• AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.netEnglish
    3·
    1 month ago

    Oh my God, I fucking love this. I mean, I absolutely hate that this is the optimal way to pack 17 squares into a larger square such that the size of the larger square is minimised. However, I love that someone went to the effort of making a waffle iron plate for this. High effort shitposts like this give me life

  • Fleur_@aussie.zoneEnglish
    2·
    1 month ago

    The density of waffle syrup went down compared to the 16 partition waffle though

  • arcine@jlai.luEnglish
    1·
    10 days ago

    I can’t believe someone made this waffle iron and didn’t make a YouTube video about making it. It has to be a Photoshop x)

  • wolframhydroxide@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    1·
    1 month ago

    For the uninitiated: this is the current most-efficient method found of packing 17 unit squares inside another square. You may not like it, but this is what peak efficiency looks like.

    (Of course, 16 squares has a packing coefficient of 4, compared to this arrangement’s 4.675, so this is just what peak efficiency looks like for 17 squares)

    Edit: For the record, since this blew up, a tiny nitpick in my own explanation above: a smaller value of the packing coefficient is not actually what makes it more efficient (as it is simply the ratio of the larger square’s side to the sides of the smaller squares). The optimal efficiency (zero interstitial space) is achieved when the packing coefficient is precisely equal to the square root of the number of smaller squares. Hence why the case of n=25, with a packing coefficient of 5, is actually more efficient than this packing of n=17, with a packing coefficient of 4.675. Since sqrt(25)=5, that case is a perfectly efficient packing, equal to the case of n=16 with coefficient of 4. Since sqrt(17)=4.123, this packing above is not perfectly efficient, leaving interstices. Obviously. This also means that we may yet find a packing for n=17 with a packing coefficient closer to sqrt(17), which would be an interesting breakthrough, but more important are the questions “is it possible to prove that a given packing is the most efficient possible packing for that value of n” and “does there exist a general rule which produces the most efficient possible packing for any given value of n unit squares?”

    • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      0·
      1 month ago

      But you can fit 25 squares into the same space. This isn’t efficiency, it’s just wasted space and bad planning.

      You raised the packing coefficient by ⅝ to squeeze one extra square in with all that wasted space, so don’t argue that 25 squares has a packing coefficient of 5. Another ⅜ will get you an extra 8 squares, and no wasted space.

      • wolframhydroxide@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        1·
        1 month ago

        Precisely. That’s why I wrote the parenthetical about the greater efficiency of 16 as a perfect square. As the other commenter pointed out, this is a meme. This is only the most efficient packing method for 17 squares. It’s the packing efficiency equivalent of the spinal tap “this one goes to 11” quote.

          • wolframhydroxide@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            0·
            1 month ago

            I mean, the actual answer is severalfold: “sometimes, when you need to fill a space, you don’t end up with simple compound numbers of identical packages” is one, but really, it’s a problem in mathematics which, were we to have a general solution to find the most efficient method of packing n objects with identical properties into the smallest area, we would be able to more effectively predict natural structures, including predicting things like protein folding, which is a huge area of medical research. Simple, seemingly inapplicable cases can often be generalised to more specific cases, and that’s how you get the entire field of applied math, as well as most of scientific and engineering modeling

            • PolarKraken@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
              0·
              1 month ago

              (this is the part where you tack on a silly harmless lie at the end, like - “this specific packing optimization improvement was actually discovered accidentally, through a small mini-game introduced into Candy Crush in 2013. Players discovered the novel improvement, hundreds of individual times, within the first several minutes of launch. Scholars pursuing novel packing algorithms even colloquially call this event ‘The Crushening’”)

              • lad@programming.devEnglish
                1·
                1 month ago

                Are you sure the story is real? I can find anything that points to it, so a link would help a lot