this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] Serinus@lemmy.world 176 points 6 days ago (2 children)

With straight diagonal lines.

[–] bleistift2@sopuli.xyz 71 points 6 days ago (1 children)
[–] pyre@lemmy.world 48 points 5 days ago

hey it's no longer June, homophobia is back on the menu

[–] davidgro@lemmy.world 22 points 6 days ago (4 children)

Why are there gaps on either side of the upper-right square? Seems like shoving those closed (like the OP image) would allow a little more twist on the center squares.

[–] superb@lemmy.blahaj.zone 23 points 6 days ago

I think this diagram is less accurate. The original picture doesn’t have that gap

[–] 1rre@discuss.tchncs.de 12 points 5 days ago (1 children)

there's a gap on both, just in different places and you can get from one to the other just by sliding. The constraints are elsewhere so wouldn't allow you to twist.

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[–] Serinus@lemmy.world 12 points 6 days ago

You have a point. That's obnoxious. I just wanted straight lines. I'll see if I can find another.

[–] 9point6@lemmy.world 143 points 6 days ago

Oh so you're telling me that my storage unit is actually incredibly well optimised for space efficiency?

Nice!

[–] janus2@lemmy.zip 63 points 6 days ago (1 children)

if I ever have to pack boxes like this I'm going to throw up

[–] Midnitte@beehaw.org 15 points 6 days ago

I've definitely packed a box like this, but I've never packed boxes like this 😳

[–] Psaldorn@lemmy.world 50 points 6 days ago

You may not like it but this is what peak performance looks like.

[–] bitjunkie@lemmy.world 16 points 5 days ago (5 children)

It's important to note that while this seems counterintuitive, it's only the most efficient because the small squares' side length is not a perfect divisor of the large square's.

[–] jeff@programming.dev 11 points 5 days ago (2 children)

What? No. The divisibility of the side lengths have nothing to do with this.

The problem is what's the smallest square that can contain 17 identical squares. If there were 16 squares it would be simply 4x4.

[–] Natanael 13 points 5 days ago

He's saying the same thing. Because it's not an integer power of 2 you can't have a integer square solution. Thus the densest packing puts some boxes diagonally.

[–] bitjunkie@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

And the next perfect divisor one that would hold all the ones in the OP pic would be 5x5. 25 > 17, last I checked.

[–] sga@lemmings.world 4 points 5 days ago

this is regardless of that. The meme explains it a bit wierdly, but we start with 17 squares, and try to find most efficient packing, and outer square's size is determined by this packing.

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[–] Squalia@sh.itjust.works 39 points 5 days ago

Here's a much more elegant solution for 17

If there was a god, I'd imagine them designing the universe and giggling like an idiot when they made math.

[–] fargeol@lemmy.world 40 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Bees seeing this: "OK, screw it, we're making hexagons!"

[–] raltoid@lemmy.world 30 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Fun fact: Bees actually make round holes, the hexagon shape forms as the wax dries.

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[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 14 points 6 days ago (1 children)
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[–] brown567@sh.itjust.works 6 points 5 days ago

4-dimensional bees make rhombic dodecahedrons

[–] Admetus@sopuli.xyz 1 points 3 days ago

Initially I thought 4x4 square but this is a square of 4.675 sides. Reasonable. Clever maths though.

[–] wise_pancake@lemmy.ca 17 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Is this a hard limit we’ve proven or can we still keep trying?

[–] chuckleslord@lemmy.world 32 points 6 days ago (2 children)

We actually haven't found a universal packing algorithm, so it's on a case-by-case basis. This is the best we've found so far for this case (17 squares in a square).

[–] glimse@lemmy.world 10 points 6 days ago

Figuring out 1-4 must have been sooo tough

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[–] rockerface@lemmy.cafe 28 points 6 days ago

It's the best we've found so far

[–] schnokobaer@feddit.org 14 points 6 days ago (1 children)

That tiny gap on the right is killing me

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[–] JoeTheSane@lemmy.world 11 points 5 days ago

I hate this so much

[–] peteypete420@sh.itjust.works 9 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Is this confirmed? Like yea the picture looks legit, but anybody do this with physical blocks or at least something other than ms paint?

[–] deaf_fish@midwest.social 9 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

It is confirmed. I don't understand it very well, but I think this video is pretty decent at explaining it.

https://youtu.be/RQH5HBkVtgM

The proof is done with raw numbers and geometry so doing it with physical objects would be worse, even the MS paint is a bad way to present it but it's easier on the eyes than just numbers.

Mathematicians would be very excited if you could find a better way to pack them such that they can be bigger.

So it's not like there is no way to improve it. It's just that we haven't found it yet.

[–] crmsnbleyd@sopuli.xyz 6 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Proof via "just look at it"

[–] CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world 9 points 5 days ago

Visual proofs can be deceptive, e.g. the infinite chocolate bar.

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the line of man is straight ; the line of god is crooked

stop quoting Nietzsche you fucking fools

[–] SpongyAneurysm@feddit.org 5 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Now, canwe have fractals built from this?

[–] Lemmisaur@lemmy.zip 17 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Say hello to the creation! .-D

(Don't ask about the glowing thing, just don't let it touch your eyes.)

[–] SpongyAneurysm@feddit.org 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Good job. It'skinda what I expected, except for the glow. But I won't ask about that.

[–] BowtiesAreCool@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago

The glow is actually just a natural biproduct of the sheer power of the sq1ua7re

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[–] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Why doesn’t he just make the square bigger? That’d be more efficient.

[–] EddoWagt@feddit.nl 2 points 4 days ago (2 children)

That's not more efficient because the big square is bigger

[–] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 1 points 3 days ago

See, that’s the problem with people nowadays?They want to minimalise everything.

They should just slow down and breathe.

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 1 points 4 days ago

I think people have a hard time wrapping their heads around it because it's very rare to have this sort of problem in the real world. Typically you have a specific size container and need to arrange things in it. You usually don't get to pick an arbitrary size container or area for storage. Even if you for something like shipping, you'd probably want to break this into a 4x4 and a separate single box to better fit with other things being shipped as well. Or if it is storage you'd want to be able to see the sides or tops. Plus you have 3 dimensions to work with on the real world.

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