Bicycle Riding on Square Wheels 406
Roland Piquepaille writes "Before starting our long working week, let's relax with this story of a bicycle with square wheels. No, it's not a joke. And it even rides smoothly. But there is a trick: the road must have a specific shape. The Math Trek section of Science News Online tells us more about this strange bicycle -- actually a tricycle with two front wheels and one back wheel. Read this overview for some excerpts and a picture of the tricycle, or the original article for an additional animation."
Allrighty then (Score:5, Funny)
I guess... (Score:5, Funny)
hot dish? (Score:2, Funny)
Ya yew betcha! I wonder if that basket on the bike is to hold the hot dish? Only in Minnesota would we spend the time determining if square wheels would work... Perhaps from the potholes on 494?
I reside in Minnesota so I am permitted to make these important scientific observations
ingenious concept (Score:3, Funny)
Could it be... (Score:5, Funny)
Wheels? Who needs wheels when rhombuses work perfectly fine!
Cities Will Be Redesigned Around This... (Score:2, Funny)
reinventing the wheel (Score:2, Funny)
What next? (Score:5, Funny)
Read the whole article? (Score:5, Funny)
I wonder what shape my wheels have to be to ride smoothly over the screwed up roads that my town refuses to fix?
Now the road.... (Score:5, Funny)
Before the square wheel... (Score:5, Funny)
He's working on a water powered car I hear... just requires a really big hill.
No word if the car will support square wheels or not.
The wonder of assumptions... (Score:4, Funny)
Economics
"The following theory assumes there are no external factors"
External Factor = People
Sociology
"The following theory is based on a majority sample"
Majority = 50 in a sample of 99.
Slashdot
"The following company/technology categorisation is correct given the sample data"
Sample data = Slashdot
And now we have
"The following design is correct for a given definition of road"
Reminds me of the old maths joke
"1+2=4 for sufficiently large values of 2 and small values of 4"
From the article (Score:5, Funny)
A catenary is the curve describing a rope or chain hanging loosely between two supports. At first glance, it looks like a parabola. In fact, it corresponds to the graph of a function called the hyperbolic cosine.
Yeah, I always get those confused...
[frink]Oy, with the wheels and the squares and the riding and the graphing, ng'hey, glaven.[/frink]
Re:Good for elementary schoolers (Score:5, Funny)
Don't you mean, fixing rounds?
*BOOM* (Score:5, Funny)
"So far, no one has found a road-and wheel combination in which the road has the same shape as the wheel."
Old News! (Score:5, Funny)
old joke (Score:3, Funny)
Re:ingenious concept (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Junior school physics (Score:5, Funny)
Cardboard fueled boiler for the steam engine I would assume.
Finally we get some improvements! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:WORTHLESS HORSESHIT! (Score:2, Funny)
Now if only the train to Chicago didn't run 1/3 as fast as the train to New York and leave 2 hours earlier.
Meow/Chirp, Meow/Chirp (Score:5, Funny)
Dear Esteemed Committee: I would like a million dollar grant. As a good geneticist I am going to see if I can cross a cat with a canary. I will call it "cantenary"! (Since you refused my grant for the monkey with four asses research) Part bird and part cat--that is something useful. Regards, Dr. Mephisto...
Re:Web design with Mathematica?!? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The answer is - A circle! (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, but the Earth is a circle ;)
Re:ingenious concept (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Web design with Mathematica?!? (Score:3, Funny)
If he uses Mathematica for his "real" website, I wonder if he blogs with Octave?
Re:I guess... (Score:2, Funny)
Lets get wild with the sides. (Score:5, Funny)
If 4 wheels needs small hills to run on.... lets add a side so we have 5 sides. 5 sides will need smaller hills saving material in the rebiuld the road project.
And if 5 saves materal lets keep adding sides... 6, 8, 20, 100, 1000. Imagine how small the hills will be... we don't need to redo the roads as much.
Infact if we keep adding sides... we'll get.... a circular wheel... with no need to change the roads.
Well. That was easy.
Re:Spirograph (Score:5, Funny)
And I wanted to see the new Spirograph stuff!
Re:Allrighty then (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Square Wheel? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Read the whole article? (Score:4, Funny)
Duh! Infinity over 2!
</humor>
Re:Junior school physics (Score:2, Funny)
And... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Wheel / Road Same Shape? (Score:1, Funny)
Oh, wait a
Re:Lets get wild with the sides - fractals (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I guess... (Score:3, Funny)
Unfortunately, two years before Microsoft introduced flying cars, so nobody's using MSroads anymore anyway. However, OS users get to feel superior because, even though they get to their destination slower, they're not nearly as likely to blow up in midair.