#356: Nerd Sniping explain

[Black Hat is sitting on a chair, Cueball is standing next to him. Across the street, another Cueball-like guy is coming from a building walking towards the pedestrian crossing across from Black Hat.]

Black Hat: There’s a certain type of brain that’s easily disabled.

Black Hat: If you show it an interesting problem, it involuntarily drops everything else to work on it.

[The Cueball-like man across the street is about to enter a crosswalk, which is seen from right behind Black Hat in his chair, holding onto the sign, which is still pointing down. Cueball is looking on.]

Black Hat: This has led me to invent a new sport: Nerd Sniping.

Black Hat: See that physicist crossing the road?

[Black Hat lifts up the sign when the physicist is in the middle of the street, halfway across the pedestrian crossing.]

Black Hat: Hey!

[A close-up of Black Hat’s sign is shown in a frameless panel. There is text above and below an image of a four-by-five grid of nodes with resistors (shown as wiggly lines) between every node and also continuing away from the 16 outer nodes. A total of 5 columns with 5 and 4 rows with 6 resistors for a total of 20 nodes and 49 resistors. Two nodes, a knight’s move apart, are marked with red circles in the 3rd row 2nd column and the 2nd row 4th column.]

Sign: On this infinite grid of ideal one-ohm resistors,

Sign: what’s the equivalent resistance between the two marked nodes?

[The Cueball-like physicist has stopped pondering the questions, a hand to his chin.]

Physicist: It’s… Hmm. Interesting. Maybe if you start with… No, wait. Hmm… You could—

[In another frameless panel, a ten-wheeled truck is zooming past from the right, apparently going through the spot where the physicist just stood.]

Truck: Foooom

[Cueball looks down on Black Hat, who looks back up from his chair at the curb, again holding the sign down. He lifts one hand up while replying.]

Cueball: I will have no part in this.

Black Hat: C’mon, make a sign. It’s fun! Physicists are two points, mathematicians three.