Subject:
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Re: I need a topology expert...
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.fun
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Date:
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Tue, 24 Jul 2001 22:40:53 GMT
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Viewed:
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144 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.fun, Dave Schuler writes:
> Someone explain to me how the my refrigerator cord has managed to tie itself
> into a respectable square knot without having been separated from either the
> wall or the fridge.
Topologically speaking, if you want to consider the refrigerator, its cord and
the wall (and, hence, by extension the house and the earth to which it is
attached) to be a single entity, then it could happen if somehow during the
night the refrigerator stretched itself into a form capable of threading itself
through the cord part of itself, just as a knot could be made with an unplugged
cord by threading the end (which is already in a convenient shape for
knotting). Harder to swallow would be the possibility that the other end did
the stretching.
More likely, the gnomes did it.
Maggie C. (okay, okay, so my only exposure to topology was a brief introduction
toward the end of a year-long undergraduate course in real analysis-- but
that's enough to fool 95% of the population!)
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: I need a topology expert...
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| (...) Well, in either case it's a relief. I was afraid someone had been breaking into my house to do it, and in that case I'd have to kill him and stick a bread knife in his hand. Thanks for saving a life! Dave! (23 years ago, 25-Jul-01, to lugnet.off-topic.fun)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | I need a topology expert...
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| Someone explain to me how the my refrigerator cord has managed to tie itself into a respectable square knot without having been separated from either the wall or the fridge. Dave! (23 years ago, 24-Jul-01, to lugnet.off-topic.fun)
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