[CrackMonkey] How to multiply with spaghetti

[Joey Hess]

Seth David Schoen wrote:
> Acting on a suggestion from my friend Beth, I just marked a log scale
> onto each of a pair of pieces of spaghetti, and then managed to use
> them to verify that 2*2=4, 2*3=6, 2*4=8, 2*5=10, 3*2=6, 3*3=9, 4*2=8,
> 5*2=10, and many other exciting multiplication facts.

Hm, reminds me of the spaghetti sort, the only O(n) sort I know of.

Take n peices of spaghetti. Cut them into lengths to represent your data.
Hold spaghetti loosly in your hand[1], and slam them vertically down on the
table so each peice is flush with it. Then pull each sorted value off, starting
with the tallest.

-- 
see shy jo

[1] Or other, larger spaghetti-slamming apparatus, for larger values of n.