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Draw an iceberg and see how it will float

joshdata.me

41–50 of 63 posts

Re: Draw an iceberg and see how it will float

#41

No idea if others at Twitter suggested this as I can't read the thread (and have no intention to subscribe) but a nice add on would be a score inversely proportional to the travel an iceberg would need to obtain a stable floating position, with ideally the very hard goal to draw it already in a perfect stable way, waterline height included.

It isn’t too hard to get fairly close to that by drawing something that’s extremely stable, for example something very wide but not tall or an equilateral triangle, with one corner facing down.

Then, use your first attempt to correct for the correct height.

⇒ I think a good game would need some other constraint, maybe score more for max height above the surface, or for how long a polar bear can keep their feet dry while it melts (a very wide but not tall stripe will melt faster than something resembling a ball)

Re: Draw an iceberg and see how it will float

#46
post #16

Got a bit frustrated because I couldn't get anything except a flat surface above the water, then read the tweets below and realised that's the entire point: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1362557149147058178.html (Many thanks to Elon for making it impossible to read more than the first tweet on x.com without an account...)

Hexagons work

Re: Draw an iceberg and see how it will float

#47
post #16

Got a bit frustrated because I couldn't get anything except a flat surface above the water, then read the tweets below and realised that's the entire point: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1362557149147058178.html (Many thanks to Elon for making it impossible to read more than the first tweet on x.com without an account...)

I drew an equilateral triangle and it floats flat on top.

Re: Draw an iceberg and see how it will float

#48
The HTML source code is a well-commented, fun read.

- There's a fair bit of math to model drag, mass, and density using the specific gravity of ice and seawater (with tweaks to make it more realistic for 2d).

- Try adding a polygon that overlaps itself (self-intersects).

- You can paste images! The code traces the image and picks the most complex polygon.

Re: Draw an iceberg and see how it will float

#49

Author here. Glad to see this making the rounds again after a few years. Go science! Support your local climate scientist!

Great education simulation! Thanks for working on this. Curious about this: I am hitting a boundary-condition like behavior drawing a straight line at a 45 degree angle similar to the sibling comment. Curious if it is due to physics or due to the simulation.

I am pretty sure it's the simulation.

Re: Draw an iceberg and see how it will float

#50
post #44

How do we know there is only 1 stable position? (A perfect circle would have many, but you could consider that a degenerate configuration.)

There isn't necessarily just one. A rectangle-ish form could have 4.

Yes, rectangle would also be degenerate. Basically any configuration where adding an epsilon weight somewhere generates a non-epsilon shift so to speak.
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