The World If Significant Figures Didn't Exist

When your lab instructor said "aqueous medium" but you took it way too literally! This chemist is performing a titration experiment underwater – talk about taking laboratory safety to absurd depths. The burette stand is mounted on what appears to be a submerged platform while our intrepid scientist performs their acid-base neutralization with fish potentially swimming by. The journal citation at the bottom ("The Journal of Immaterial Science") is the perfect punchline – because this research definitely won't hold water in peer review! Next up: conducting flame tests on a rocket to space because "elevated temperatures" wasn't specific enough.

Chemistry students arguing about electron configurations be like: "The octet rule isn't even a real rule! It's just a guideline with so many exceptions it might as well be decorative." Meanwhile, noble gases sit smugly in the corner with their perfect eight valence electrons, not saying a word. They don't need to – they're already stable.

Forget wealth and fame—the true currency of scientific power is that sweet, sweet experimental yield! Nothing compares to the rush of getting 98% product purity when the literature said 75% was "excellent." That moment when your data points form a perfect line? Pure ecstasy. Scientists will literally cancel weekend plans because their reaction is "working too well to stop now." We've all been there, hunched over lab equipment at midnight, cackling with the unhinged joy that comes from beating statistical probability. Money buys equipment, status gets you published, but a good yield? That's the scientific equivalent of finding the holy grail while winning the lottery.

The post-exam trauma is REAL! Everyone's talking about survival tips while that ONE student is dissecting your calculation errors like "you didn't use the right gas constant." Meanwhile, you're having an existential crisis because R = 8.314 J/(mol·K) and not 0.0821 L·atm/(mol·K) might have just destroyed your entire grade. And then that same student slurps up your tears of despair like they're drinking a refreshing beverage. Chemistry exams: where friendships dissolve faster than sodium in water!

Sørensen really said "I'm gonna create one of the most fundamental measurements in chemistry and then refuse to elaborate on what the 'p' stands for." Classic power move. Scientists in 1909 were like "So what does the 'p' mean?" and he just shrugged and walked away. Now we're all stuck debating whether it's "potential," "power," or just "please stop asking me questions." The man literally invented a unit that measures how acidic your kombucha is and then left everyone on read. Scientific ghosting at its finest.

The universal experience of being a chemist at parties! The moment you reveal your profession, everyone suddenly thinks you're Walter White's lab assistant ready to synthesize something illegal in their kitchen. That preemptive "NO" is basically the chemist's reflexive defense mechanism after years of people asking if you can make explosives, drugs, or "just a tiny bit of something fun." Chemists spend years mastering complex molecular interactions only to be reduced to potential accomplices in sketchy basement operations. The yellow character's expression in the last panel is the perfect encapsulation of professional dignity mixed with mild irritation—the face of someone who just wants to talk about hydrogen bonding without being asked to break the law.