#701: Science Valentine explain

I wanted to make you a science valentine

with charts and graphs of my feelings for you.

[A graph shows romance and happiness. Romance cuts off, indicating a breakup before the meeting of Cueball and his current significant other, and happiness dips accordingly.

A line indicates where the couple first met; romance is jagged thereafter, initially upwards but later down.

Happiness climbs slightly more steadily and then dips again.

More lines indicate a period of dating and then one of engagement.]

and the happiness you’ve brought me.

But the more I analyzed

[Cueball works at a computer.]

r0 = 0.20

r1 = -0.61

r2 = -0.83

the harder it became to defend my hypothesis.

In science, you can’t publish results you know are wrong

and you can’t withhold them because they’re not the ones you wanted.

So I was left with a question: do I make graphs because they’re cute and funny,

[Cueball sits, looking at a sheet of paper.]

or am I a scientist?

Enclosed are my results.

I hope you can find somebody else

[A jagged, declining graph is superimposed over a red heart.]

to be your valentine.