Comic #80 : "Problem Solving"

Update 31st August 2013

I am honoured that Derek Muller/Veritasium featured this comic so prominently in his video explanation for this experiment, I genuinely never expected that, my reason for producing this comic was a genuine love of the original video/experiment and the response it generated from the Internet.

Before I go any further, you should check out Veritasium's Official Explanation right away if you have not done already.

Thanks to Derek not only mentioning my comment, but also linking to me as well I realise I am going to get a sizeable chunk of people interested in science come to this page and so this is likely to be your introduction to my comic (as my fan base is still very small at the moment) - so I will take this opportunity to welcome anyone new to my comic.

My comic is aimed at a geek audience, I do jokes about computers, science, Internet culture and other things that hopefully appeal to people who like that sort of stuff. I tag my comics so you can link to comics on a similar theme. So clicking on my physics and science tags are probably a good place to start if you've come from Veritasium.

I publish Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays, like most web comics, I have an RSS feed if you're in to that, but the best place to get updates are from my Facebook page or Twitter account - I post comics to both as soon as I release them, so you get them hot off the press.

Again, thanks to Derek for featuring me in his video, I can't begin to explain how it made me feel to be listed next to all those great video responses, as well as Wired and Scientific American. I won't tell you to follow me on social networking (although I hope that you do) but I will tell you that should should definitely subscribe to Veritasium.

Original Post

First off, you need to check out Veritasium's Bullet Block Experiment to fully understand what this comic is talking about. There are two parts, so make sure you watch both.

The puzzle has fascinated me because it appears to counter the basic laws of physics, but also because it stumped some of YouTube's finest science vloggers. I have a few ideas about why it's happening, although I'm not 100% certain on any of them. I actually predicted correctly, but that was based more on my gut feeling rather than because I can explain why. I'm hoping to do a serious video response to his video over the weekend to present my ideas.

Veritasium is a great YouTube and you should definitely subscribe, especially if you love science. The videos on Quantum Computers were particularly useful to me when I did my Quantum Computer comics.

Originally, I was going to do the comic with Sue and Dave, however I was worried people would start giving me credit for the experiment. So I emailed Derek and asked him if I could feature him in my comic response to his video. He agreed, although I'm not sure he realised what he was letting himself in for! Anyway, I'd like to thank him again for being ok with me featuring him in this comic.