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Quilotoa@lemmy.ca to science@lemmy.worldEnglish · 21 days ago

Dicing an Onion, the Mathematically Optimal Way

pudding.cool

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Dicing an Onion, the Mathematically Optimal Way

pudding.cool

Quilotoa@lemmy.ca to science@lemmy.worldEnglish · 21 days ago
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There is more than one way to dice an onion…

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.bestiver.se/post/557841

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  • jdnewmil@lemmy.ca
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    20 days ago

    Cool analysis if you happen to have cylindrical onions and infinitely long knives laying around.

    • teft@piefed.social
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      20 days ago

      I store them in the same non-euclidean drawer as my spherical cows.

      • somerandomperson@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        20 days ago

        Do not forget the tessaract

      • MysteriousSophon21@lemmy.world
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        20 days ago

        I keep mine next to my frictionless planes and point masses, but somtimes they roll away into the fourth dimension.

      • dbtng@eviltoast.org
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        19 days ago

        Oh. I have a soft spot for spherical cows.
        Years ago I authored most of the Uncyclopedia page on the topic. Hehe. I see my edits there from 2010.

    • lunarul@lemmy.world
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      20 days ago

      Extending the study to an onion’s actual shape, the conclusion would be conical cuts…

      • jdnewmil@lemmy.ca
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        20 days ago

        Banach-Tarski may be relevant here… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banach–Tarski_paradox

    • Cenzorrll@lemmy.world
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      20 days ago

      They also completely missed the point of the two additional cuts method and made the lowest cut about where the highest cut should be.

  • frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.ml
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    21 days ago

    This is about making all the chunks the same size.

    It’d be more useful to tell me the lowest possible number of cuts.

    • dunz@feddit.nu
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      20 days ago

      That’d be one. But you’re left with two halves of an onion 😃

      • frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.ml
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        20 days ago

        • NerdInSuspenders@leminal.space
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          18 days ago

    • acosmichippo@lemmy.world
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      20 days ago

      the lowest possible number of cuts for what?

      • frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.ml
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        20 days ago

        Dicing an onion

        • Agosagror@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          20 days ago

          What counts as diced though?

          • frongt@lemmy.zip
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            20 days ago

            Being cut into approximately die-like pieces.

            • pelya@lemmy.world
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              20 days ago

              Is half-sphere close enough to die shape?

    • PlantJam@lemmy.world
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      20 days ago

      Cut off the bottom. Cut in half. Peel. Cut diagonal slices without separating from the root end. Both halves should still be intact, and the only exposed cut is where you cut off the end. Now every slice from the end will make a set of chopped pieces.

  • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 🇮 @pawb.social
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    20 days ago

    Me:

    Only way this’ll make ya cry is if you stuck your hand inside while chopping.

    • masterofn001@lemmy.ca
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      20 days ago

      • ksigley@lemmy.world
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        18 days ago

        “You’re gonna love my nuts.”

  • Blackout@fedia.io
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    20 days ago

    I throw it up in the air and hit it with the cleaver twice, perfectly diced everytime

    • Hobo@lemmy.world
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      20 days ago

      Tried this method. Any recommendations for repairing a broken window and getting a cleaver out of my neighbor’s dead body? It’s, like, really stuck in there.

  • StinkyFingerItchyBum@lemmy.ca
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    20 days ago

    And here I am using a food processor to chop my onions into little uniform bits.

  • jordanlund@lemmy.world
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    20 days ago

    Or the way chefs do it:

    https://youtu.be/VgffXyOORqQ

    https://youtu.be/fff1xobJ4BQ

    • oozynozh@sh.itjust.works
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      20 days ago

      why do all that when you could just do this? it’s much faster.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4iO0qM-f5Y

      • bstix@feddit.dk
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        20 days ago

        Besides the fast chopping, that guy also knows that his time is worth more than the piece of onion that he discards at the end.

    • IO 😇@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      20 days ago

      my knife isnt sharp enough for this

    • dreadbeef@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      19 days ago

      if you cut an onion horizontally, you’re just fighting it’s already natural layers. no good onion cutting technique cuts horizontally imo

      • jordanlund@lemmy.world
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        18 days ago

        You can get around that by quartering the onion, making the vertical cuts, turning it so the vertical cuts are horizontal, then making more vertical cuts. :)

        • dreadbeef@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          18 days ago

          Here’s my fav way: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=CwRttSfnfcc

          Very easy, imo!

  • altphoto@lemmy.today
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    20 days ago

    Of all things you could learn in school after all the bullying and the huge tuition cost…

    Ten years later…

    A new mathematics field dedicated to slicing has resulted in 3D printable replacement heart and other vital organs.

  • pelya@lemmy.world
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    20 days ago

    For actual cooking, chop off the root part (it holds all the layers together), then perform two cuts to chop the onion in four equal pieces. Then press each quarter with your finger and it will separate into individual layers thin enough to fry in a pan.

    You can even do it with two half-onions, but you’ll squish some layers when separating them, or you’ll spend too much time carefully separating them with a knife or a spoon.

  • BoofStroke@sh.itjust.works
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    20 days ago

    I just stick it in the whirry blade thing.

  • mossberg590@lemmy.world
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    20 days ago

    Bad testing regime. Missed whole categories, food processor, mandolin, alternating depth, etc. Include time taken and clean up needed. I cut radial, alternating 50% depth and 100% depth cuts.

    • AlecSadler@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      20 days ago

      I’m not fully understanding the last bit, why alternating depths?

      • TheTetrapod@lemmy.world
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        20 days ago

        I think I get their point. The layers closest to the center of the onion have the smallest radius, so by only going all the way with every other cut, the smaller pieces toward the center of the onion get cut half as many times.

    • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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      20 days ago

      Using my mandolin where you slightly rotate the onion after each cut works wonderfully.

  • Smeagol666@crazypeople.online
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    20 days ago

    I have always said that the horizontal cuts were useless, I’m glad the math backs me up.

    • ᓚᘏᗢ@piefed.social
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      20 days ago

      The horizontal cuts are supposed to go much lower. Look at the diagram again and imagine the cuts below the lowest cut they did.

  • dbtng@eviltoast.org
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    19 days ago

    I definitely do not care about dicing an onion uniformly, but I read and enjoyed the entire analysis.

    All of the diagrams are of a cross-section of the middle of an onion. You know, it being round and all, it naively makes a lot of sense to assume that’s going to be ok as a model for the entire onion.

    But … I find myself curious … if the solution is to cut to an angle below the onion, and the article did point out that a few pieces along the bottom would be mismatched … It seems that we are overlooking the top and bottom of the onion where sections are going to get some really weird looking cuts.

    They say, “This is an onion. (Well, a simplified cross-section of one.)”
    … No. No that is not an onion. Its not that they’ve chosen an easy problem, but the approximation used here is not an onion.

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