June 12, 2024
#2945: Broken Model explain
[Miss Lenhart is holding a pointer to a whiteboard, indicating the last part of the last line of text.]
Miss Lenhart: Hmm, looks like I accidentally swapped the predation terms.
Miss Lenhart: If this were an ecology class, I would have to fix that.
Miss Lenhart: Unfortunately for those 20 poor foxes, this is calculus, and the math says these 400 rabbits are hungry for meat.
[There are three lines on the white board, where the ‘…’ ellipses in the bottom line are illegible:]
Nrabbits(0) = 400
Nfoxes(0) = 20
dN0/dt = … dN…/… = …
[Caption below the panel:]
Every broken mathematical model is just a glimpse into a terrifying alternate universe.