Guest Week Bill Amend (FoxTrot)
Guest Week: Bill Amend (FoxTrot)
[Jason from FoxTrot is sitting at an artist's desk with a pencil, holding a phone.] Jason: Hi, Mr. Munroe? I have a great idea! Let me draw some strips for you! Randall, through the telephone: Fat chance, kid.
[Zoom in to Jason.] Jason: Sudo let me draw some strips for you.

[The following are transcripts of three strips.]

[Cueball and Ponytail are looking at each other.] Cueball: I find you more attractive than usual. Ponytail: You do? Is it my new haircut?
[Zoom in to Cueball.] Cueball: Actually, I think it's all the weight you've been putting on. Your gravitational pull is pretty severe.
[Cueball is now alone in the panel.] Cueball: Just sayin'.

[Two people are in a living room. The woman is looking through a chest of drawers.] At home with the Heisenbergs Mrs. Heisenberg: I can't find my car keys. Mr. Heisenberg: You probably know too much about their momentum.

[Congress is in session.  The Speaker is standing on stage in front of an American Flag hanging by an ionic column, holding up a gavel. Seven Members of Congress are seen in front of the stage: a Cueball, a Hairbun, a man with glasses, a woman with long hair, and three more Cueballs.  The first, fourth, and sixth members have their hands raised.] Caption: Why mathematicians should run for Congress Speaker: All those in favor of the bill say "aye." Congressman #1: Aye. Congresswoman #2: Aye. Congress–Mathematician: √-1

Bill Amend , author of the newspaper comic FoxTrot , draws for Randall in this special ' Guest Week ' edition of xkcd . In the first two panels, we see Jason Fox , a geeky 10-year-old from Amend's strip. Jason asks to draw comics for Randall. When Randall refuses, he uses the sudo command, used in Unix systems to perform an action as an administrator/super user. This forces Randall to agree. This is a reference to the very popular comic 149: Sandwich , which has now become a geek culture catch-phrase.
It is a recurring theme in FoxTrot for Jason to offer to make substitute comics for artists, said comics usually involving mocking his sister Paige, and it is possible that Ponytail is representing her. This would be the first time that someone accepted his offers to make comics.
In the first comic, Cueball is making a pun on the word attractive . In the first context it means a person is  "good looking" or "beautiful" which the female character attributes to her hair. In Cueball's context, he means that he is feeling an increased gravitational pull from the woman, due to her increase in mass (see Gravitation ). This setup is also very typical of the Jason Fox character, who, ostensibly ten, is supposed to be too young to like girls.  The female character's hair is done up in a ponytail similar to how Paige usually keeps hers, so this comic strip may also be a joke at Paige's expense.
In 1927 Werner Heisenberg postulated his eponymous Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle , which roughly states that in quantum mechanics one cannot know both the position and momentum of a particle. The joke is that (presumably) Elisabeth Heisenberg does not know the position of her keys, because she knows too much about their momentum. (This is also the subject of 1473: Location Sharing .)
In many parliamentary and congressional halls it is customary, when calling an issue to vote to have the people who want the issue at hand to be passed to say out loud that they agree. The customary response to this is to say "aye." The dissenters are then asked. Their response would be "nay" or "no". Then the volume (by rough decibels ) of the assenters and dissenters are weighed. If it is close, a more formal vote may be called. "Aye" is pronounced the same way as the letter "i" and " i " is the mathematical value of the square root of negative one, which can be used to represent an imaginary number .
The title text of this comic draws attention to the fact that there are a number of notable people who have become famous as cartoonists, but also hold degrees in physics or have a strong interest in physics. This might seem unusual, because the average person might see physics and art as incompatible, and this is why Randall writes "an oddly large number." These people include:
Guest Week was a series of five comics written by five other comic authors. They were released over five consecutive days (Monday-Friday); not over the usual Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule. The five comics are:
[Jason from FoxTrot is sitting at an artist's desk with a pencil, holding a phone.] Jason: Hi, Mr. Munroe? I have a great idea! Let me draw some strips for you! Randall, through the telephone: Fat chance, kid.
[Zoom in to Jason.] Jason: Sudo let me draw some strips for you.

[The following are transcripts of three strips.]

[Cueball and Ponytail are looking at each other.] Cueball: I find you more attractive than usual. Ponytail: You do? Is it my new haircut?
[Zoom in to Cueball.] Cueball: Actually, I think it's all the weight you've been putting on. Your gravitational pull is pretty severe.
[Cueball is now alone in the panel.] Cueball: Just sayin'.

[Two people are in a living room. The woman is looking through a chest of drawers.] At home with the Heisenbergs Mrs. Heisenberg: I can't find my car keys. Mr. Heisenberg: You probably know too much about their momentum.

[Congress is in session.  The Speaker is standing on stage in front of an American Flag hanging by an ionic column, holding up a gavel. Seven Members of Congress are seen in front of the stage: a Cueball, a Hairbun, a man with glasses, a woman with long hair, and three more Cueballs.  The first, fourth, and sixth members have their hands raised.] Caption: Why mathematicians should run for Congress Speaker: All those in favor of the bill say "aye." Congressman #1: Aye. Congresswoman #2: Aye. Congress–Mathematician: √-1
