Mom, Zoë, and I had fun riding the blue-wheeled trike along the catenary curves:
It really is a smooth ride and one does not feel the bumpiness of a washboarded dirt road as the length of the squares' sides roll perfectly into the endpoints of the catenaries. It is intriguing that quarter circles were used to move large square blocks of marble around the pyramids.
So all those jokes about square wheels really aren't quite as funny any more. . .
Jan's questions about washboarding on dirt roads dovetails into our square wheel discussion:
This article discusses why wash board ripples or corrigations form whenever a vehicle travels more than 5 miles (8 km) per hour over a gravelly or sandy surface. My best guess as to why they extend over the whole road is that drivers try to avoid existing ripples, thereby inevitably creating more right next to them.
The most mysterious part of the researchers' results is that the ripples appear even when the springy suspension of the car and the rolling shape of the wheel are eliminated.
Letting some air out of tires when going over washboarded roads approaches traveling over catenary-like bumps with a square-ish tire.
What other questions spring from square wheels, catenaries (which makes me think of a cat who ate the canary) and washboarded roads?
Sponge Steph, Square Pants
