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Bicycle Riding on Square Wheels
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."
I'll get right on that change-the-shape-of-all-of-the-roads project right away ...
they did re-invent the wheel, not a good invention though...
See picture here
:)
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
Perfect for Michigan roads.
The successor to the overly hyped Segway?
Wheels? Who needs wheels when rhombuses work perfectly fine!
Nothing disturbs me more than blind loyalism towards some unrealistic and over-idealistic notion of one's nationality.
It's the next Segway!
literally
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Will be be seeing pentagonal wheels or maybe even octogonal wheels? Or better yet n-gonal wheels where n is an incredibly large number?
EVERYDAY IS CATURDAY
I wonder what shape my wheels have to be to ride smoothly over the screwed up roads that my town refuses to fix?
Today in the news: Inventors discover new way to make road construction ( and repair ) even more expensive....
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.
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"
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
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]
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
Don't you mean, fixing rounds?
...I'll procrastinate tomorrow...
"So far, no one has found a road-and wheel combination in which the road has the same shape as the wheel."
I've seen the South Park kids travel to French Canada. They have square wheels on their bicycles as well as their cars. I really don't see what the big excitement is all about.
They should have used triangular wheels. One less bump.
So, how'd you make it move on it's own power? I'm intrigued.
Cardboard fueled boiler for the steam engine I would assume.
Do you Gentoo!?
I was wondering when someone was going to get around to improving the wheel. The current version is so impractical, inefficient, and has such a limited range of applications it has been screaming for a face-lift. Someone get this guy a $250 million research grant ASAP!!!
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.
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...
Harpo Tunnel Syndrome--my wrist feels funny.
Dude, we're talking about *square wheels*. The guy surely is not a big fan of using the right tool for the job (in any situation, it seems).
Marcelo Vanzin
Yeah, but the Earth is a circle ;)
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
If he uses Mathematica for his "real" website, I wonder if he blogs with Octave?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
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.
Damn it! You guys /.'ed Hasbro!
And I wanted to see the new Spirograph stuff!
I suggest human interaction, and a lot of it. FAST.
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
Ok, let's agree that the smoothness of the ride really depends on the vertical motion of the driver. :-)
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
...to improve his "ride," Stan Wagon will be adding a "spoiler" (shaped like a rectangle) and a cylindrical exhaust "muffler" to make the vehicle more appealing to "the bitches."
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
How about riding on the outside of a round structure large enough to exert a significant gravitational force on the rider?
....
Oh, wait a
But if we use a fractal patterned tread, we'll need an infinite amount of road surface!