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Wonderful to read such an in-depth analysis of a true classic. This part confused me: Notice how the medium asteroid is twice the size of the small one, and t
by unwind 6y ago
Wonderful to read such an in-depth analysis of a true classic.
This part confused me:
Notice how the medium asteroid is twice the size of the small one, and the large is twice the size of the medium. If you think about it, this doesn't actually make much physical sense -- you can break a two-dimensional object into four pieces half its size, not two.
I'm looking at 2-dimensional objects on the table here, such as papers, and I just don't see how that is true. For instance split an A4 paper in half: you get two A5 papers, not four. By definition the size of an A5 is exactly half of an A4's size.
What am I missing?
- sritchie 6y agoI’m guessing this means half its size along one dimension - if I have a square of side length 2, I can break it into 4 unit squares (or 2 rectangles as you said).
- arjonagelhout 6y agoI think it’s referring to the fact that the big asteroid could fit four medium asteroids in terms of area, while only two medium asteroids come out when it gets destroyed. This is the same for medium to small asteroids. In the comparison image from one large to four small asteroid you can see the reduction in total area of the asteroids.
- skocznymroczny 6y agoHe means the game is unrealistic, in the game you get 4 A5 asteroid pages from a 1 A4 page asteroid.
- rbanffy 6y agoOTOH, I am not a small ship made of glowing lines either, so it's all fine.
- retroanalyst 6y agoAll of the asteroids are self-similar and I’m using size to mean length here, though admittedly the term can be used to mean area sometimes.
- finnh 6y agoWhen the author says "size" they mean "length", not "area". I too thought it was odd for an article about 2D shapes to use an ambiguous word like this.