Unpublished Discoveries
Unpublished Discoveries
[Ponytail walks up to Megan, who is sitting in an office chair at a desk using her laptop.] Ponytail: When you make a big scientific discovery, it takes a while to get it published. Ponytail: Right? Megan: Mm hmm.
[Zoom-in on Ponytail.] Ponytail: So there are probably several research teams out there who are sitting on Nobel-Prize-worthy discoveries, but haven't told the rest of us yet. Megan (off-panel): Makes sense.
[Ponytail leans over the desk, trying to see Megan's laptop screen from behind it.]
[Ponytail leans further. Megan pulls the screen down so Ponytail cannot see it.] Ponytail: Sooo... What are you working on? Megan: It isn't me! Ponytail: I promise I won't tell. Megan: Shoo! Go bother someone else.

Ponytail walks up to Megan , and makes the observation that when a scientific discovery is made, it then takes a while to publish it. She then goes on to note that there are probably research teams making "Nobel-Prize-worthy" discoveries that have simply not been published. She is obviously curious if Megan is working on something like this, and tries to see what Megan is working on, but Megan prevents her from seeing this by partly closing her laptop. Then Ponytail asks Megan what she is doing but Megan just tells her that she isn't the one working on a project like this and ask her to "Go bother someone else."
This is not the first time Ponytail asks Megan if she is working on some groundbreaking research project: Back in 1067: Pressures , Ponytail was probing Megan about her work, since, as hinted by the caption of that comic, Megan is a Swiss patent clerk just like Albert Einstein . Ponytail thus assumes she has the same potential to produce Nobel-Prize-worthy work as him. While there is no clear indication that this comic should be a continuation of that comic or that Megan is a patent clerk, Ponytail still assumes Megan is on her way to a Nobel Prize - but that Megan is just not yet ready to announce her discovery to the public for one reason or another.
In the first two panels, Ponytail is referring to the general issue that, to publish a discovery on a scientific topic, it can take a very long time, especially when the discovery is "Nobel-Prize-worthy". Obviously the first step is for the researcher to demonstrate rigor by more supporting experiments (see 397: Unscientific ), plus summarize the discovery into the format accepted by the journal the paper is submitted too. The latter can take considerable time by itself, especially if the first journal the paper is submitted to declines publication. Because other journals chosen afterwards may have a completely different layout (for instance in physics, the journal with the greatest impact factor is Nature , then followed by for instance Science and then Physical Review Letters . All three have very different layouts regarding format and figures etc.) Thus the paper may need to be submitted to various journals until one accepts, which may also take a few months, and even when accepted it can take anywhere from 25 days to 150+ days just for the paper to be processed through the publishing system due to various reasons , including the nature of the publishing process, assigning extra work as conditions for acceptance, or even formatting problems. This has prompted researchers to come up with some interesting work-arounds .
In the title text, Megan claims that she is actually just trying to convert an emailed tax form to a PDF. This could of course just be to ward off any further attempts by Ponytail to spy on her "real" Nobel-worthy work. Megan sarcastically states that her conversion of tax forms is in the running for a Nobel Prize, perhaps because she considers it an incredibly difficult task (even for these things that should not be hard - see 1349: Shouldn't Be Hard ). While this could be true, this task is in no way connected to any kind of scientific endeavor, and as a result could never be considered for any kind of Nobel Prize. That the task is so difficult is though officially acknowledged by the IRS as they themselves note that saving and printing their Online tax forms could be tricky. Quote:
Fill-In Tax Forms The IRS also offers Free Fillable Forms which allow you to save (and print) the information you’ve typed in online. The fill-in tax forms also require Adobe Acrobat Reader software. To save the data you’ve filled in, use the Adobe Reader’s “Save” function (not the web browser’s “Save” function). ...
The months and weeks before April 15th (this comic was released on March 1st), is the "tax season" in the US so Americans are in the process of completing their tax forms, which is why this comic is timely. Given the US tax code is complained by many to be too complex , it is possible for researchers to delay publication of their discoveries to deal with their tax returns first. This can cause people to "sit on their discovery" for a while, although hopefully not as long as the task of publishing itself.
A year after this comic, 1971: Personal Data became the second tax related comic to be released in March, close to the tax day, making it two years in a row. Also before these comics the trouble with tax returns was the joke in 1566: Board Game , but it was released in August.
[Ponytail walks up to Megan, who is sitting in an office chair at a desk using her laptop.] Ponytail: When you make a big scientific discovery, it takes a while to get it published. Ponytail: Right? Megan: Mm hmm.
[Zoom-in on Ponytail.] Ponytail: So there are probably several research teams out there who are sitting on Nobel-Prize-worthy discoveries, but haven't told the rest of us yet. Megan (off-panel): Makes sense.
[Ponytail leans over the desk, trying to see Megan's laptop screen from behind it.]
[Ponytail leans further. Megan pulls the screen down so Ponytail cannot see it.] Ponytail: Sooo... What are you working on? Megan: It isn't me! Ponytail: I promise I won't tell. Megan: Shoo! Go bother someone else.
