is a terrible comic and I hope I am the only one who reads it. I wish I could stop, but I can’t. As to why I can’t stop reading comics I dislike – that will have to wait for another day.
52 comments
The funny thing is, he got Euclid’s proof wrong in a quite subtle way. Euclid never actually assumes that there are finitely many primes. His proof is more like “Given any finite group of primes, you can always find one more prime not in the group.” It’s a fairly small difference, but re-casting the proof as Proof by Contradiction makes it a little more confusing and can possibly lead people to some misconceptions about primes (such as p1 * p2 * p3 * … * pN + 1 will always be prime).
I KNOW EVEN MORE ABOUT MATHEMATICS THAN ABSTRUSE GOOSE, WORSHIP ME PEONS.
Carl, the King isn’t saying “shit”; the King is THINKING “shit”. God, no wonder this comic didn’t make any sense to you!
i think you didn’t read your wikipedia closely enough when you looked up euclid’s proof 2 seconds ago to find something clever to say, john magnum
John, you’re wrong in a quite subtle way. p1 * p2 * p3 * … * pN + 1 is not always prime if p1 … pN are primes. Abstruse Goose is right, you’re not. How does it feel to be pwned by a bad webcomic?
Also this is clearly a Terror Island crossover. Sid says that Stephen is “pwned” because the infinitude of primes will cause Stephen to lose an Ehrenfeucht–Fraïssé game there were playing, and Stephen will be the one buying the groceries.
John didn’t say that p1 * p2 * p3 * … * pN + 1 is always prime. He said that would be a misconception.
“Given any finite group of primes, you can always find one more prime not in the group.” How else could you do this if not by assuming that there is finite number of primes?
Also why the hell my comments are pre-moderated? IS THIS YOUR EVIL DOING CARL?
John Magnum, I think he was just restating it in the more common proof method today that gives it more rigor, as it’s sort of understood that Euclid was making an implicit proof by contradiction.
In fact, this comic could have been slightly better had the black king made the assumption, and then the other pieces highlighted a contradiction (move into check) for every general case (moves).
This, of course, would be lame and heavy handed, but it would at least have some relation to chess. As it stands, I don’t understand the chess metaphor aside from the terrible pawn pun.
Timofei, what John said is that people may be lead to think that p1 * p2 *…* pN + 1 is always prime, when it isn’t true. You’ve been counter-pwned!
So… anyone has a clue of how the proof is analogous to a check-mate? I surely don’t. And when I clicked on the first link, what I saw was a giant classroom card, not a comic. Urk.
Never cared about AG, but it’s really horrible.
…did I really get so sidetracked that it was one hour ago that I started writing that comment? Bajeezus!
I already quoted what John said exactly, “Given any finite group of primes, you can always find one more prime not in the group.” This is not how the proof goes, and exactly because John fell in the same trap he seems to point out later. This proof simply doesn’t work without reductio ad absurdum for the reasons that will become clear if you study mathematical logic. Basically, this is not a constructive proof in that it does not actually enumerate all prime numbers, and therefore it must use the law of excluded middle which is basically proof by contradiction.
Actually I just thought of a way how to modify the proof to make it enumerate an infinite number of primes so disregard that last comment.
The main redeeming quality of AG over xkcd is that it’s authentically nerdy. Yes, nerdy can mean awkwardly unfunny, obsessed with common technology, showing off intelligence with false modesty (“The useless pawn represents me”), fetishizing science, bad art/design, etc.
But it doesn’t pander the way xkcd does. xkcd says “These are the t-shirts and posters to buy to show that you are a nerd.” RM name-drops “nerd heroes” and shiny gadgets every chance he gets. He uses tired internet memes as a proxy for intellectualism, and what intellectual ideas he does present are clearly “Look what I read about on Wikipedia today”. In short, he’s trying to pull a whole subculture — and particularly, the poseurs to that culture — into orbit around his shitty comic.
Not enough people know or care about AG for this to be an issue. And the author seems to lack RM’s egotism (or is merely unsuccessful at self-promotion). As you said, “xkcd’s popularity and drooling fanbase vastly outnumbers AG’s”. So I think xkcd is, on balance, the far greater menace.
Okay, I think what this is getting at is that the proof is one by contradiction – the king wants there to be a finite number of primes/to not be in checkmate, but because of the facts presented by the rook and the knight, he’s stuck/in checkmate, and that’s why he says “shit”.
I guess it’s kind of a cute idea, but the analogy is pretty tortured, and it’s implemented very poorly. So, yeah, bad comic, but it’s not absolutely completely disconnected.
Timofei, you’re wrong. Period.
It is definitely possible to do a direct proof. While it is my belief that the proof by contradiction exhibiting p1*…*pN+1 as a prime is conceptually simpler (and that the misconception John mentioned can in fact be used to demonstrate how careful you have to be when using intermediate results in a proof, since they may depend on specialized/false assumptions), there is certainly no reason that it HAS to be a proof by contradiction.
Also, there is no need to enumerate ALL of the primes. One only needs to show that there are infinitely many primes, which is to say, more than any finite number, which is exactly what is accomplished in showing that any finite collection of primes is incomplete.
Heh… Only math would bring me to comment on Carl’s forums again.
Every proof can be written as an implicit proof by contradiction.
* Assume proposition (A implies B) is false.
* Assume the conditions A
* Derive B
* This is a contradiction
* Therefore the proposition (A implies B) is true
That’s not any more rigorous or elegant than
* Assume the conditions A
* Derive B
* Therefore the proposition (A implies B) is true
But Timofei, “Given any finite group of primes, you can always find one more prime not in the group” isn’t wrong. Follow me:
If p1 * p2 *…* pN + 1 isn’t divisible by any of the known primes, it is either a prime or there are two or more primes that were not enumerated. Thus, yes, you found another prime, you just don’t know what it is for sure.
Thus, you’re wrong. The proof by contradiction works.
From Comic JK – a joke just like this that is actually okay!
(and it’s an old one!)
http://comicjk.com/comic.php/32
… okay, maybe not on the prime level, but on the pwn=pawn thing. Stupid me just hitting the submit button.
I got linked to AB at one point, because it is the only webcomic in the world that has referenced (or ever will reference) my grandfather (comic #12).
It had a lot of promise, but got bad really fast. I stopped reading months and months ago. Sorry that you can’t stop, Carl.
I thought the joke was that the black king dosen’t care about math at all. He is now trapped by the white horse and castle which are going to blather on about maths while he can’t escape. The little bald headed bitch is all like “ha you are borde by maths but can’t get away”. Possible, this is a racist joke alluding to the idea that black people are inherently stupid.
Holy crap, Jonathan, I–
I don’t know how to respond to that interpretation. What frightens me is it almost makes sense. As in, that might very well be what the author had in mind.
“i think you didn’t read your wikipedia closely enough when you looked up euclid’s proof 2 seconds ago to find something clever to say, john magnum”
i check out the new site and i find this
why are you trying to sabotage my already terrible reputation
I think Jonathan’s right—the “infinitude of primes” here is that it feels to the black king like some boring math talk is lasting infinitely. (I got that pretty quickly, but it’s still an awful joke.)
Oh, hey, my Gravatar avatar. I totally approve of using Gravatar.
Other than the pwn/pawn pun, the chesss et-up is supposed to show that a contradiction/QED portion of a proof can be analogous to a checkmate. Very lame I know.
Hi! I’d just like to say that I think this website is a really good idea. I think that webcomics–like any medium–need a critic. I like this website better than your xkcdsucks blog, though. It was well written and everything, but it’s hard to take a critic seriously if he only criticizes one series out of a much larger genre. I’m glad to see you’re branching out! While I disagree with you on some of your opinions of various webcomics, I do enjoy reading your opinions and evaluating my opinions in a new light. I hope you continue this!
Well, Abstruse Goose finally did it. He managed to make the worst webcomic in the history of webcomics. I can only assume that was his intention, since no one could possibly believe that anyone would enjoy reading that.
yeah what the fuck trevor that is indeed the worst webcomic i have ever read in my entire life
it’s just… awful.
Folks, what we are witnessing here is Amanda blaming Trevor for an Abstruse Goose comic.
OMG TREVOR == AUTHOR OF ABSTRUSE GOOSE?!?!!!1!!!!111!??!
I thought the joke was just the alt text
the guy admires the proof
and is excited by it
but he didn’t come up with it
he’s sharing in the victory
but realized he doesn’t deserve any credit
it’s relatable
if you like math and proofs and stuff
and thought you were smart, but now realize that you’re not going to contribute anything significant to human understanding.
That’s what I got out of it, but maybe you just read into it your own experiences with math, I would never have thought of anything related to “boring math talk.”
This article pains me.
Maybe you just don’t get it?
That doesn’t make it the worst webcomic EVER.
You think he ought to issue a mathematician’s apology?
@John Magnum (“Every proof can … any more rigorous or elegant than … (A implies B) is true.”)
and where, sir, is your proof of “not any more elegant than…”? get your subjectivity out of mathematics.
dear author,
i read first few comments, do you finally see why these comics are popular?
I disagree. Abstruse Goose is in fact one of the funniest webcomics out there. It’s different. It has a sense of humor unlike all the other webcomics out there that do nothing but regurgitate already known jokes.
But surely these things are like puns. They’re not necessarily ‘funny’ but they can be appreciated. I happen to enjoy them but then I also like puns, so I guess there’s no accounting for taste. It’s like ‘a dwarf was walking down town an had his wallet picked and I thought ‘how could anyone stoop so low?”
That tickles me, but like most jokes if you really analyze it, it loses it’s humour. The fact that the op keeps going back suggests that he too appreciates it in some sense.
Though I think he could use the mathematical “in-jokes” more sparingly, Abtruse Goose is a fairly decent comic, thought, not nearly as great as xkcd. Speaking of xkcd, most of the comic isn’t intended to be funny, and when they are, they pull it off quite well. I’m not going to accuse you of “not getting it”, I just don’t think you have great tastes in webcomics…
You seem very frustrated. But from you I’m not seeing a geeky webcomic that has anything to offer compared to xkcd or AG, I only see frustration; maybe you expect people slipping on banana skins or what? The AG comic is frequently very funny as is xkcd: occasionally they’re forgettable, but occasionally legendary and pure geek rational/irrational awesomeness that is beyond “funny”. Are you just too dense, lame, unimaginative or angry to ‘get it’, I don’t know. Instead of pretending that you’re a high-standards consumer, expecting cheap roaring laughs from each and every comic, get off your high horse and be happy there are webcomics people (like AG and xkcd) that are capable of creating and sharing such awesomeness occasionally (frequently, actually).
I totally agree with Andrej. To me, AG is probably the best geek web comic, the french geekscottes is the second, and xkcd is the third. The fact you can’t simply understand what it’s all about should prevent you from wearing any judgment. I neither understand every episode, every science stuff, but most of the time I get the point and that’s rather funny!
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Does anyone actually realise that the word “pawned” is older than the word “pwned”? Back in the day, on BBS servers, the only real multiplayer games were existing board games, where chess is obviously king (no pun intended). I am talking 1980′s here. Since on the internet you try to humiliate your opponent (even back then), you’d do your best to checkmate him using the weakest possible piece: a pawn. Doing this was considered “pawning” your opponent, ie vastly dominating him.
Some 20 years later the term “owned” came into use which for some reason devolved into “pwned”, most likely influenced by the very old term for humiliating someone, namely “pawning” him. Thus the very old term blended with the very new term.
Long story short, even with the correct chess reference to “pawning” he’s doing it wrong by not even using the pawn to checkmate him. But the pun is most certainly an original chess term and not because “pwned” looks like the word “pawn”.
The way I understood it, the checkmate is an analogy for the proof.
Euclid’s proof that there is an infinite number of primes goes like this:
Assume that that there is a finite number of primes, p1, … pN. Then take the number p1x…xpN+1. Now, EITHER (a) it is a prime itself, which contradicts the original assumption, OR (b) this new number has a prime divisor which is not in the original set of primes, which also contradicts the original assumption. The proof doesn’t require you to know which of these options is the case, but *one* of them must be… so there must be an infinite number of primes. QED.
Similarly, the king on the chessboard is in check: if he stays in his own square, he gets taken, and if he moves anywhere, he gets taken. checkmate! In chess, even though the object is to take the king, traditionally we end the game just before the king is taken – when the board is set up so that the king would be taken in the next round: when the king has no more options, and his being taken is inevitable.
I think when AG thought about the Euclidean proof, it reminded him of checkmate situation — the logic is not as straighforward as some other proofs (“A, therefore B”), but more of a “checkmate” – “either this is true, or that is true, but eitherway, -blam! QED!”, or as he puts it, “pwned!”
I thought it was pretty clever.
I love Abstruse Goose! And xkcd is pretty funny too. Maybe you can list more stuff you like because I can probably just use that list to see the things I do like
The comic is mildly amusing. If you don’t like it din’t read it you dick.
I love AG. It is pretty funny, usually classy, and the math and physics references often very sophisticated.
I think this comic may have been inspired by Hardy’s classic “A mathematician’s apology”. Hardy describes Euclid’s proof and makes an analogy with chess:
“Reductio ad absurdum, which Euclid loved so much, is one of a mathematician’s finest weapons. It is a far finer gambit than any chess play: a chess player may offer the sacrifice of a pawn or even a piece, but a mathematician offers the game.”
Btw, if you haven’t read Hardy’s book, you should. Another very apt Hardy’s quotation for all you frustrated critics:
“There is no scorn more profound, or on the whole more justifiable, than that of the men who make for the men who explain. Exposition, criticism, appreciation, is work for second-rate minds.”
Shame. Maybe you should try reading some simpler comics – look for something a toddler can understand.
Isn’t the only thing more fantastically boring than a boring comic strip somebody who spends time ranting and flaming about it?
“Smart topics about science and technology, that’s so dull!”. Err, ok, not all of us are as shallow as that. Go back to Family Circus or whatever you consider a proper comic…
“Explaining in excrutiating detail how some random technological process works”
1. I don’t think you understand why the author wrote that comic. He didn’t write it to be boring or to show off how smart he is, he was just trying to illustrate how seemingly simple actions result from amazingly complicated processes. This is the beauty of science–to be able to understand how the world works and to never be satisfied with a simple answer. He was trying to demonstrate the complexity of our machinery and out bodies.
2. It wasn’t a just a technological process, it was also a biological process.
Abstruse Goose is an absolutely great comic.
Agreed, this chess strip is bad. But even the best comics are bad sometimes. I know this sounds obvious, but apparently, some people are so dumb they need to be reminded that. It’s as if you said, “hey look, this poem of Baudelaire is bad, so it must mean his whole work is shit”.
If you don’t like AG, that’s a matter of taste, I guess. But if you claim it’s shit, you got it wrong.
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