You've understood my question completely. I just lacked the visual imagination to see how easy the question was. Jim On Mon, Apr 18, 2016 at 1:51 PM, Erich Friedman <erichfriedman68@gmail.com> wrote:
in an ideal situation, a paperclip of total length L can be bent into a structure of height L-epsilon for any epsilon>0. this is achieved by bending three small legs supporting it, each with length somewhere close to epsilon/5. or have i misunderstood your question?
erich
How tall a stable structure can you build using an idealized paperclip that you are allowed to bend but not disconnect, subject to the constraint that it must rest stably on a tabletop?
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