On Mon, Jun 18, 2001 at 11:56:59AM +0100, David Cantrell wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 18, 2001 at 08:29:18AM +0200, Philip Newton wrote:
> > Chris Benson wrote:
> > > Mmmm, so if there are 3 water lilies with circular leaves, what
> > > is the largest they can grow on the surface of a sphere without
> >
> > Well, first off, the circles won't be circles "as we know them" since
> > they're not 2D circles but have a 3D component (or they wouldn't be on the
> > surface of the sphere but rather cutting a slice through it).
Leaves aren't that strong -- they'd flop into curve to fit the sphere :-)
> > However, I'd imagine that with three such bulgy circles, the best you can do
> > is space them equally around the equator.
>
> Yes. However you arrange them they're going to be on a plane, and so to
> have them the maximum distance apart you make sure the plane also contains
> the centre of the sphere. It gets interesting for N>3
I thought N=4 was the easy one: points of a tetrahedron!
--
Chris Benson
