discovered hat-box theorem
claire · mass tech
2022-10-09
claire and i first met through a mutual friend, serena. apparently serena had been chopping vegetables and in doing so thought of the following problem statement:
if you have a circle of radius 2022, what is the minimum number of strips of width 1 needed to cover it?
it turns out the answer is the obvious first guess but the proof if super neat. you consider the circle as the surface S² of a 3D sphere and apply archimedes hat box theorem to get the lower bound.