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Comment by jccc | Hacker News Reader

He's doing educational strips to appear in a textbook (just in case you'd prefer not to reward that bait-y headline).

Not to be too cynical (but here I go anyway)...but how long before it becomes "hey, instead of a few funny comics, let's do a whole textbook this way!"?

Then we continue the de-evolution into a mix of hillbilly, valleygirl, inner-city slang and various grunts.

Please forgive us, Mike Judge.

Randall Munroe has a response to your lamentation: https://xkcd.com/603/

The Manga Guides to Databases, Statistics, Calculus, Molecular Biology, etc. are all highly rated.

http://smile.amazon.com/Manga-Guide-Databases-Mana-Takahashi...

That database fairy really knew what she was talking about. And that's why the Princess was able to join (tables) with the prince.

I'm not kidding btw. Its a funny book.

I learnt special relativity from a book such as this, in the ninth grade.

Larry Gonick's "Cartoon Guide" series (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Gonick) is marvellous for this, to the extent that I'd assume that's what you're referring to–except that he doesn't seem to have one on general relativity. Do you remember what exactly the book was?

I think it was "Einstein for beginners" by Joseph Schwartz and Michael McGuinness. Definitely only special relativity. There's no way to explain general rel without some heavy duty math i think.

So... Randall Munroe's 'Thing Explainer'? I actually purchased this and it is both informative, has a bit of quirky humor in the illustrations, and makes a great learning material.

Knowing the proper name of something is often less important than understanding how it works.

[0] http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0544668251/

> Knowing the proper name of something is often less important than understanding how it works.

As far as personal edification and skills go, knowing the proper name of something is pretty much worthless. Only when you have to interact with other flesh-bags does proper naming become a concern.

And even then, "proper naming" can be worse than "improper naming" if it's too abstract or semantically loaded. Consider javascript's promises, could you call them continuation monads? Sure thing. Would it generally be a good idea? If you want nobody to dare come close to it I guess.

[0] which includes yourself-from-the-future for writers or developers I guess

> flesh-bags does proper naming become a concern

You mean every day?

No, because you don't attempt to communicate the entirety or your knowledge and understanding every day to every person you encounter.

> No, because you don't attempt to communicate the entirety or your knowledge and understanding every day to every person you encounter.

Well, I knew I was doing something wrong!

Totally agreed. However, I've found that learning something new without regards for the actual name for it helps me build a solid, abstract representation in the mind. But like you say, communicating these ideas becomes cumbersome when you don't speak the common language :)

And here's Feynman on the same topic: https://youtu.be/ga_7j72CVlc?t=19

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