So I figured it might be worth putting some stuff here to preserve it for the<\/p>\n
ages… this section is mostly stuff I put onto mailing lists. Clearly not<\/p>\n
everything I post will go here, just the stuff that is worth keeping or amusing<\/p>\n
and mostly a monologue. <\/p>\n
What follows is the post … edited to remove comments that are not my own.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nFrom: soulhuntre [mailto:soulhuntre@soulhuntre.com]<\/p>\n
Sent: Saturday, February 01, 2003 6:49 PM<\/p>\n
To: ______<\/p>\n
Subject: OT: the stability of (n) legged things …<\/p>\n
Just to go off on a tangent… <\/p>\n
Actually, in many situations tripod structures are MORE stable than their<\/p>\n
four legged counterparts, for a variety of reasons. Of course stability is<\/p>\n
affected by many factors. <\/p>\n
In the case of stools, a three legged stool is often superior in stability<\/p>\n
for a reason having nothing to do with the contact points. Most of the<\/p>\n
furniture I have seen with three legs has the legs angled outward, while most<\/p>\n
of the quad leg furniture has the legs straight down. <\/p>\n
Obviously, the sheer forces for load bearing greatly favor angled legs as<\/p>\n
long as they are braced together and the angle isn’t too extreme. <\/p>\n
Anyway, just because I am weird like this I once learned a nice simple way<\/p>\n
to determine the stability of a simple structure carrying a simple load for<\/p>\n
any (n) number of legs. <\/p>\n
\n
- Draw a figure that has straight lines between each contact point, giving\n
you a profile of the base of the structure. Most tripods will make a<\/p>\n
triangle, quads a square and so on. <\/li>\n
- Mark the place inside that profile where they center of gravity is. <\/li>\n
- Measure the NEAREST distance from that spot to the closest point on one\n
of the lines. <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
The support structure with the LONGEST distance from CG to its nearest<\/p>\n
profile point is most stable. <\/p>\n
Now, the thing that really favors a tripod is simply that even on an uneven<\/p>\n
surface a tripod will almost always have all three contact points solidly<\/p>\n
planted. Any number of legs greater than three will often have an unsupported<\/p>\n
leg on uneven surfaces or will bend, flex or twist under load.<\/p>\n
For what it’s worth \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So I figured it might be worth putting some stuff here to preserve it for the ages… this section is mostly stuff I put onto mailing lists. Clearly not everything I post will go here, just the stuff that is worth keeping or amusing and mostly a monologue. What follows is the post … edited […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":56265,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[278],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50923"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}