Salt Mine
Salt Mine
[Hairbun (with glasses), Ponytail, Megan and Cueball are in a salt mine. Hairbun and Ponytail talk in front of what appears to be a control console for a particle detector with a chair on each side. To the right Megan and Cueball are eating salt in large amounts straight of the rocks in the mine. They are eating so fast that salt spills from their hands and falls to the ground.] Hairbun: So you've built this particle detector in a salt mine to block out cosmic rays? Ponytail: Yes. Ponytail: That is definitely why. Cueball and Megan: Homf nomf nomf

Ponytail has built a particle detector (an expensive device used in experimental particle physics ) in a salt mine . Hairbun assumes that this is to block out cosmic rays , as is the case with the real life Irvine-Michigan-Brookhaven (IMB) detector, started in Lake Erie in 1979, or the Enriched Xenon Observatory (EXO), placed in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) salt mine in 2007.
The IMB detector was initially used to search for proton decay in very pure water kept in the mine, and it was thus important to keep out cosmic rays that would create the same type of signal as a decaying proton. Although the IMB became famous for detecting neutrinos from supernova 1987a (which pass through virtually all materials, salt or lead etc. with only the smallest fraction of them interacting), it never observed a single proton decay out of the 10 31 protons present in the water of the detector. If it had detected even a single positive observation it would have contributed to the ratification of the Grand Unified Theory , which predicts that protons eventually decay. At the time of this comic the lower limit for proton half-life from experimental evidence is of the order 10 34 years.
Ponytail affirms Hairbun's assumption; however, based on the wording of her response, it is clear that Ponytail and her colleagues, Cueball and Megan , have an ulterior motive of using the mine to get access to an enormous supply of salt for eating. This is absurd, since salt is already plentifully available in grocery stores, the cost of the particle detector far exceeds the value of the salt and their intake appears to be far beyond any medically-advised healthy limit (and likely to be sickening in other regards).
In the comic, when Ponytail says "Yes. That is definitely why," it is obvious that when queried about the reason for building the detector, apparently to gain access to large quantities of salt, Ponytail is quick to leap on Hairbun's more scientific-sounding explanation, in an attempt to save face and appear professional.
The title text is intended to be absurd. Salt is normally used to add flavor to otherwise bland foods . However, the "bland" food that the speaker is eating is itself a chunk of salt, and they wish to season their salt with yet more salt. Additionally, the title text's wording is a bit ambiguous; "this one" could refer to the comic itself, and Randall is calling the comic bland. And, in keeping with the subject, is asking for salt to spruce it up, or it could refer to the detector planted inside the mine.
This was the first of two comics this week that concerns one of the basic condiments for food, and also regards one of the five basic tastes . The second, about sugar, was 1639: To Taste . Lately Randall has made several food related comics .
Ponytail's response is very similar to Luke's in 1397: Luke .
[Hairbun (with glasses), Ponytail, Megan and Cueball are in a salt mine. Hairbun and Ponytail talk in front of what appears to be a control console for a particle detector with a chair on each side. To the right Megan and Cueball are eating salt in large amounts straight of the rocks in the mine. They are eating so fast that salt spills from their hands and falls to the ground.] Hairbun: So you've built this particle detector in a salt mine to block out cosmic rays? Ponytail: Yes. Ponytail: That is definitely why. Cueball and Megan: Homf nomf nomf
