Catch-42

Dora is very practical about these things.

MA Caiti

Though ... if the universe continues expanding to the point that all local groups are moving away from each other faster than their local c, it means that any bubble of true vacuum would only annihilate that local group, not the entire universe.

Ack

The ultimate conundrum to life, the universe, and everything.

awgiedawgie

I see Jeph fixed the missing "could" for the main site, but didn't fix Hanners' blue eyes in the last panel.

awgiedawgie

If you had read his own comments below the comic, you'd have realized that he already knew that. And his name is Jeph, not Jeff.

awgiedawgie

Catch-42: mutually conflicting answer to life the universe and everything?

Timmy

*cheeps*

Thomas Boys

Did Hanners' eyes change color in the last panel out of respect for Dora's power or alarm at her priorities?

Sara Larner

In space

Dancing on the Edge of Sanity

Jeeez, the wavefront from a gamma ray burst could be barreling towards at this moment and we have zero clue. Some things we can change and fret about - the rest just is.

jeff fearnow

Now I know what reason you'll give if you ever decide to stop this series "a bubble of true vacuum wiped them all out"

Tachpmg

there's a "could" missing in panel 4 Jeff!

Silly thing to worry about, no stopping it. Just keep on trucking.

Aaron Schulz

I recall someone asked AstroKate if she thought it was possible to intentionally collapse the quantum vacuum. She replied "please do not do that."

John Ridley

Not to mention worrying about <i>a lot</i> of other things disproportionately.

awgiedawgie

*Groan*

awgiedawgie

I think it started with a "c", but a big part of my memory is gone as well. Damned vacuum.

awgiedawgie

No! Leave it! It Take Billions! Think of the T-Shirt possibilities!!

Kurt Larson

Someone's being watching kurzgesagt.

I’d like a Blood Tree shirt. Or actually, how about some blood tree tunes JEPH

I can vouch that OCD people with anxiety worry about this sort of thing disproportionately.

David Pipes

Panel 4: Quote Leslie Knope "I sad".

Purple Dahlia

Bummer

Bagge

For anyone wanting to understand VD, here's a useful video from one of my favourite Youtubers: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ijFm6DxNVyI For anyone looking for information on the other sort of VD, I'd recommend ohjoysextoy.com. :p

Thomas Boys

Hahahaha

Chris James

Weddings are serious business

I add to that, "If it happens at the of the speed of light, it's not worth worrying about." I mean, seriously, what good can worrying about something that can happen so fast nothing we can observe will give us any warning of it? That said, this one sounds like a mathematical model glitch and nothing more.

Some Ed

Um, you're not supposed to guess that we're in one. That was supposed to be a surprise later.

Some Ed

Having said that, I can so see QC ending with Dora about to say "I do" at her wedding, and then there are two black panels, then Spookybot comes out and says, "Damn quantum vacuum collapse, whelp, startup from the previous version, then." The next day, we start with a redrawn #1.

z

And, you thought this was an iteration of an actual reality?!

Bill Hall

Yep! Dora has her priorities firmly set, and I pity the (fool) Universe that gets in her way.

Bill Hall

reaction 4: remarkable focus on priorities. excellent work.

Joe

Hanners’, dammit Hanners’! Bogus punctuation trips the Grammar NAZI’s fuse, and then things #truly# get ugly.

Bill Hall

reaction 3: Ice-9

Joe

reaction 2: what are you, a Pierson's Puppeteer??

Joe

reaction 1: sounds like my daughter

Joe

Are Hanner's eyes blue in panel 6?

Vilinda

&gt;Argh there's a missing "could" in panel 4 My brain just read it in, and I never even noticed until I saw your comment! (Btw, thanks for sharing your art with us! It's always a bright spot in my day.)

Chong Go

As we all know, the apocalyptic event associated with Dora's wedding is when Pintsize goes "Now Ends The Age Of Man". https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2126

Captain Button

I try to stay in the state of “if I don’t understand the problem, it’s not worth worrying about”. But when I hear about things like this my internal Hanners jumps up and down. *sigh*

Andrew

Is there new evidence to indicate metastability? I thought it was extremely inconclusive.

Firefly Jelly

Do you also now write webcomics? I’m wondering is there’s a relationship :)

Andrew

He knows.

Joseph Houk

Nah, Simulation Hypothesis and I can't imagine the player wants to rage quit just yet ;-)

David Durant

I think there's a word missing in frame 4 "it take" probably "it could take" ?

It's the same blue of her top, so it's probably a masking glitch

Grace Kieser

...did Hanner's eyes turn blue in the last panel? Is that normal or am I just out of the loop?

Aqua Allison

Well I feel better for not vacuuming today.

Summer Sudbrink

PSA: Theories are not reality. We change theories all the time. The next one might not include metastable vacua. It's still an open problem to show that our current QFT's are even consistent. We can compute with them, but we don't know if they HAVE any solutions. In other words, don't worry, Hanners.

Matt Grayson

When are they going to start choosing people for the wedding party? I'm predicting Marten to be Tai's best person/person of honor and Faye to be Dora's.

JD

And the answer to that is: if it hasn't happened that way since the dawn of the freaking universe, either it's naturally occurring and stabilizes somehow before doom reaches us all each time, it doesn't happen because of things we don't understand, or we're in one. Edit: Yonatan wins.

R L

Don't worry, Hanners. The fact that the universe has lasted this long places an upper bound on the mass gap of any possible false vacuum, which means that a nonzero value would require a dimensionless cosmic parameter to be fine-tuned to some atrociously small nonzero value. Any amount of futzing with the equations should quickly convince you that (a) that's really unlikely, and (b) if you're wrong you'll never know it anyway. False vacua are mostly important because we know we did live in one at the beginning of the universe, very briefly - and the aftermath of its collapse is us! Hi, this has been your drive-by commentary from a former string theorist. HTH. HAND.

Yonatan Zunger

Same problem with strangelet infestation.

lilibat

Ah Dora, always choosing the right things to prioritize

Lord Crusade

Ya know, I was just thinking about that the other day.

Michael Boettger

That wedding needs to happen, damn it.

Celine Chamberlin

Priorities.

Ray Cornwall