Mathematics comes to the rescue of anyone who wants to make almost any shape “zippable” with a single zipper. This study has details: “Shape Representation by Zippable Ribbons,” Christian Schüller, Roi Poranne, and Olga Sorkine-Hornung, arXiv:1711.02450v1, November 7, 2017. The authors, at ETH Zürich, Switzerland, explain: “We observe that the assembly of complex 3D shapes […]
Tag: shape
Why Are Bird Eggs Bird-Egg-Shaped? [New research from an Ig Nobellian]
Mahadevan, who won an Ig Nobel Physics Prize in 2007 for studying how/why wrinkled sheets become wrinkled, has a new study out about how/why bird eggs become bird-egg shaped. The study, by Mahadevan and several collaborators, is: “Avian Egg Shape: Form, Function, and Evolution,” Mary Caswell Stoddard, Ee Hou Yong, Derya Akkaynak, Catherine Sheard, Joseph […]
Morphometrics maven: morphometricians must and can do better
A grizzled morphometrician casts a cold, gleeful eye at his field, and urges himself and his fellow morphometricians to do better. Morphometrics is the the continuing attempt to carefully measure and compare shapes and sizes. This morphometrician’s happy diatribe is in the form of a long, new paper: “The Inappropriate Symmetries of Multivariate Statistical Analysis […]
Banana shape(s) – the math(s)
Have you ever mused upon the question: ‘Is the cross section of a banana an ellipsoid, and if so, can it be used to gauge its volume and surface area? Yes? Then a report in the International Journal of Agricultural Science, Research and Technology (IJASRT) 2011 Vol. 1 No. 1 pp. 1-5, may be of […]