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Gary Larson's The Far Side had several major obsessions across its fifteen-year run, from inventive cavemen and goofy aliens to sneaky chickens and cynical cows. However, Larson's favorite subject is science itself.
The Far Side is known for its many (many) comics depicting scientists as little more than excitable children, however that's not what we're looking at for this list.
Here, we're looking at the funniest Far Side comics that rewrite science itself - those that push the laws of our universe beyond breaking point or rewrite key moments and inventions. There are also a few that changed the real world, as Larson's goofy sense of humor influenced actual science.
Rocket Scientists
The idea that someone 'isn't exactly a rocket scientist' implies that they're a dimwitted person, however Larson takes it completely literally, as a trio of scientists admit they don't have the know-how to construct an aerodynamic rocket... or so it appears.
One Far Side fan enjoyed this comic and, in 2021, decided to see if Larson's rocket was actually as bad as it looked. Ben Jarivs of Raptor Aerospace constructed the rocket from this strip, sharing his findings on social media...
In a result that shocked everyone involved, it turned out that the characters in this strip were underestimating their abilities. Jarvis reports that "the design flies incredibly well," concluding that, "building rockets that might not work is always better than talking about rockets you think might work."
In this case, Larson's strip inspired the purest kind of science there is - speculating on whether or not a device will work, then constructing it to test the theory and being pleasantly surprised to find out you were wrong.
Einstein's Discovery
One of Einstein's greatest discoveries was the theory of relativity, positing that space and time are not only bound together, but are experienced subjectively by those within them and affected by phenomena such as speed and gravity.
In the world of The Far Side, Einstein got a little sidetracked, coming to a very different conclusion about time. Larson's version of Einstein is arguably even more interesting than the real-life version, having given up a successful basketball career to study physics.
This very different history for a major scientific figure may explain why Larson's world is so bizarre - instead of understanding the nature of time and space, its greatest scientists dedicated their lives to cementing common sayings as essential rules of reality.
Rubber Band Invention
In this strip, two scientists in a laboratory are about to get into trouble, as an early rubber band is 'tested' as a weapon. Larson adores the gag of scientists messing with each other in unusual ways.
But how does it rewrite science? Well, the rubber band wasn't made in a lab. The tech was first patented by inventor Stephen Perry, who used it to replace more time-consuming twine. Like a lot of inventions, rubber bands emerged from curious people trying to make their everyday lives a little easier, rather than scientists sitting around, theorizing about what they may be able to create.
Imprinting Studies
In this strip, Larson mocks the idea of imprinting studies, where scientists try to get young animals to see them as parents/members of the same species. In this case, the scientist has failed to get a family of ducks to see him as the parent, and has instead ended up seeing the mother duck as his superior.
As silly as this concept is, there's a dark corollary in real life. In 1931, psychologist Winthrop Niles Kellogg brought the chimpanzee Gua into his home, intending to treat it the same as his young son. Kellogg wanted to see if the chimp would exhibit human behavior if raised around humans, but brought an emergency end to his study when, instead, his son began to imitate the chimp, including biting and struggling with speech.
So Larson is right that scientists trying to get animals to imprint on them can see their efforts go wrong, but in a far more disturbing way than The Far Side suggests.
How Entomologists Pass Away
In this strip, an entomologist - a scientist specializing in the study of insects - mimics a bug curling up upon death. This strip is another one that influenced real-world science, at least as part of Larson's larger body of work.
Larson is a big fan of bugs, and gathered a large audience of entomologists with strips like this one. In response, he's had multiple insects named in his honor, including the chewing louse strigiphilus garylarsoni and the moth serratoterga larsoni. Yep, there are real insects out there whose scientific names are a result of how much entomologists love The Far Side.
Dinosaur Eggs
In this strip, two paleontologists discover fossilized dinosaur eggs that are in strangely good condition... or so they assume. Larson twists science here by suggesting a dinosaur has survived to the modern day - something he regretted doing elsewhere.
In The Prehistory of The Far Side, Larson admits he sometimes felt guilty for comic strips that suggested humans and dinosaurs had ever shared the Earth, saying:
I've always felt that I've committed some heresy by doing cartoons (like the ones above) that mixed dinosaurs with primitive people. I think there should be cartoon confessionals where we could go and say things like, "Father, I have sinned - I have drawn dinosaurs and hominids together in the same cartoon.
Canine Decoder Helmet
In this strip, a scientist creates a helmet that 'translates' dogs barking, only to discover that they're just yelling "Hey!" in every conceivable context. How did Larson rewrite science with this strip? By getting it right before the scientists caught up.
As we explored in 'Far Side's 'Talking Dogs' Comic Is Scientifically Accurate (Really)', modern-day experts in canine cognition tend to agree that barking doesn't have any sophisticated meaning when compared to other forms of animal communication. Barking is a 'neotenic' quality that's only naturally seen in young wolves, with dogs deliberately bred to keep this quality by humans.
Simply put, barking is something that young wolves naturally do to yell "Hey!" at their parents, but thanks to the artificial selection involved in domestication, it's something that dogs keep into adulthood, even though it only really functions in the way Larson depicts.
Inside the Sun
In this strip, the rising and setting of the Sun is explained by a working stiff using a lever to control the celestial body. While the visual of one guy controlling the Sun is a funny one, the wider idea that the Sun actually does 'rise and set' was once accepted scientific theory.
It was only with the Copernican Revolution that understanding began to shift towards heliocentrism, and scientists realized that it's the Earth which moves around the Sun, not vice versa. While the Sun appears to rise and set, this is actually due to the movement of the Earth, and our subjective view of a phenomenon taking place at a vast scale.
Early Microscopes
As previously mentioned, Larson loves the gag of cavemen figuring out basic or first-draft versions of modern inventions and traditions.
In this case, not only do cavemen create an incredibly basic microscope, but their first discovery is one which they could probably have figured out without needing this new tech.
However, like rubber bands, the microscope has its own fascinating history - albeit one that doesn't 'stretch' back to prehistory. Dutch spectacle makers Hans and Zacharias Janssen designed the first true microscope, extending their understanding of lenses into a history-making new tool.
The Thagomizer
Our final entry is another strip that changed real-world science. In this comic, a cavemen gives a lecture on the dangers of the stegosaurus, describing the tail as the 'Thagomizer' - seemingly named after a hominid who got a little too close and paid the price.
The thing is, paleontologists didn't actually have a name for the stegosaurus' tail spikes until this time. However, with so many scientists being Far Side fans, they picked the term up and ran with it, and Larson's term is now the official (and only) word for this part of the iconic dinosaur.
Those are the ten Far Side comics that rewrote (or actually influenced) real-world science - let us know what you think of our choices in the comment section below.
