Subject:
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Re: Mathematical proof that you can't build anything with LEGO bricks
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Tue, 28 Feb 2012 04:07:29 GMT
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Viewed:
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19179 times
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In lugnet.general, David Eaton wrote:
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In lugnet.general, Don Rogerson wrote:
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Dr. Mark Changizi claims that LEGO sets have reached a point where most of
the pieces no longer fit other pieces. Sound crazy? Wait - there’s math...
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I think he’s probably correct, from a certain perspective.
Essentially, LEGO has become a more diverse toy. LEGO from the 60’s and early
70’s was a VERY free-form toy. There weren’t many connection types, so all
the pieces essentially worked with each other. And the same is essentially
true of LEGO today ... *IF* you look at a Creator set, or a generic building
bucket. But LEGO today hits a lot of different target audiences, not all of
whom actually WANT that type of toy.
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Good point, but there have always been LEGO sets sold as specific models with
instructions for building them. And sets were not marketed directly to children
in the 60s and 70s, they were marketed to their parents, and parents (at least
my parents) tended to choose the more economical universal sets that many of
us grew up with, and which we identify with that era.
...
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Look at it this way-- who the hell knows what sort of ungodly number of
combinations are possible with 100 random 2x4 bricks. It’s a heck of a lot.
But most of those are impractical, unaesthetic, boring creations, which all
look pretty damn similar. 100 random DIFFERENT pieces with specialty bricks
mixed in may create fewer *numeric* combinations, but the aesthetic and
practical value of those pieces is WAY more diverse.
DaveE
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Yes, and I think you’ve hit on a key question that Dr. Changizi does not
address, which is to ask the purpose of a LEGO model set. I think its function
is to approximate a certain 3-dimensional shape with a certain degree of
accuracy or realism. There is no doubt that this function is performed better in
modern LEGO sets than in older ones.
It is also obvious that this greater realism is a result of the introduction of
more specialized pieces. But it does not follow that a specialized piece has
only one use. This is the flawed jump in his reasoning.
He also ignores another force that may be at work here, which is consumer demand
for a wide variety of pieces in a particular set. I’m sure TLC has done a lot of
research on this and one thing Dr. Changizi’s method does show (even after you
correct his methodological errors) is that there’s a fairly constant ratio
between the size of sets and the number of piece types in them. I am not the
only person here, I’m sure, who has bought a whole set to get my hands on a
certain piece.
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