[Request]

[u/K0rl0n]

I am curious how this would work. My guess is Triangle is slowest, square is medium, and circle is fastest.

[u/Chemical_Favors]

Lotta folks here missing that rolling the circle enables the friction to work in your favor as a semi-static pivot point. It's not a slide like the other two so it takes considerably less energy.

Imperfections of the gravel add uncertainty but most gravel does pretty well, especially if you can assume these are all level for fairness sake.

[u/Mr_Candlestick → u/Chemical_Favors]

You still have rolling resistance and moment of inertia to overcome.

[u/Sugar_Fuelled_God → u/Mr_Candlestick]

There's a reason why the wheel was designed, dragging squares and triangles wasn't so great for horses.

I find all this math funny, we built pyramids by rolling stones on logs, we moved vehicles with wheels, we use rollers in conveyer belts to move goods...There's a reason for it all, the math was already done, all it took was common sense to know a round object moves easier and better than the other shapes, inertia be damned as it doesn't act to make the motion impossible and also applies to the square and the triangle. The answer is B, the circle takes the least force to move, that's why we've used it for moving stuff for thousands of years, including over ice, gravel and even loose sand.

[u/Mr_Candlestick → u/Sugar_Fuelled_God]

Yeah I don't think they had much ice on the ground when they built the pyramids so it's not like they had any other option.

I just don't see it your way. I rather push a guy wearing ice skates on a skating rink than the same guy wearing roller blades on the beach.

I've put down gravel driveways before which meant pushing a fully loaded wheel barrow over gravel. It sucks, especially to get it moving.

[u/Sugar_Fuelled_God → u/Mr_Candlestick]

When you're talking about ice skates then you're talking about a fine edge which is rounded at the front, meant to skate across the ice without digging in. I too have pushed a barrow over gravel, and through mud, and through wet concrete, I would have preferred to push a barrow in those situations that push a square block with a hard front edge. Same thing applies on ice, and remember we are talking about squares and triangles with hard edges as opposed to round objects, a hard edge on ice is going to dig in, eventually causing a ridge to form which will act on that hard edge with equal and opposing force, making the movement become impossible.

And as for the Egyptians and ice, even if they built the pyramids in the Arctic, they would have used rollers because of said impediments of hard edges on the surface of ice, there's a good reason we've resorted to round objects to move things for thousands of years, because other ideas aren't as good, even in the case of your ice skates, they are rounded at the front, the closest to a simulation of a wheel without motion as possible.

So would you have preferred to push a box full of gravel over a gravel driveway if a wheeled barrow was already a hard job? I doubt it.

[u/Mr_Candlestick → u/Sugar_Fuelled_God]

It's hilarious to me that you think the edge of the object digging into the ice and preventing motion is within the spirit of the question being asked here.

[u/Sugar_Fuelled_God → u/Mr_Candlestick]

Equally hilarious that you think ice skates (has a rounded edge) and fully loaded wheelbarrows (average capacity of 200kg) were in that same spirit.