The theoretical advanced in pancake flipping, discusses in the August 2020 issue of mini-AIR, were not the end of the story. Further advances can be found in this study: “Successor Rules for Flipping Pancakes and Burnt Pancakes,” Joe Sawada and A. Williams, Theoretical Computer Science, vol. 609, part 1, 4 January 2016, pp 60-75. The […]
Tag: pancakes
Cleaning with spit, and now with pillars and pancakes
Last month human saliva got its due, with the awarding of the 2018 Ig Nobel Prize for chemistry, as an effective agent to clean surfaces. This month, pillars and pancakes are served up as an effective way to pattern surfaces so that those surfaces will be self-cleaning. Pillar/pancake details are in the new study “Pillars […]
Advice: To chew or not to chew
It is not an absolute, inviolable rule that one should always chew one’s food. Whether or not this Time report is accurate, its advice at the end is basic and good: A fishmonger in southern China found a live bomb inside one of his squid. The man — identified only as Mr. Huang by the Guangzhou Daily — said that while […]
The World’s New Center of Pancake Research
With publication of the new study “Pancake Flipping is Hard” by three researchers at the University of Nantes, the city of Nantes becomes the de facto international capital of pancake research. Details of the study are given below. First, here is a Google map showing primary sources of pancakes in the city: The study is: “Pancake Flipping […]