Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for August 27, 2009

A safe, drat.

Uhhhhhh…….. (insert that whistling sound that bombs make when they’re dropped)

That metal-ing kid, stole my pun!

It’s a safe bet that he did not plan this. Let’s hope that this ends as a no vault accident.

Oooppss…

How will that end?

wcorvi called it yesterday, Tuesday and Saturday. No fair reading the books ahead.

Don’t worry, LX013, Calvin will land lightly.

…but will people on the ground be SAFE? If it’s “no vault” (groan), Yukoner, nobody can blame Calvin. I’ll put my money on/in Calvin. It’s ‘safe’ to say he gets away with this. However, Calvin still needs ‘a slush fund’ for Susie so he can hit her “upside the head”. Rakkav, is it ‘safe’ to say Calvin will land lightly? He needs ‘the right combination’ of circumstances, which will not happen if the safe bursts open at impact. Can you offer a guarantee?

He’ll have quite an “impact” on the towns people below. They say first impressions are the deepest. The depths someone will go to to make an impression. I hope he lands in a “safe house”.

I can’t help it I’m psychic.

don’t worry he has transformed into a SAFE and will be safe when lands except for the hapless town people down there.

He is gonna crash into Hobbes! Or maybe Susie!

Hope he has another round or two of transmmunition in that thing.

Calvin has been falling for how many days now? :-P

The first thing Calvin should do after “landing” is to upgrade his transmogrifier once again for improving its language ability.

Yes Puddleglum2(yesterday), it was a guess. So I had a re-look…

Taking that the average house is roughly 21m in length, it give you that the altitude of the viewer is +/- 1 km(-1m for Calvin is slighter lower than the viewer) Gravity = 9.8 m/s2 - which mean with every second that Calvin falls it doubles.2s=19.6m, etc, etc. So the next problem is how long has Calvin been falling?(Yes I know 3 days!) Looking at the first panel where our dear Calvin started falling he was about 3.6km away from earth. Take it from there he has fallen 2.6 km - meaning that he has been fallen for 23 seconds. Calvin in yesterdays panel was thus falling at 225 meters/second and picking up speed, thus hitting the ground in around 4 seconds.

Now, it is a slow day at the office and I do know nothing about gravity so I thought I played around with it - I am sure someone of the Calvin & Hobbs fan club will be able to give the correct result. But what I found is even if you bring in terminal velocity and wind resistance and body weight the difference is very little - maybe 1 second, which means very little if you have 3 seconds left before hitting the ground.

To Rakkav:

Since days I’m nervous now!

Spoiler Alert: What happens to Calvin in this arc, start to finish, has been available all along in the series of strips tagged “transmogrifier”.

(That’s why I can offer a guarantee, LX013 and Puddleglum2…and why I can sneak in a subtle bad pun in the process.)

Rakkav, Would you call your “subtle bad pun” ‘light’ humor? I can almost see the light now.

Jesus said, “I am the light of the world: he that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” John 8:12 It’s your own fault, You give me a straight line, and I run with it. It’s the shortest distance between two points. watcha, Don’t give me any intricate considerations about straight lines that are calculated to confuse and discombobulate the issue. You need a pointy-haired boss to keep you walking the straight and narrow in the office.

Just point the transmogrifier at yourself, pull the trigger, and say the word, Calvin, but make sure it’s the right word! You’ll not only be safe; you’ll be saved. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. John 1:1,14 “A word to the wise is sufficient.”

Quit thinking negative. Be on the safe side.

…Bear in mind that Galileo proved centuries ago that all things fall at the same rate (see: leaning tower of Pisa). What is different is the kinetic energy of a safe vs little boy (KE = 1/2 Mass x Velocity squared).

Way to go Calvin!! Hobbes would not have made the same mistake.

hdstern - not true. I person with a parachute falls slower than a person without one. :-)

You’re just getting in deeper and deeper, Wiley. Maybe you can borrow a superhero from another strip.

But remember terminal velocity. For a safe if might be approximately 200 mph. Calvin, a little less. But 200 is a pretty fair sum to come to a sudden stop…

Transmogrifiers are notoriously unreliable these days.

Is the transmogrifier gun in the safe (er, Calvin)?

I wish I had a dollar for every time my transmogrifier misfired.

Hey, Puddleglum2, I’m not catching that sucker!

@watcha “Gravity = 9.8 m/s2 - which mean with every second that Calvin falls it doubles.2s=19.6m, etc, etc”

Doubles every second? No. 9.8 m/s2 means it increases by 9.8 m/s every second. Not that it doubles. So after 1s speed is 9.8 m/s. After 2s it is 19.6 m/s. But after 3s it is only 29.4 m/s. Whereas the way you expressed the calculation it would have been 39.2 m/s.

@hdstern: Things fall at the same rate in a vacuum. In different media, friction and resistance cause things to fall at different rates, based on surface area and distribution of mass, and density of the medium.

NoBrandName - maybe I should have made it 29.4m/s instead of a etc, I did calculate it as an nth degree and not doubled it up? English is not my 1st language so that was the best way I could describe what I am trying to do. Thanks for pointing it out!

What he needs is a very, very, very large drag chute.

Unless something happens real fast he’s in for a real crash landing. But maybe he’ll get lucky and land on something soft.

Be careful for what you wish.

Maybe a couple of them. lol

I wasn’t expecting that.

An erratic transmogrifier gun and a safe with no hands to operate said gun. A bad “combination.” Calvin had better steel himself for this landing. But if he remains a safe, he will probably survive but with a bad headache. He does need to hope he doesn’t fall into a lake, though.

tomorrow: the final chapter…….stay tuned to find out what happens to calvin!

Hope he lands in a small lake and tranforms into a fish !

OF COURSE Calvin would forget to think of something else before transmogrifying himself.

aaaahhhh

Terminal velocity (the speed at which gravity is offset by wind resistance) for an adult human is approximately 128 mph.

may he crash

watcha, I’ve ben watcha’n you!— this is your boss….I’ve been trolling the calvin & hobbes comment section of go comics and I ve finally nabbed you!— clean out your desk….youre fired!

and…..have a nice day

Safety is imaginary.

We imagine; then turn thought into plans; then turn plans into reality. Failure results when thought, plan or execution is flawed. Success begins by imagining a different result.

The best laid plans of mice and men……..

Can’t resist the physics-related posts, so here is my take on this: The transmogrifier gun is really a humungous energy-source. It has to be, to convert a little boy into a safe. To create that amount of matter (let’s say the difference in mass is 50kgs), the transmogifier gun will need an energy of (using the well known E=mc^2 formula) 4.5 * 10^18 Joules. This is approximately equivalent to 1,000 1MT nuclear bombs going off simultaneously. On the other hand, when the transmogrifier is eventually used (presumably) to turn the safe back into Calvin, the aforementioned 1000 nuclear bombs-worth of energy will be released. In order to avoid vaporizing Calvin, and indeed the entire state, the transmogrifier must have the ability to absorb this tremendous amount of energy. Hope that helps.

Superfrog, :o( You say you’re not catching that ‘lollipop’! Three days ago you told Calvin you’d catch him with your super suctioncup fingers. You knew there was a ‘catch’ to it. Are you afraid you will ‘croak’ if you catch him? “That’s why I’m leaving it up to you-oo-oo, to decide what you’re gonna do.” Don’t worry; it’s ‘safe’. But since you’ve given me ample warning, I’ll see what I can do with my “Froggy” powers. I haven’t done this for about 50 years since Buster Brown gang days, but here goes: “Plunk your magic twanger Froggy!”

May the Zaps be with you.

‘Everyone is waiting, what will happen tomorrow!

SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAFEEEE at home.

nighthawks is a coward.

@Santadon nighthawks is a kidder, not a coward (unless he’s Noel Coward. But no, Noel Coward is dead. Couldn’t be him unless he’s a ZOMBIE Noel Coward.) but i digress.

when you transmogrify be careful what you say.

I hate that when things go that way to me

Hm….a safe, that might work. I’d have turned into a bird though.

I’m sure he’ll find the right combination and end up safe!

try the gun again calvin, you still have time

Puddleglum2–Relenting salt the grain will be lost . A word to the all ready wise . Psa 111:10 The fear of יהוה is the beginning of wisdom, All those doing them have a good understanding. His praise is standing forever.

Puddleglum2–Thank you for being Puddleglum2 .

@peterpunn: If you think the physics of turning Calvin into a safe are hairy, wait until you see what happens tomorrow. :)

Ronshua, I just noticed your/the final comment from two days ago. I didn’t say my “version is the ONE and ONLY accurate translation of scripture”. I said, “I think the Majority Text manuscripts from which the KJV ultimately came, are better than the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus manuscripts from which most of the modern translations have come”. I think the KJV is the best translation, but it was Macushlalondra who said “I enjoy your Biblical quotes especially since they come from the RIGHT Bible, the ONLY Bible”. I appreciated Macushlalondra’s comment, but I don’t go that far.

Some people would say falling to the ground at who-knows-how-much mph a bad thing. I say those people have a bad sense of humor.

So now what???

We wait.

Puddleglum2————My saying (Then tell the world your version is the ONE and ONLY accurate translation of Scripture . )was & is meant as an open invitation to open that link . NO intended slur or attack meant towards anyone honest. The meant invitation will be removed , it was not called for please forgive . Bible lovers , stays .

It was translated out of the original tongues and with previous translations, including that of William Tyndale, diligently compared and revised. In the preface of the 1611 edition, the translators stated that it was not their purpose to make a new version but to make a good one better. It is a revision of the Bishop’s Bible of 1568.

I say the 1611 Ing Iames with it’s 50 thousands errors is a very very good version . And the new King James is better , I use it ALL the time with Strong’s numbers . BUT the most accurate and you didn’t claim that , would not be accurate . Olive branch ? Have you read Bishop’s , I have it on my E-Sword .

Yukoneric used to be a professional wrestler. Now he’s either a baseball umpire, or a broadcaster, apparently.

okeedoekee said, “Be careful for what you wish.’ You obeyed the admonition, “Do not end a sentence a preposition with!”

Ronshua said, “Relenting salt the grain will be lost.” “You are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.” Matthew 5:13

Moral: Be careful about what you say people - especially Puddlegum2. And, I concur with Okeedoekee.

Ronshua, :o) I was hardly offended at all. It wasn’t a big deal. I did open that link, but I pretty much just skimmed it for the time being. What you wrote about the KJV is more or less what I have read or heard, except for the 50,000 errors part, although some scholars and others do claim that there are numerous errors. Macushlalondra might want to dispute with you on that one. I have read through the NKJV two or three times. Daily Bread uses the NKJV. I like it all right, but it does seem that some unnecessary changes were made, and the NKJV doesn’t seem to have the cadence and the majesty of the KJV. I’m not quite as comfortable with the NKJV. I have not read Bishop’s. I use Young’s Concordance, and sometimes Strong’s Concordance with the KJV. Anyway, thank you for your consideration.

Padre5, I’m puzzled. What does “Moral: Be careful about what you say people - especially Puddleglum2” mean? Do you mean that your statement conveys a moral lesson? Did I say anything offensive to anybody? If you have followed my comments of the past two weeks or so, since I’ve been here, most of what I’ve said has been attempts at humor with puns and plays-on-words. Some of it has been related to the Bible and my Christian faith which anyone may read or not, as they choose. Other things are intended to be informational and educational. I try to share anything I consider worthwhile with others, especially as it relates to the Calvin and Hobbes strip we have been following. If i have said anything you or anyone else considers inappropriate, let me know and I will consider it and apologize if need be. This is the first time I have seen your name so I really don’t know from where you are coming and why. Are you, perchance, a Roman Catholic priest since you use the name Padre5? That’s just a shot in the dark, so to speak. I know nothing about you except what you just wrote. BTW, I also concur with okeedoekee. I already have commended his sentence construction.

Yep…problem solved…

I’m free as a bird. How hard is that to say? Especially considering how his Transmogrifier Gun works.

i miss hobbes.. :P

Padre5, It’s Puddleglum2, not Puddlegum2! Calvin couldn’t find gum, but you did. I’ll assume it was a typo, but if you’ll overlook mine I’ll overlook yours. Was I careful enough about what I just said? It’s no wonder I’m glum; it’s so hard to be perfectly precise all the time in what I say, but I’m trying…in more ways than one I guess. :o)