The global plutocracy

[Little John]

What better, if you are a large landowner, than to stick a policeman on your land every few square acres who would, free of charge, defend your land for you, and even pay you in produce from it for the privilege. This, in turn meant a landowner also benefited from having the land kept up in good order since it was in the interests of both the owner and the tenant.

Square acre? what about the triangular ones or the circular ones? As an acre already has been squared if you square it again does it become a cube?

Circular acres don't tesselate and triangular acres are Bad Feng Shui. But the latter do seem rather common 'round here, if you look at the shapes of typical road networks and the spaces in between.

That might have something to do with entropy. That is to say, in two dimensional space, and in the absence of the limitations imposed by straight lines, the most spatially efficient shape a 2 dimensional object may collapse to is a circle. In 3 dimensional space it would be a bubble. However, in 2 dimensional space, if there are straight line limitations (or limitations tending towards straight lines), then the most efficient shape that a 2 dimensional object may collapse to is a triangle. On the basis of the above speculation, I would further speculate that most road networks will contain a relatively large number of triangles.

[vtsnowedin]

Circular acres don't tesselate and triangular acres are Bad Feng Shui. But the latter do seem rather common 'round here, if you look at the shapes of typical road networks and the spaces in between.

That might have something to do with entropy. That is to say, in two dimensional space, and in the absence of the limitations imposed by straight lines, the most spatially efficient shape a 2 dimensional object may collapse to is a circle. In 3 dimensional space it would be a bubble. However, in 2 dimensional space, if there are straight line limitations (or limitations tending towards straight lines), then the most efficient shape that a 2 dimensional object may collapse to is a triangle. On the basis of the above speculation, I would further speculate that most road networks will contain a relatively large number of triangles.

Wow Steve! That is a pretty good comeback to my mild dig, if a bit wordy.It reminds me of discussions put forward by college professors at our more liberal institutions. Perhaps you have missed a calling.