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I never knew this was a real thing math people studied! I wonder if Douglas Adams knew about it when he wrote about the sofa stuck in the staircase in Dirk Gent

I never knew this was a real thing math people studied! I wonder if Douglas Adams knew about it when he wrote about the sofa stuck in the staircase in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, or if it's a coincidence.

adsteel_ 2y ago
There was even a computer program in that book that was constantly rotating the sofa, trying to find a way for it to come out. If Adams didn't know about this, he certainly had a sixth sense.
- petersumskas 2y ago
  I love the punchline: the computer eventually worked out that the sofa could never have gotten into that spot in the first place. Adams always brought me joy!
  - WesolyKubeczek 2y ago
    The origin story of the sofa is exactly this: furniture items in the St. John's College got trapped upstairs, and if you assume all other things being equal, they couldn't get there in the first place. The reason was that the furniture was brought upstairs for the staircase remodeling, and the new staircase made it impossible to move it back.
normie3000 2y ago
Perhaps life imitating art?
taurknaut 2y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_sofa_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_sofa_problem
petersumskas 2y ago
I skimmed the article hoping for a reference to Adams or Dirk Gently.
dcminter 2y ago
I believe Douglas based it on something that happened to him - though take with a pinch of salt as I can't recall where I read this. I can believe it though as I had the same thing happen to me - I believe in my case the building had settled (it was always very wonky) and the sofa had sagged taking the result beyond the very narrow threshold that had let me get it in in the first place. A friend helped me saw it in half in the end after I dissuaded him from chucking it out the window; I was on the 8th floor and there were cars parked below so it would have been risky at best. I'd always assumed the Dirk Gently story had inspired the maths problem, but I see from the Wikipedia article that it first arose in 1966 - so TIL.

adsteel_ 2y ago

There was even a computer program in that book that was constantly rotating the sofa, trying to find a way for it to come out. If Adams didn't know about this, he certainly had a sixth sense.

petersumskas 2y ago
I love the punchline: the computer eventually worked out that the sofa could never have gotten into that spot in the first place. Adams always brought me joy!
- WesolyKubeczek 2y ago
  The origin story of the sofa is exactly this: furniture items in the St. John's College got trapped upstairs, and if you assume all other things being equal, they couldn't get there in the first place. The reason was that the furniture was brought upstairs for the staircase remodeling, and the new staircase made it impossible to move it back.

normie3000 2y ago

Perhaps life imitating art?

taurknaut 2y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_sofa_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_sofa_problem

petersumskas 2y ago

I skimmed the article hoping for a reference to Adams or Dirk Gently.

dcminter 2y ago

I believe Douglas based it on something that happened to him - though take with a pinch of salt as I can't recall where I read this. I can believe it though as I had the same thing happen to me - I believe in my case the building had settled (it was always very wonky) and the sofa had sagged taking the result beyond the very narrow threshold that had let me get it in in the first place. A friend helped me saw it in half in the end after I dissuaded him from chucking it out the window; I was on the 8th floor and there were cars parked below so it would have been risky at best. I'd always assumed the Dirk Gently story had inspired the maths problem, but I see from the Wikipedia article that it first arose in 1966 - so TIL.