Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for August 05, 2019

Dad, you have to support Calvin’s interest in the sciences.

Should have done a better job of hiding it, Dad!

purposely breaking Dad’s compass, but accidentally breaking Dad’s binoculars … what a kid

Why do you need a compass Dad, do you get lost going to work?

Of course Calvin didn’t even ask Dad to borrow his compass.

I remember in class, when our teacher showed how the Nile flowed northwards on the map of Africa. One of us raised his hand and said, “But surely the water can’t flow upwards?”

How did Calvin manage to get out of the tree without a compass? How did he figure out which way was down?

I guess : is the Polar Star oriented to North considering the whole Universe or we have to agree with the fact that in the deeper space we can’t recognise the 4 cardinal points ?

An Australian friend of mine has a t-shirt with the Mercator projection reversed—Australasia at the top, Eurasia at the bottom etc. Underneath, it says, “Oh yeah? Who says? The earth is round!”

Calvin is still paying Dad back for the camping vacation.

Now Dad, you can’t contradict the Junior Scientist Book, right?

I remember the time when I was six when my dad found me using his micrometer as a C-clamp. He was not amused.

Does anyone wonder why Calvin never made it to the age of six?

Consider that opposite ends of a magnet attract. Thus if the north end of a magnet is attracted to what we call the North pole, then magnetically, the North Pole is the South pole! IE the north end of the magnet will never point to the north pole.

In the end, the names are entirely arbitrary.

Dad will get to the “bottom” of this scientific fiasco very shortly, Cal. After all, you’re in the ‘90s when spanking wasn’t entirely uncommon!

Well dad, you don’t expect me to risk wrecking mine, do you?

“We were lost in the desert for three days, and you have a compass? Oh, you’re gonna get nuggies for that one, my friend…”

I thought Calvin learned about gravity when he dropped the lemonade last Friday.

I was once a junior scientist, too. The ants were not amused.

Long-long ago and far-far away and before GPS satellites, I would ask my wife (RIP), a certified Girl-Scout Leader to find our next turn on the map, and she had to turn the map to the direction we were moving at the moment (probably after I told her). As a dense forest hunter, hiker, and camper, this was incomprehensible. However, my hand-held Garmin has that feature, which, admittedly, saves me the confusion of do I turn right or left. Lastly, my pop gave me his ‘military’ compass, which was the cause of the two of us getting totally lost for hours in the pitch-black night of a northern WI forest-primeval forest. (I spotted it in a late Civil War movie where the famous actor lt. was heading into Mexico. Mine is about 18-degrees off from north, probably due to the cow-magnet pop often carried. https://i.etsystatic.com/9178026/r/il/107fcb/1949575511/il_794xN.1949575511_5sqj.jpg ).

How does one break a compass?

Another thing to consider is that the Earth is somewhat top-heavy with land.

Discounting Antarctica, of course.

Plus, the Mercator map flattening the globe distorts the Northmost and Southmost continents to look bigger than they are. Greenland is NOT that big.

https://xkcd.com/977/

https://laughingsquid.com/world-mercator-projection-map-country-size/

Calvin needs an attitude adjustment – seems like almost daily.

So why is my compass not at all magnetic and looks like a pair of dividers?

HA! That’s a SECOND Calvin and Hobbes comic that shows flat earthers have the scientific understanding of a 6 year old cartoon character in 2 weeks!

well if you get lost in the woods, and you have a map, you will certainly need to know where North is.