[CrackMonkey] How to multiply with spaghetti

[Seth David Schoen]

Joey Hess writes:

> 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.

I think that sort is mentioned in the analog computation section of _The
Tinkertoy Computer_.

Analog computation is hell of cool.

-- 
Seth David Schoen <schoen at loyalty.org>  | And do not say, I will study when I
Temp.  http://www.loyalty.org/~schoen/  | have leisure; for perhaps you will
down:  http://www.loyalty.org/   (CAF)  | not have leisure.  -- Pirke Avot 2:5