Napkins !
 

[QUOTE=davieddy;101897]To be fair, I think it is only RDS who has introduced the higher maths.
I suppose your solution (if they provided a sufficiency of paper napkins)
would be at least as practical as rotating the table a bit.
I was in a restaurant whe I first had this insight.
David[/QUOTE]

:rolleyes:

Well David paper napkins if they got slightly wet the legs would sink and the rocking would start again. Surely the restaurant could provide damask napkins that would do the trick.

Hey Davy you are keeping me away from the Sri Lanka-India cricket match which is on live right now. Its a crucial match in the series and right now India is sweating to keep the score at a reasonable total which we could catch up with and beat.

RGDS,

Mally :coffee:

[QUOTE=Wacky;101856]I suspect that "The feet of the table are coplanar" is sufficient, but not necessary, to serve as the other assumption.[/QUOTE]

Actually, I will now retract this as being "sufficient". The area between the feet also has to be sufficiently concave to preclude any points other than the feet from touching the floor.

But I suspect that that is an assumption that David failed to consider necessary.

Although he didn't state it, I think that he expects the "four legged table" to be of a conventional configuration which includes a reasonable degree of symmetry and "feet" that extend sufficiently below their supports to provide the necessary concavity.

Isn't it "a bitch" to describe the problem without ANY loopholes for the lawyers and mathematicians? :)

(Note to xilman: REAL WORLD is implied.)

[QUOTE=R.D. Silverman;101869]However, while continuous, the floor will not be *smooth*[/QUOTE]

Bob,

For what factor base?

:)


OTOH, we all know that FLOOR is a step function.


(As in "you step on the floor"?)

Forget this thread- Let's revert to "four on the floor".

Richard

[quote=mfgoode;101903]:rolleyes:

Hey Davy you are keeping me away from the Sri Lanka-India cricket match which is on live right now. Its a crucial match in the series and right now India is sweating to keep the score at a reasonable total which we could catch up with and beat.

RGDS,

Mally :coffee:[/quote]

Oh dear. Your guys took one hell of a beating.

Time to state my argument.
Rotating the table through 90 degrees replaces one of the
diagonal pairs of feet with the other, so the rocking is on the
other pair of feet.
Somewhere in between, the rocking changes from one pair
of feet to the other. At this point, all four feet are grounded.

I have been applying this for 35 years with 100% success!
(With the exception of Wacky's concavity condition
or coplanarity failing).

David