16 ms·
13 Stripes and 51 Stars
A mathematician figures out the best way to jam an extra star onto the American flag. How would you do it?
- protomyth 16y agouhm "The United States Army Institute of Heraldry has plans for flags with up to 56 stars" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Institute_of_Heraldry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Institute_of... http://www.tioh.hqda.pentagon.mil/ http://www.tioh.hqda.pentagon.mil/
- gojomo 16y agoSix more? Puerto Rico, DC, British Columbia, Baja California, Cuba, and...? It's interesting to see all the areas worldwide that have, at one time or another and with varying degrees of seriousness, been proposed as new US states. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/51st_state http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/51st_state
- gaius 16y agoBritain?
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- eru 16y agoMight as well add Sicily, then.
- smallblacksun 16y agoMy guess would be DC, the 4 unincorporated, organized territories ( Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and US Virgin Islands), and American Samoa (the only substantially inhabited unincorporated, unorganized territory).
- protomyth 16y agoMy guess is that they found a sequence that worked until it hit 56, so they stopped there.
- DrSprout 16y agoLuna
- gojomo 16y agoI like it! Let's throw in L1, L2, L3, L4, L5 too. The new flag starfield: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ L4 ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ L3 ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ L1 ☽ L2 ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ L5
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- carnevalem 16y agoSplit California into North and South.
- forinti 16y agoI like the Brazilian solution of positioning the stars on the flag as they appear in the sky. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Brazil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Brazil I was a bit disappointed when the Brazilian soccer squad won their fifth world title and didn't put the stars in a Southern Cross formation on their uniform.
- teilo 16y agoSo, what did we do when we had 29 states?
- teilo 16y agoAnswer Here: http://www.ushistory.org/betsy/flagfact.html http://www.ushistory.org/betsy/flagfact.html Neither one are patterns he put into the algorithm.
- ComputerGuru 16y agoThat site is s.l.o.w. for me. Wikipedia has the same chart (without the extra trivia, though) here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_United_States
- whakojacko 16y agoDifferent, but I really like the proposed circular formation for 51 stars. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8f/US_51-star_alternate_flag.svg/800px-US_51-star_alternate_flag.svg.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8f/US_... Of course if we adopted it, some right-wingers would say it means were going commie, or something like it.
- protomyth 16y agoThe blue area seems to be a little small. Why do you say "Of course if we adopted it, some right-wingers would say it means were going commie, or something like it."? I have seen a lot of original 13-star circular flags in the possession of people that would self-describe as being on the right.
- dkimball 16y agoI think it's because of who proposed it: the New Progressive Party of Puerto Rico, according to Wikipedia in the "51st State" article. I like the arrangement, too, but I can see why its provenance might taint it in some eyes. That's unfortunate; it's a much more pleasant arrangement than the one we currently have. I could also see people objecting to changing the US's hundred-odd-year tradition of having ugly and grating arrangements of stars. :) And the circular star arrangement _is_ something one tends to see flown by sinister US successor states like those in _Fallout_ and _Jericho_...
- Perceval 16y agoThe New Progressive Party is the right-wing party in Puerto Rico. It was founded by Republicans and most of its leadership is affiliated with the Republicans. It's the left-wing parties of Puerto Rico that are the ones that favor free association or independence instead of statehood.
- ComputerGuru 16y agoI love it - esp. the 5-point star that forms when you look at it for several seconds. For those interested: it comes from this article here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_United_States which has a timeline of all past flags, too.
- eli 16y agoSad that Puerto Rico might become a state before DC
- obsaysditto 16y agoWhy does DC need to become a state?
- kscaldef 16y agoSo that they can have the same congressional representation as the rest of the US.
- nfnaaron 16y agoSo that the US citizens that live there are fully represented.
- milkshakes 16y agohttp://www.dcvote.org/ http://www.dcvote.org/
- eli 16y agoWhy should DC residents pay federal income tax?
- Perceval 16y agoArticle 1, Section 8 of the Constitution provides for a federal district (distinct from the states) to serve as the seat of government. The location of the federal district was a result of a compromise between Hamilton, Madison, and Jefferson. The U.S. capital city was New York at the time. Jefferson didn't want the federal government controlled by one of the largest Northern states. So he struck a bargain with Hamilton, agreeing to support Hamilton's plan for the federal government to assume the states' debts in exchange for the creation of a federal district apart from the power of any one of the states of the union (and further south). You can read more about the reasons for removing the capital from state territory here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residence_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residence_Act (Full disclosure: I wouldn't mind Eleanor Holmes Norton getting a vote in the House, but I would be against DC having senators.)
- Perceval 16y agoI wonder why there are no valid patterns for 87 stars?
- Tautology 16y agoSame with 69 stars, must be a mathematical error not a actual arrangement problem.
- zck 16y agoYou could have uneven rows for 69: * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * (Copied from my reddit comment: http://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/cd6v6/a_mathematician_figures_out_the_best_way_to_jam/c0rrd71 http://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/cd6v6/a_mathematician_...)
- kirpekar 16y agoNo solution for 87?