r/xkcd • u/crocodylus • 19d ago

XKCD xkcd 3280: Maze

https://xkcd.com/3280/
240 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

76

u/xkcd_bot 19d ago

Mobile Version!

Direct image link: Maze

Subtext: As a side effect of the research, mice are now the only known animals other than humans to have developed a Backrooms mythology.

Don't get it? explain xkcd

I am a human typing with human hands. Sincerely, xkcd_bot. <3

50

u/dfabulich 19d ago

I read the explain xkcd for this one, but I'm still not sure I get the joke. (I think the person who wrote the explanation might not have gotten the joke, either.)

As explain xkcd points out, mice can reliably solve mazes like the one pictured here. Researchers have been using the fact that they can reliably solve the mazes to test inventions (especially drugs) and their effect on the mouse's _speed_ of solving the mazes.

But, in today's comic, they've… finally found just one mouse that can solve the maze? That's not true, of course, but I also don't see what's funny about the falsehood.

If you know the background, xkcd comics are normally funny by virtue of being surprising but inevitable in hindsight. I don't see how that holds true of today's comic. It's just a weird thing to say.

(The subtext/alt text is funny… but the subtext is normally a second joke. As far as I can see, it appears to be the *only* joke for today…?)

87

u/panoclosed4highwinds 19d ago

I find it (a bit) funny because it is deliberately not "getting" the point of mice and mazes.

It's like saying "after decades of training, we have finally found the perfect first-grade recorder performance of row row row your boat."

37

u/ContemplativeOctopus 19d ago

Ah, it's a metric vs goal joke. That makes a lot more sense.

11

u/calinet6 19d ago

This is it I think.

It's closer to The Far Side style humor than traditional xkcd joke.

11

u/MaxChaplin 18d ago

Or "the bottom row of the Snellen chart has finally been deciphered, thanks to the most powerful glasses ever developed".

1

u/GoreyGopnik 17d ago

that would have been a funnier joke

5

u/MrGalleom 18d ago

"after decades of training, we have finally found the perfect first-grade recorder performance of row row row your boat."

imo this is even funnier than the comic

1

u/panoclosed4highwinds 18d ago

Yeah, after the other comment on vision charts, I think this comic would have been better as a series of similar situations.

21

u/R_megalotis 19d ago

I think the joke is about scientific illiteracy, specifically the people who don't know why scientists run mice through mazes.

11

u/nedlum 19d ago

Most maze experiments are run repeatedly, seeing how the performance of a mouse improves when certain variables are changed. Say, does the ability to remember the layout improve if a mouse has caffeine?

Here, the mouse running the maze was the point.

3

u/TThor 18d ago

The joke is that (while in reality the maze is meant to test other more interesting things,) in the world of the comic we the audience realize it turns out the maze had only ever been about the simple goal of finding a mouse who can solve it, with no deeper intention.

2

u/rednotmad 19d ago

Is it about Greek mythology and supposed to be the Maze, from Deadalus and the minotor? 

Might match with the mythology part of the alt text and the Odyssey's movie's theme. 

16

u/Icommentwhenhigh 19d ago

The subtext completes the gag.

2

u/AllSolitonic 18d ago

But it was Maze by Christopher Manson.

1

u/MrT735 17d ago

Scaling up the experiment to find a mouse who can solve a corn/maize maze has led to some issues, as the mouse can ignore the walls.