7 Comments

1. 

   I believe the sequence of symbols that will make a physicist cry is the sentence spoken in the main comic panel.

   The bonus panel is a twist — the speaker turns out to be using this sentence as a pick-up line.

   As for why that sentence makes a physicist cry, I can’t say.

2. 

   First off, for “Friend of Wigner”, see Wikipedia (“Wigner’s Friend”).

   So, finding a ” theory of everything” is a long-standing dream of physicists, I’m told. Such a theory would be a “sequence of symbols”, that would look to most of us like math (but physicists & mathematicians love to argue about what sequences if symbols are “real” math).

   So, why hasn’t it been found yet? Maybe because it doesn’t exist. If it does exist, it might still never be found. Such thoughts must be depressing for physicists – at least according to SMBC.

   That’s my theory. There nay be others (?).

3. 

   It’s a joke about physicists’ quest for the GUT (Grand Unified Theory) or TOE (Theory of Everything), which probably exists, but we are unlikely to see in our lifetime.

   And the bonus panel suggests that the “known sequence” is likely, “Ew, not with you!”

4. 

   I think it refers to an idea that maybe Quantum Theory is determinate, but not for us living in this universe — ie: there exists a higher plane to which we have no access where quantum mechanics is not just best probabilities, but is actually determinate, but you don’t live there, so for you, the best you can ever hope for is the probabilities. But deep down it does make (classical) sense! I’m guessing Wigner proposed this view at some point.
   The sequence of symbols that will make a physics cry (or at least one adhering to my mooted Wignerian view) is indeed the letters of the words he’s saying. He also is deluded enough that this “beautiful” truth would work as a pick-up line.

5. 

   I dunno if he’s deluded, it seems like it might work on a Friend of Wigner.

6. 

   I think Ron and Max have it at 2 and 3.

   For a non-physics version, consider something like this: “There is a series of words, rather short, which would definitively answer the question of who was D.B. Cooper and what happened to him, but you will never get to see it.”

   Whatever that series of words is, probably less than a paragraph, nobody knows for sure what the correct words are, so nobody can write them down. So while that series of words exists in theory, none of us will ever see it.

   For physicists, the Theory Of Everything that would answer all the questions would probably just be a single page of formulas they could read in ten minutes. But they’ll never get to see it.

7. 

   “The smallest number whose description requires more than ten words.”

   Can there be such a number? Can anyone ever discover what it is?