Talk:Gömböc

message: What is the origin of the name? Rigadoun  (talk) 18:53, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm trying to find a source for this. "Gombóc" is the Hungarian word for "dumpling", (although the shape seems to be spelt "Gömböc" in Hungarian). --Canley 00:05, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: What is the origin of the name?

message: Where can I buy one? Capuchin 13:41, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I too require one. --NEMT 23:46, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

text: From what I hear, the only way to get one is to download the description (from where?) to your 3D printer.  —Tamfang 07:44, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Currently you can get a numbered model for €1000 and up (depending on the number you choose), or a 3D picture of one embedded in a cube.  It ought to be easy to mold, so there ought to be cheaper ones soon.  —Tamfang (talk) 19:10, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  On the gömböc home page you can now order cheaper versions. But the 'easy to mold'-statement is not entirely right. According to the website, precision of 0.1mm is required to get the perfect shape, even 0.2mm off in the mold and it wouldn't work. - Peipei (talk) 21:49, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  www.gomboc-shop.com This should also be added to the links part of the page, however if you check the cited sources it will link you to the page. I think for clarity of page and for additional information the link should be added.69.198.39.26 (talk) 22:49, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hmm 

message: What does the word "artificial" mean in the context of the introduction?  Is it a specific classification of shapes, or merely meant to indicate that it is a shape specifically designed for a purpose?  --Starwed 08:53, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe the latter. Capuchin 10:00, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  artificial 

message: This puzzling sentence needs to be made into intelligible English. I have given it a try in the article, "Except for similar figures, it is unique" but am not sure this was meant (as far as I understand, there are probably other, non-similar mono-monostatic bodies). Can anyone improve on this? Hgilbert 00:59, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Up to similarity they are unique 

message: gömbcök? gömböcök? or gömböcek? -andy 78.51.73.91 (talk) 00:31, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is the correct Hungarian plural of the word? 

message: The article says that they need to be suitably defined, but never gets around to defining them.  Neither does the page at gomboc.eu.  The Mathematical Intelligencer article defines them in a way that doesn't seem to type-check: we're taking the max and min and ratios of vectors (unless a "position vector" is a scalar).  It would be nice to get a good encyclopaedic definition.  Bhudson (talk) 14:47, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe one should take the length of the vector. In any case, due to Lemma 1 in the Mathematical Intelligencer article, "F=1" is equivalent to the existence of only one stable equilibrium, and "T=1" is equivalent to the existence of only one unstable equilibrium. If this is true, then "F=T=1" is not an additional restriction on the shape of the gömböc, let alone making it unique. --80.129.69.190 (talk) 19:54, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Flatness and thinness 

message: A link at the bottom of the page, to www.gomboc.eu, downloads JS/Downloader.Agent and Win32/Heur viruses. I've removed it. Don't-stop-the-music (talk) 21:36, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Malicious link 

message: Does anyone else believe that the phrase "gömböc refers to a sphere-like object. (It is mostly known in the folk culture as kis gömböc, a round creature in the loft that remained from a killed pig, which swallows everyone one after the other who goes to see what happened to the previous ones. They are eventually rescued by a young pigman that was swallowed last.[4])" is not needed? Seriously, a folk monster doesn't contribute to our knowledge of Gombocs. Especially since the sentence is so long Occamsrazorwit (talk) 13:26, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It may be unclearly written, but I think it's important to know where the name comes from. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:07, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unnecessary Sentence? 

message: This article is crying out for an animated gif to show the shape at work and the rising c of gVictuallers (talk) 15:44, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Suggestion

message: If I understand the definition correctly, a Gömböc is something of the same class as a cube or a sphere. In the beginning of this Talk page, I read something about a Hungarian folklore figure "Gömböc" that lent its name to the object. I have the following questions: 
* Is the word Gömböc really spelled with an initial capital? 
* If so, why? We usually don't write cube or sphere with capitals, so why is that other shape's name written with a capital. 
And a related question: 
* Should the article 'a' be omitted as if Gömböc were a proper name? 
* If so, why? 
For example, somewhere in the article it says: 
* "The shape of the Indian Star Tortoise resembles Gömböc. " 
* "The balancing properties of Gömböc were associated with..." 
* "...one stable and unstable point in Gömböc ..." 
* "No other practical applications of Gömböc are known, probably because Gömböc is ..."
We don't speak of "the balancing properties of Cube," do we? 
Or have I completely misunderstood the word? Is there actually only one 'real' individual phenomenon that goes by the name of Gömböc, and is kept in an undisclosed place somewhere in the world?
To be honest, I have the presumption that the above example sentences really should have been written as: 
* "The shape of the Indian Star Tortoise resembles a gömböc. " 
* "The balancing properties of gömböcs were associated with..." 
* "...one stable and unstable point in a gömböc ..." 
* "No other practical applications of gömböcs are known, probably because gömböcs are ..."
Johan Lont (talk) 13:24, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Absence of articles is often sign that writer's first language is not English. —Tamfang (talk) 00:03, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes. And that he was sleepy and in rush :-D Seriously, the term was probably coined by a person who admitted being not fluent in English, thus this is the case when native speakers with minor knowledge of geometry might decide better on capitalization, single/plural and article issues. Sorry for not making enough time. One more note, the discovered shape refers not to a unique body, such as sphere, but to a class of bodies. Even the commercial replicas are officially produced in different shapes, but under the same name. Materialscientist (talk) 00:36, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spelling : initial capital, use of article (the/a) 

message: The "production" and "media" sections read (in part) like sales brochures, and there's way too many links to the manufacturer's shopping site and general site.  Articles are supposed to be cited to sources independent of the subject.  I inserted an advert tag but Materialscientist reverted.  I'll leave it out for now but the article needs cleanup.  67.122.209.115 (talk) 04:00, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I missed the point of that tag first. Cleaned up now. Unfortunately, science, its popularization, and notable cultural events on one side and business initiatives of the Gomboc inventor on the other side got mixed up, but I think it is Ok now, i.e. I would tolerate that small bit of "ads" which is left. Materialscientist (talk) 05:59, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  spammy article 

message: This edit changed "Their published solution was less sensitive; yet it has a shape tolerance of 10−4, that is 0.1 mm for a 10 cm size." to "...a shape tolerance of 10−3...".  The cited source supports 0.1 mm and 10 cm, but the 10-x is Wikipedia's.  Shouldn't the tolerance actually be 10-2, given by 0.1 mm / 10 cm?  I'd have changed it myself but I'm worried I'm missing something...
Note the tolerance figure is given in both the Mathematical solution and Production sections. Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 09:22, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Of course.  Not sure what was going through my head a month ago.  Thanks. Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 09:18, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Error for tolerance? 

message: The term "countless varieties" in the intro paragraph seems like jargon. Is there a number? Is it infinite? It seems like this phrasing should be more specific. Yosho27 (talk) 08:05, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Countless varieties

message: I added a sentence referring to the recently installed 4.5m statue of a gömböc in Budapest, but cannot get the ref to work (there's an error in the reflist, ref 7). Can someone help me see what's not correct? Kicsinyul (talk) 17:41, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. Tayste (edits) 18:07, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Help to fix ref? 

message: I created an animated GIF of a gömböc returning to its stable equilibrium. Does anyone have any concerns about this being added to the article? https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:G%C3%B6mb%C3%B6c.gif Kicsinyul (talk) 11:19, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: That seems like a good idea to me.  The only MOS guidance I could find about including animations is on considering the file size and 331K is fine.  Tayste (edits) 19:04, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal to add animated GIF 

message: At present, the link in "A kis gömböc, a folk tale in Hungarian. sk-szeged.hu" appears not found. 94.30.84.71 (talk) 21:19, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Failed link 15 

message: This section is a bit wanting. I suggest getting rid of this --
"This is well reflected in the allegory of the cave, where Plato explains that the immediately visible physical world (in the current example, the shape of individual natural fragments) may only be a distorted shadow of the true essence of the phenomenon, an idea (in the current example, the cube)."
This doesn't make sense and seems to be the author pontificating about something that he doesn't understand. He even gets the metaphor backwards. The immediately visible world would be not seeing the world as a cube and the true reality would be that sedimentary fragments are on average cuboid. Why this opinion is relevant in an article about the gomboc is beyond me.
And this --
"This result was broadly reported on by leading popular science journals, including Science,[22] Popular Mechanics,[23] Quanta,[24] Wired,[25] Futura-Sciences, [26] the Italian edition of Scientific American [27] and the Greek daily journal To Vima.[28] In 2020, Science put this research among the top 10 most interesting articles of the year [29] and in the "Breakthrough of the Year, top online news, and science book highlights" podcast [30] news editor David Grimm discussed it with host Sarah Crespi among the 4 most notable research items, calling it the most philosophical paper, by far.[31]"
Unnecessary. No one wants to hear about how a bunch of news outlets reported on some study about sediments being cube shaped in an article about an entirely different shape. Keep the citations and just focus on this bit from the study the articles are all citing (which actually relates to what this section is about!):
"The life cycle of sedimentary particles is a remarkable expression of geometry in nature. Born by fragmentation as statistical shadows of an invisible cube, and rounded during transport along a universal trajectory (56), pebble shapes appear to evolve toward the likewise invisible gömböc—albeit without reaching that target."  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:42:702:4950:2DF3:74DA:999:91F3 (talk) 13:13, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Relation to rocks, pebbles, and Plato's Cube 

message: A gomboc is a Hungarian dessert, a peach-filled pastry, or potato mash, that looks like, well... a Gomboc! 
Can some original Hungarian (I'm not) add this to the page? 2.53.157.47 (talk) 07:25, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Origin of the name Gomboc 

message: Hi  What references are you talking about specifically. Some clue would be idea, so I can make a start.  scope_creepTalk 20:42, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: In the current version, reference 1, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 34, 36, 37, and 38 are all primary (publications or web sites by the inventors of this shape, including some that are straight-up links to an online shop). 5 is a spammy exposition promo piece, and 6 appears to be a deadlink. 7 and 8 are about a folk tale with the same name, not about this shape. 15 is an unreliable blog. 23, 24, and 26 are reliable, but really only one source and its reprints. 25 and 27 are translations of the same piece into other languages, used here only for citation overkill. 28, 29, and 30 are all the same listicle of links to science stories, one of which is that same one. 31-33 are primary sources about unrelated research that happen to mention self-righting behavior in different contexts and cite the work on Gömböcs in passing. 34 is a company with the same name but otherwise unrelated. 39-41 are unreliable IMBD/Vimeo links. 42 is a novel that happens to use the word once (on what page, we are not told). 45 is a link to a Wikipedia article used as a source (a forbidden circular reference), and 47 also looks like a link to another wiki. In short, there are a few good-looking references scattered here and there, but most of them are a disaster. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:12, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks  That looks like a goodly amount of the article. I figured it would be few or perhaps a range or two. I'll look at it tommorrow.  scope_creepTalk 22:07, 30 April 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Dodgy promo references

message: Dear User, yesterday I added the table to the english wikipedia entry, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=G%C3%B6mb%C3%B6c&oldid=1087136155. Could you please verify why you deleted it? It is a very specific list that in my opition completes this article perfectly and should stay on this page. Thank you in advance.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Neuer Autor Mr. Right (talk • contribs) 08:17, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
replies: text:  All the references are primary to the inventors own website and a lot of it reads like an promotional brochure.    scope_creepTalk 09:52, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: This is an example https://gomboc.eu/en/gomboc-108-in-kalimpong/ Many of the entries on the list, link to the Gomboc site, the majority of them. Wikipedia is not a webhost where it can host random images, its forbidden by policy and on top of that,  it would break Wikipedia Terms of Use to host such images on links to the companies own website, as its a form of advertisement.  scope_creepTalk 09:59, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Several of the entries could probably go back in, if proper WP:SECONDARY sources were used to validate per WP:V each entries, for example a news stories, but not in the current form. I would suggest building the list your own WP:SANDBOX and then putting it into the article. The article itself has underwent a deep copyedit by several people and its not going back to the form it was in before, which was an advertisement for the product.  scope_creepTalk 10:04, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Given that Neuer Autor Mr. Right is a WP:SPA restoring the work of previous editor Gdomokos rather than making the sort of edits that new editors do, it is natural to suspect that they might be the same person. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:10, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed, I think that as well. It went in,verbatim, with no interest in changing it to follow policy.  scope_creepTalk 16:37, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: SPI initiated. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:56, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

text:  Thanks for swift action. Could be. I suspect there will be other attempts. I think it is probably hitting their bottom-line, less web traffic to their shop.  scope_creepTalk 20:50, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Individual Gömböc models 

message: I do not understand how it does not have 2 more unstabe equilibria at the sides. Can someone explain? Hank the Sniper (talk) 21:22, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism and Mathematical proof 

message: I'd Suggest A 3D Model That Can Be In Sketchfab And Other 3D Model Stores So People Can Preview The Model In 3D Space 136.158.100.186 (talk) 12:35, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: This talk page is for discussion of improvements to the Wikipedia article, not for discussion of content on other sites. And there are intellectual property issues (whether you consider them valid or not) that could be obstacles to such a plan. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:03, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can A 3D Model Of It Be In Other Model Stores 

message: Hi  How goes it? I took that section out. I've looked at that section months ago and thought it was really very poorly written. When you commented on it, it made me more sure that it is junk really, so I've removed it.  scope_creepTalk 00:00, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Doing well! Thanks for deleting the section - I'm glad that my tagification was able to convince someone slightly braver than me to take the leap.  00:08, 29 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Relation to rocks, pebbles and Plato's cube

message: Other than a lack of symmetry, and with or without gravity or balance, I don't understand how this sort of object is any more novel or interesting geometrically than a Steinmetz Bicylinder.  If you simply wish it to have a prefer way it rolls, this can easily be accomplished by inserting a denser material pin of appropriate geometry to one of its faces.
I don't think it rates inclusion in encyclopedic text unless it has mechanical or mathematical application to problems that demand it be taught to mechanical engineers who might be able to actually use it.  Some common stones or pebbles have shapes that are more interesting than this, much less rate the distinction of a name in an encyclopedic index to remember them by. Danshawen (talk) 22:42, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: We have an article on the Steinmetz solid, so arguments saying that it's similar in notability aren't really a convincing reason not to have this one. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:07, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Steinmetz Bicylinder?