Sitting at a wobbly table? Fix it with math

Sitting at a wobbly table? Fix it with math
(Image credit: Screenshot/YouTube)

We've all been there: you're at a restaurant, sitting down for a nice dinner, and the table wobbles back and forth, interrupting your dinner or spilling your water glass.

It turns out that mathematicians have considered this problem, and figured out a solution. What you do is slowly rotate the table a quarter turn, and at some point during that turn, the table must reach a stable position:

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Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.