So previously I touted this as being the best comic ever. (Click link to see.) However xkcd has outdone itself with this one.
Although the funding structures have altered this in recent decades (where anybody knows where once physics was on top after WWII, now biology is on top), I still admit this overarching bias in my thinking. Math reigns supreme, lording over all other sciences, which are mere derivative structures, polluted more and more as you descend down each rung on the ladder of knowledge. Ka-chow!
I laughed out loud when I saw this.
Where S(x) shows sociology’s influence over time and M(x) shows Math’s influence over time, we see the following coorelation:
S(x)=M””'(x)
Mwa haha ha hahaha, poor sociology. Poor, sad sociology.
I can’t even imagine what sort of relationship something like comparative literature has to mathematics. Certainly mathematicians wouldn’t consider it so much a polluted derivative as much as something that has a lot of randomness and is contorted and mashed and bashed into nonsensical bits.
You dirty Platonist. Don’t make me get up from this fun shadow-puppet show they’re playing over here and smack you.