Does a high quality (e.g. fabric as opposed to paper) tablecloth affect customers’ enjoyment of a meal in a restaurant? Surprisingly perhaps, up until 2019, this question had not been scientifically examined. But now a team from the Department of Food Science, at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark and the Center for Food and Hospitality […]
Tag: table
Slowing down ping pong for TV (study)
“The medial [sic] appeal of table tennis seems to go down in terms of TV hours, at least outside Asia. One of the reasons is the fact that the speed of the game is nowadays so high that it is very hard for spectators to follow the balls.” So, in terms of slowing down the […]
Boer’s Lively Dining Table and Toilet Brush
“Sharing a mealtime, but not truly eating together can cause social friction and discomfort. For instance, being closely observed whilst eating can feel awkward and disrespectful. The person who is last to finish the food may suffer the discomfort of being watched by their no longer actually eating dining companions.” What, if anything, might be […]
Why mathematicians (some of them) cackle at wobbly tables
Matthias Kreck explains, in this video made by Brady Haran for NumberPhile, a mathematical twist that fixes a wobbly table:
(Video of) A measure of improbability at NIST
Here’s video of the colloquium talk I did a few days ago at NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, in Gaithersburg Maryland. The official description: “A Measure of Improbable Research — haphazardly selected samples of Ig Nobel Prize-winning and other research that makes people LAUGH then THINK”. The talk was broadcast live to NIST facilities in […]
How he reads a table of numbers
Peter Freed, feeling provoked, muses about how he reads a science paper (and in this passage, how he reads a table in a science paper): Now listen: most non-scientists see a table like this and freak out. They take around 3 seconds to decide they can’t understand it, get scared of feeling stupid in the face […]