Title text: Science joke. You should probably move along.
Johannes Kepler was a German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer, best known for his laws of planetary motion. By using Tycho Brahe's observations of our solar system, Brahe gave Kepler the job of observing and explaining the motion of the planet Mars, Kepler was able to deduce that planets in the system do not move in a circular orbit around the Sun, but rather in an elliptical one.
According to Kepler's Second Law, "A line joining a planet and the Sun sweeps out equal areas during equal intervals of time." This looks like wiping a wipe on the floor.
In the comic, the janitor Kepler also sweeps the same area, although in this case "area" is used in the sense of "surface" (of floor) rather than in the purely mathematical sense.
- [Two people stand in an aisle in a store.]
- Cueball 1: Nice store. How do you keep the floors so clean?
- Cueball 2: Oh, we hired this dude named Kepler, he's really good. Hard worker. Doesn't mind the monotony. Sweeps out the same area every night.
- Original Randall quote: "Another one which, if you don't get, you're probably better off."
- This is the twentieth comic posted to livejournal. The previous was 20: Ferret. The next was 44: Love.