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Take a large cup sans handle. Twist-lock a similar but smaller cup to its side. Connect an even smaller cup to the smaller cup. Continue ad infinitum. The cups slanted sides cause the cup chain to build a fractal spiral that functions as a handle for the largest cup being used.
Choose a foremost
cup for a grande latte or piccolo espresso, or use them as measuring cups, curled together in the drawer. Buy one a day and spend the rest of your life collecting the whole series.
sketch
http://www.geocitie...ie/fractalcup.html? [FarmerJohn, Apr 18 2005]
[link]
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"On the fiftieth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, a cup 12 microns across."
</sings> |
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Would this take an infinite amount of material, or not? I don't remember... |
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You can collect the whole Mandelbrot set. |
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Eventually, you'd get a cup made of about 7 atoms. (a 3x3 atom cube with the center and on top-middle atoms removed) |
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[desertfox] surely that's a 25 atom cup? |
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Nah, you can get down to four. Arranged in a pyramid, there'd be a tiny... oh, wait - does it count if the space is too small to hold an atom? |
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agreed [moomintroll], [desertfox] and I were thinking of a cubic system. |
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The space would have to be small enough for a drink, after all, what's the point of a cup if it's not a recepticle for fluids. So, it has to be large enough for a molecule (or atom) of a potable fluid. I reckon that'll be a single water molecule. |
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I don't know if your 4 atom arrangement would work - which element are you suggesting? |
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Perhaps a monomolecular fullerene mug composed of an oxy-terminated half-buckyball? |
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This is the best idea ever. |
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Hah, good point [jon] - if we make the pyramid of very big molecules, then... erm... can't be bothered to do the geometry, frankly. How big is a gold atom? |
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