• Gork@lemm.ee
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    14 days ago

    In my case the chair wobbles on 3 legs and I have to shim the 4th one.

  • VaalaVasaVarde@sopuli.xyz
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    14 days ago

    This reminds me about Numberphile has a video that proves you can get a 4 legged table to be stable with all 4 legs touching the ground by rotating it.

      • Mirodir@discuss.tchncs.de
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        14 days ago

        Sorta. The function height(angle) needs to be continuous. From there it’s pretty clear why it works if you know the mean value theorem.

        • frank@sopuli.xyz
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          14 days ago

          Yeah, I guess the assumption it takes is that there aren’t larger topographic changes for the other legs between their points, and that the legs are equal length. But I like it, it’s a fun one I’m trying next time

        • milicent_bystandr@lemm.ee
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          14 days ago

          Right. Somehow I was thinking only of the floor being uneven, not the table legs. Surely it’s trivial to have table legs sufficiently different to not fit on any arbitrary shape of floor?

          • jaybone@lemmy.world
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            14 days ago

            Haha yes :) I was somehow thinking for this type of problem, the usual case is the legs are uneven… because if the floor is uneven or not level the table will be uneven or not level regardless of whether it has 0, 1, or n legs. But I guess the problem is about “wobbling” not about being level.

            • milicent_bystandr@lemm.ee
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              13 days ago

              If the table has three legs it will be stable on any floor no matter how uneven (up to some limit!). Won’t be perfectly flat, but won’t wobble.

        • milicent_bystandr@lemm.ee
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          12 days ago

          Oh dear. Usually the chair is so big it stands way above the floor.

          Also what about the table? Should that still be larger than the chair?

  • lugal@sopuli.xyz
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    14 days ago

    I only manage two but that’s how many legs I have in total so no change to be on more than two while doing anything else