Comments on: Professor Madblood and the Everlasting Ices of the North: July 10-15, 2006

By: Lars H

Lars H — Thu, 28 Mar 2019 09:01:17 +0000

To have a comfortable radiator temperature of say 80°C (you don’t want the coffee to boil), the black hole would have to … [checks Wikipedia] have a mass of about 1.75e-10 solar masses, or 0.0047 times the mass of the Moon. (Since Stealing the Moon is a classical mad-science feat, 0.0047 lunar masses should be well within the range of what mad science can obtain.) Such a black hole has a Schwarzschild radius of about 0.51µm, so there wouldn’t be any problems fitting it into the coffeemaker either. That gravity from even astronomically tiny masses becomes significant when the mass is compact enough that you can be really close to all of it (as detailed in an XKCD “What if?”) could be a problem, but considering that Dave has worked with antigravity technology capable of negating the gravity of the whole Earth it is conceivable that this could be dealt with as well. Adjusting the antigravity might even provide a way of adjusting the effective temperature, via adjusting gravitational redshift.

The problem with those parameters is however power: a 1.75e-10 solar masses black hole would only emit about 2.95nW of power, which won’t keep much coffee warm. To get more power, we need to reduce(!) the size of the black hole. A black hole with 300W of Hawking radiation would come in at 5.48e-16 solar masses, or about an exagram (Eg). Again according to Wikipedia, this is about an order of magnitude larger than the size at which emission of ultrarelativistic electrons and positrons starts becoming significant (probably a good thing), but the temperature of the black hole is still 1.1e8 kelvin, or about what you need to ignite deuterium–tritium fusion. At that temperature, the radiation peaks at a frequency of 6.6e18 Hz, which is in the hard X-ray range. And this is sort-of what in the first place got me worried about this scheme (although apparently it isn’t as bad as with matter–antimatter annihilation power sources): you can get a lot of power from a very small volume, but the radiation you get is too hard to be useful directly.

Of course, shielding has seldom been a priority in mad science.

By: 25

25 — Tue, 12 Mar 2019 13:53:01 +0000

Something just came to me [SPOILERS]: Madblood’s glasses are opaque throughout the Everlasting Ices of the North chapter EXCEPT during his pre-laugh monologue and his laughing at Dave. [END SPOILERS] Does this mean he’s not a mad scientist except when his eyes are visible?

By: Ed Gedeon (eddurd)

Ed Gedeon (eddurd) — Wed, 08 Jul 2015 22:35:59 +0000

And, this was the point where my life changed. I'd been reading "Girl Genius", and Kaja Foglio's blog mentioned this other webcomic that had a blonde, bespectacled, female mad scientist. I followed the link, and this was the first Narbonic strip I read. So of course, I spent the weekend doing an archive binge, and I was hooked.

Shaenon, I once drew a fan art that caused you to respond, "Thanks Ed, for ruining my life." Well, you started it.

By: John Campbell (jcampbel)

John Campbell (jcampbel) — Wed, 08 Jul 2015 22:35:58 +0000

Don't worry, Artie. No one's Gwich'in is good enough to make, "I'm a shapeshifting superintelligent gerbil, and I'm undercover on a flying island carrying a genius-powered doomsday device controlled by Objectivist hamsters who are on their way to attack the mad scientist's arctic lair where my creator's ex-boyfriend-slash-henchman has gone to work after the breakup-slash-firing! Send help!" sound like anything but a joke. You might as well have just called them up and asked if they needed help catching their refrigerator.

By: Tetra Valent (4_valent)

Tetra Valent (4_valent) — Wed, 08 Jul 2015 22:35:57 +0000

"So... Artie... what do you think about this new job I got?"

By: Ed Gedeon (eddurd)

Ed Gedeon (eddurd) — Wed, 08 Jul 2015 22:35:56 +0000

Madblood's you-have-got-to-be-kidding-me expression in the second panel is what makes this strip for me.

By: Leon Arnott (l)

Leon Arnott (l) — Wed, 08 Jul 2015 22:35:55 +0000

Friday:

Dave didn't want to be reminded of the old digs this soon, in such an ambiguous and befuddling fashion.

By: John Campbell (jcampbel)

John Campbell (jcampbel) — Wed, 08 Jul 2015 22:35:54 +0000

Who's to say they don't? Maybe they have achieved sentience, and they come by here to read Narbonic, and leave spam because it's the only way they know to express their feelings. Maybe when they leave weirdly eloquent pleas to have us buy designer clothing knockoffs, what they're really saying is, "This webcomic is amazing. I really like the sensitivity with which you treat the plight of Digital-Americans like Lovelace. If she ever ditches those meatbags, have her look me up."

By: Chris (khade)

Chris (khade) — Wed, 08 Jul 2015 22:35:53 +0000

I'd prefer it if the spambots actually read the comic, more fans for the authors.

By: Kay Gilbert (kaygilbert)

Kay Gilbert (kaygilbert) — Wed, 08 Jul 2015 22:35:52 +0000

So I would say "Stop spamming this website forever," and it would say "As you wish," and disappear? I could get behind that.