engineering

Jorge Cham

Jorge Cham is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Jorge Cham rather than just read about it. In short: Jorge Gabriel Cham (Spanish: [ˈxorxe]) (born 1976) is an engineer-turned cartoonist, writer and producer, who writes the web comic strip Piled Higher and Deeper (PhD Comics). Cham was born in Panama and lives in the United States, where he started drawing PhD Comics as a graduate student at Stanford University.

Key takeaways

Jorge Cham belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Jorge Cham to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Jorge Cham from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Jorge Gabriel Cham (Spanish: [ˈxorxe]) (born 1976) is an engineer-turned cartoonist, writer and producer, who writes the web comic strip Piled Higher and Deeper (PhD Comics). Cham was born in Panama and lives in the United States, where he started drawing PhD Comics as a graduate student at Stanford University. He has since been syndicated in several university newspapers and in six published book collections. He was featured on NPR on December 20, 2010. With physicist Daniel Whiteson, he is the coauthor of We Have No Idea (2017), a book about unsolved problems in physics. In September 2018, Cham and Whiteson debuted the podcast Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, produced by iHeartMedia, in which the hosts aim to explain popular questions and complex topics about science, technology, and the universe, in the simplest way possible. In October 2024 the podcast ended as co-hosts Whiteson and Cham decided to pursue separate projects. Cham co-created the PBS Kids animated series Elinor Wonders Why, which premiered in September 2020.

Early life and education Jorge Cham was born and raised in Panama to parents working in the Panama Canal Zone as engineers for the United States Government. He received his B.S. from Georgia Institute of Technology in 1997, and earned a PhD in mechanical engineering from Stanford University. He previously worked at Caltech as an instructor and as a researcher on neural prosthetics. He has now fully devoted to his comic work.

Cartoonist In 2005, Cham became a full time cartoonist and began an invited speaking tour of major universities delivering his talk titled "The Power of Procrastination". To date, he has given hundreds of lectures worldwide. In this lecture, Cham talks about his experiences creating the comic strip and examines the sources of grad students' anxieties. He also explores the guilt and the myths associated with procrastination and argues that in many cases it is actually a good thing. In 2012, Cham wrote and produced The PHD Movie, an independent feature-length film based on his comics. The film featured real researchers and academics and was screened at over 500 universities and research centers worldwide. In 2015, Cham wrote and produced The PHD Movie: Still in Grad School, a sequel to the first film, which also screened worldwide. He also illustrated the book Scientific Paper Writing: A Survival Guide (2015) by Bodil Holst. Cham has also had six collections of his comics published, with the most recent one — a 20th-anniversary edition — backed by more than $234,000 in pledges on Kickstarter. His book We Have No Idea: A Guide to the Unknown Universe, with physicist Daniel Whiteson, has been translated to over 23 languages, was a Der Spiegel Best-seller, and was awarded the Wen Jin National Book Award in China. Cham is also the co-creator of Elinor Wonders Why, a show on PBS Kids that is based on Cham's daughter. The series premiered on September 7, 2020. He is the co-owner of Shoe Ink, which produces the Elinor Wonders Why series and That's So Interesting, a live-action short form series hosted by Cham and featuring 3 characters from Elinor Wonders Why itself being Olive, Ari & Elinor.

References

External links Official website Official website of PhD Comics Media related to Jorge Cham at Wikimedia Commons

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Jorge Cham

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Jorge Cham claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Jorge Cham before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Jorge Cham ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Jorge Cham

In research: Jorge Cham appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Jorge Cham in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Jorge Cham is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1976 births, 21st-century American engineers, American comics artists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Jorge Cham outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Jorge Cham in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Jorge Cham means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Jorge Cham out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Jorge Cham in simple terms?

Why does Jorge Cham matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Jorge Cham?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Jorge Cham.