Idiotic Ancients II

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Hey, Gene, I remember your comments on those long ago posts long ago, I do, I do. And I'm not a Beltware libertarian, I am, I am. And what did Toyota understand about its safety issues, and when? And I certainly contest that "the point of the sentence was to 'mock the ideas of pre-Enlightenment thinkers.'" And I'm absolutely unhasitatingly in favor of crystalline polyhedrons and of Johannes Kepler, and of the Dixie Chicks.

So: consider that you are a moron in a mental institution, drooling at an Occupation Therapy table with a clump of modelling clay. You roll the clay into countless tiny balls and drop them into an otherwise empty clam chowder can. When the can is full, you place the top back on the can and patiently press, until all the excess space has been expelled. The once spheres will now have fetched up against each other and thus have become polyhedra. Still drooling, you dump them out of the can, carefully separate them, and count their sides. What will most probably be their average number of sides? And get a second one, absolutely free!

Fat Tuesday to y'all.

Comments

  1. gcallah12:34 PM

    How are you, Wabulon? I was just thinking about you.

    Dodecahedron?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Andy Stedman10:21 AM

    My initial thought, too. However, there are other possible packings of which the dodecahedron represents the most efficient. Six is another possibility (the minimum?) and lots between.

    I wave my hands and declare that the average will be 10.16 .

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wabulon4:46 PM

    Gene: I'm well, although somewhat oppressed by the thought of all the resolutions I've made (get vacuum cleaner bags, file papers, cook chicken, etc., etc.), none of which... But I know that I am supposed to be lazy.

    All: Thirteen.

    ReplyDelete

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