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The Mathematics of Lego
- gbog 15y agoDid I read it too fast or this article is a necklace of tautological pearls?
- andrewflnr 15y agoThere is some real data, but it does look like a case of research confirming common sense. Anyway, it make sense once you see it, but I probably wouldn't have thought of it myself. I enjoyed it.
- cgs1019 15y agoI think the key point is not that the number of piece type increases with number of overall pieces, but rather the nature of the relationship (sub-linear in log-log space) meaning that while number of distinct component types increases with number of components, it does less so the more components there are. In other words there is a sort of economy of scale. C.f. similar results in biological and municipal networks due to Geoff West et al (sorry for lack of citation; typing this on my phone). I get the sense this work is related to West's.
- someotheridiot 15y agoIf anyone is interested I have access to this kind of data (via Rebrickable.com) so can redo these calculations using more recent sets.
- agumonkey 15y agoI thought it would be closer to that http://www.clear.rice.edu/elec201/Book/legos.html http://www.clear.rice.edu/elec201/Book/legos.html there was a nice website tracing history of bricks dimensions but I can't find it for the moment.
- CountHackulus 15y agoInteresting argument, and from my experience seems to hold true. The only counterexample I can think of is the Taj Mahal: http://www.brickset.com/detail/?Set=10189-1 http://www.brickset.com/detail/?Set=10189-1 This is why I always enjoyed getting larger sets, especially technic sets, as they always had rare pieces that were extremely useful for a specific function. For example, the shifter gate piece in the original supercar set: http://www.peeron.com/inv/parts/6543 http://www.peeron.com/inv/parts/6543
- tlrobinson 15y agoI always thought very specific pieces like that weren't really in the spirit of Lego.
- tikhonj 15y agoI don't know. I think a good selection of different pieces vastly expands your options. Some of the coolest models are the ones that use weird pieces in clever ways--my favorite example was an Audi R8 that used white rope pieces (very specialized) for the front LED lights.
- nnythm 15y agoTaj Mahal doesn't seem like a strong counter-example, in that although it seems to have many non-standard lego pieces, it still has a high pieces per type value (or as the author described it, few types per piece).