this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2024
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Science Memes

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submitted 3 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

i would really appreciate it if a stats/math nerd would put together a short piece on how "statistically it only makes sense if the Egyptians built a pyramid, this is the most logical and likely outcome"

i feel like you could argue that statistically, shapes that are to be built by humans, will inevitably approach the shape of a pyramid.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I'm too lazy and incompetent at statistics to do the math, but survivorship bias is very much relevant here.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

Turns out, if you build something that isn't a bunch of stones in an organized stack, it won't last thousands of years like the organized stone stacks.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago

this is true, regardless, i'm still sure it's somewhat relevant. human societies have built a lot of large structures, but the pyramids are some of the largest ever.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Take a handful of sand. Turn your first perpendicular to the ground and let it fall slowly. What shape does it form? It's one of the most stable shapes you can make.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

A cone?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

A pyramid is just a cone with a square base.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

A cone is just a pyramid whose base has infinite sides

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

No, a cone can have any flat shape as its base, wherefor a pyramid - which only has four sides - is also a cone.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

By definition, a pyramid can have any polygon as a base, not just a square. A cone can ONLY have a circle as a base.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

I say Pyramids ⊂ Cones. You say Cones ⊂ Pyramids. Therefore Cones = Pyramids.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

It's more due to engineering. Materials have limited strength. Stone has fairly good compressive strength, but it'll still crack if you put too much weight on it. If you use your stone to make a tower, it won't get very high before it topples over. If you instead build a pyramid, the weight of the stone on top is dispersed across several stones below it and those stones disperse their weight to multiple stones and so on down to the base, letting you build far taller.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

if you build a literal tower there are two primary issues: how do you get things up to the top, and 2, it will fall over because of gravity and or wind if you aren't careful. (or just the ground being too soft to support it)

the pyramid solves basically all of these problems.