SOLUTION: Can you explain why a three-legged stool is often more steady than a four-legged one? If you have a four-legged one, is it possible that all four legs might touch the floor at the

Question 1194898: Can you explain why a three-legged stool is often more steady than a four-legged one? If you have a four-legged one, is it possible that all four legs might touch the floor at the same time? Is this true for a three-legged tool? Relate this to geometric situations involving three points and a plane and four points and a plane.

Found 3 solutions by Boreal, ikleyn, Alan3354:
Answer by Boreal(15235)   (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
Three points define a plane. A fourth point now has four different groups of 3 points and therefore four different planes (4C3).
Mathematically, there would be a single point (without dimension) where all 4 legs could touch simultaneously, but essentially this would not happen.

Answer by ikleyn(52787)   (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
.

It is even more interesting, that despite of this reasoning, most people use 4-legged chairs for sitting . . .

By the way, on which chair do you seat while writing your posts ?

Answer by Alan3354(69443)   (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
Chairs have five (5) "legs" now, an OSHA requirement.
RELATED QUESTIONS
Can you explain why a three-legged stool is often more steady than a four-legged... (answered by Alan3354,jim_thompson5910,Earlsdon)
Can you explain why a three-legged stool is often more steady than a four-legged one? If... (answered by ikleyn)
There are two stools. Three-legged stool & Four legged stool a. One stool rocks... (answered by stanbon)
Why doesnt a three legged table wobble? (answered by math-vortex)
There are 340 dinosaur model legs in a box. There are twice as many four legged dinosaur... (answered by scott8148)
why wont a 3 legged chair wobble but a 4 legged chair... (answered by Fombitz)
A factory makes three-legged stools and four-legged stools. They use the same kind of... (answered by mananth)
This week a carpenter made some three-legged stools and some four-legged chairs. The... (answered by josmiceli,stanbon)
I am trying to answer a word problem, and I am sure there is a formula that should be... (answered by stanbon,mangeshpjoshi)