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Quilotoa@lemmy.ca to science@lemmy.worldEnglish · 1 month 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 · 1 month ago
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  • hackernews@lemmy.bestiver.se
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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    1 month ago

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

    • teft@piefed.social
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      1 month ago

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

      • somerandomperson@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 month ago

        Do not forget the tessaract

      • MysteriousSophon21@lemmy.world
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        1 month 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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        1 month 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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      1 month ago

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

      • jdnewmil@lemmy.ca
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        1 month ago

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

    • Cenzorrll@lemmy.world
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      1 month 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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    1 month 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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      1 month ago

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

      • frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.ml
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        1 month ago

        • NerdInSuspenders@leminal.space
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          1 month ago

    • acosmichippo@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      the lowest possible number of cuts for what?

      • frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.ml
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        1 month ago

        Dicing an onion

        • Agosagror@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 month ago

          What counts as diced though?

          • frongt@lemmy.zip
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            1 month ago

            Being cut into approximately die-like pieces.

            • pelya@lemmy.world
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              1 month ago

              Is half-sphere close enough to die shape?

    • PlantJam@lemmy.world
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      1 month 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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    1 month 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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      1 month ago

      • ksigley@lemmy.world
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        30 days ago

        “You’re gonna love my nuts.”

  • Blackout@fedia.io
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    1 month 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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      1 month 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.

  • jordanlund@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Or the way chefs do it:

    https://youtu.be/VgffXyOORqQ

    https://youtu.be/fff1xobJ4BQ

    • IO 😇@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 month ago

      my knife isnt sharp enough for this

    • oozynozh@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month 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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        1 month 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.

    • dreadbeef@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 month 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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        1 month 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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          1 month ago

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

          Very easy, imo!

  • StinkyFingerItchyBum@lemmy.ca
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    1 month ago

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

  • altphoto@lemmy.today
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    1 month 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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    1 month 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.

  • mossberg590@lemmy.world
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    1 month 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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      I’m not fully understanding the last bit, why alternating depths?

      • TheTetrapod@lemmy.world
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        1 month 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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      1 month ago

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

  • BoofStroke@sh.itjust.works
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    1 month ago

    I just stick it in the whirry blade thing.

  • Smeagol666@crazypeople.online
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    1 month 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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      1 month 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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    1 month 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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