Monday, August 15, 2005

The box

My mother gave me this box, and I have no clue what to do with it, although I like it very much... for some reason.



The dimensions of the box are:
the bottom is 21x29
the top is 25x33
the height is 15 cm.

Finding out the volume was the tricky part. I knew there was some complex mathematical formula for doing it, but as they say, give a lazy guy some work, and he will find an easier way to do it.
So I decided to call a friend doing engineering, but couldn't get through to him. Then I decided I wouldn't have any self-respect if I didn;t accomplish this myself, so instead of calling another friend, I came up with the brilliant idea of filling up the box with water of a known quantity. I only realised the problem after I got hold of a pepsi bottle. The capacity of the entire bottle wasn't a litre and a half, but slightly more. This would bring in sufficient inaccuracies. Then I thought of the bright idea treating the weird shape of the box as two rectangular boxes of different dimensions welded together. So I applied the old lbh formula and arrived at a figure of 9135 sq. cms for the smaller box and 12375 for the bigger box, then averaged them out, arriving at a final figure of 10755 sq. cms.
The net came to my rescue when Sify got guilty and decided to cheat me less, so I found this site where you can calculate the volume of almost any shape, and arrived at the figure of 10714.097205213196 sq. cms. Notice the poing after the fifth digit. This was pretty close to my estimate...

the point being, what the hell do I do with the box, which I can now prudly say has a volume of 10714.097205213196 square centimeters?

3 comments:

Goan Pao said...

shame on you for making me think...after reading your post I was actually thinking for a moment or too for good uses of the box...when I realised I have 5 huge crates lying in my hall..and I havent figured out a use for them as yet..or a reason to keep or throw them....If I cant help myself I guess Im no good at helping others...
Thanks by the way I guess I'll get rid of some of the boxes I have...
P.S. give it to soeone as a present and transfer the thinking burden onto that persons head....

Rahul said...

Much ado

Anorion said...

GP: I suddenly realised I have a cardboard box in my bedroom once you began to talk about crates.

Rahul: what do you mean much to do about a box? Imagin civilisation without the box! The very thought chills me to the bone...