Tuesday, February the 8th, 2005

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What Sort of People Will Live on the Tetrahedron?

That question is the subtitle of an article in the May 1918 issue of My Magazine. Here are the opening paragraphs:

How would you like to live on a tetrahedron? Men say the earth will one day come to that.

Many strange visions men have had of the world since it began. They used to think it a disc floating in water. There are still stupid people who believe it is flat. Every wise child knows that the truth is that the earth is practically a round ball.

It will not always be like this, however…what the people of the world will live on in millions of years to come will probably be a tetrahedron. It all looks terribly dull, but it is really tremendously interesting… Let us think about it all.

I adore that well-placed “probably”, and it's a bit rich for a tetrahedron-earther to call a flat-earther “stupid”, but look, look!

What Sort of People Will Live on the Tetrahedron?: Tetrahedron

This is how it will be, and you can read further details here. What you cannot read, maddeningly, is the answer to the question that is posed. I for one want to know what sort of people will live on the tetrahedron. Muggletonians? Quakers? Management consultants? Will they use the Mayan calendar? Will the Pope still wear a little white cap? Will the novels of V S Naipaul be in print? Hooting Yard's indefatigable Antipodean researcher Glyn Webster brought this to my attention. Perhaps he could do the decent thing and answer the question.