Apr 23, 2025, 11:28 PM

title text: After initial tests created a series of large holes in the wall of the lab, the higher-power Scanning Tunneling Tennis Ball Microscope project was quickly shut down.

(https://xkcd.com/3080)
(https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/3080)

Single panel comic.

The upper portion shows short hair & no hair using an automated tennis ball thrower that is making "thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk" noises as it fires balls. The balls are being fired in descending order of what height they would hit the side of the panel at.

The lower portion has short hair saying "Ok, there's definitely a person over there. Let's do one more pass to try to measure their height." From off panel in the direction the balls were fired is a descending series of "bonk" "bonk" "bonk" "bonk" "bonk" "Ow!" "bonk" "Ow!" "bonk" "bonk"

Lower caption: Electrons are small and hard to work with, so some scientists have developed a scanning tennis ball microscope instead.