Zeitpyramide: When Maths and Art Disagree

In 1993, the German city of Wemding celebrated its 1200 anniversary.
They decided to start a long-term art project. Every decade, they would place a concrete block on a base. After adding 120 blocks, the pyramid would be complete.

zeitpyramide-original-120-blocks

The only problem is that the pyramid will be completed in the year 3183. Which is only 1190 in the future. Not 1200. The project made a basic mathematical error, called the picket fence error. For a picket fence of n elements, you need to have n+1 posts.

Instead of waiting for the first decade to complete before placing the first block, they started immediately. This is like putting the first candle on the birthday cake on your child’s actual day of birth.

Matt Parker pointed out this error during his visit to the placement of the fourth block in 2023. He also proposed an alternative design that would take 121 blocks to complete. Unfortunately, his design is not a pyramid and would be 19.8 meters tall. That is certainly not safe in a storm.

zeitpyramide-matt-parker-121-blocks

There must be a better design. I took 121 of my beloved LEGO bricks and started on a seven-by-seven base. After some experimentation, I came up with a beautiful pyramid that is only one block taller than the original design. It is still a proper pyramid with complete symmetry.

zeitpyramide-bartneck-121-blocks

We can only speculate what Manfred Laber, the artist, had in mind. According to Barbara Schlecht, head of the Zeitpyramide trust, Mr. Laber was fully aware of the consequences of his design. It is certainly much easier to design a sculpture with 120 bricks since it is divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, 20, 24, 30, 40, 60 and 120. 121, on the other hand, is only divisible by 1,11 and 121.

When public projects make glaring mistakes, they invite schadenfreude. We can speculate that Manfred Laber decided to sacrifice the opportunity to set a block at the beginning and at the end of the 1200 years period for having a direct relationship between the 120 blocks and the 1200 years.

There are alternative pyramid design for 121 blocks. He could have also decided to only place the foundation in 1993. In any case, this art project has become famous not for its original concepts, but for the controversy around its maths. Which is unlikely to have been the intention of the artist.

Peer Review Review

In October 2023 I had the privilege to talk at the Nerd Night in Christchurch. This event series operates at the intersection of comedy, popular culture and science. I talked about my adventures in exploring the peer review process. Some of them to the annoyance of my fellow scientists, conference organizers and predatory publishers. But always with a nod to comic effect and a focus on the overcompetitive beast we call academia.

I also published this event on the HRI Podcast.

New Zealanders respond to strict regulation of artificial intelligence

What a national survey reveals about AI in New Zealand

We just published the article “Personality and demographic correlates of support for regulating artificial intelligence” in the AI and Ethics journal. We analysed data from the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study survey that collected around 48 thousand responses from New Zealanders. The survey asked them if they support the strict regulation limiting the development and use of Artificial Intelligence. We analysed if the response to this question is related to the respondent’s personality and social economic indicators.

Data revealed that support for strict regulation of AI is positively related with agreeableness, neuroticism, and honesty–humility. However, it is negatively related to openness to experiences. Being female, older, non-European, religious, being single, a parent, living rural, being born in NZ, and living in a more economically deprived region were all related to support for strict regulation of AI. However, how secure one felt in their current job and one’s level of education were not significantly related to their support for the strict regulation of AI.

This study will inform policy makers and technology companies on how New Zealanders feel about AI. You can read the full article for free from this address: https://doi.org/10.1007/s43681-023-00279-4

New HRI Podcast: Zombies – Can robots be conscious?

I recorded a new episode of the Human-Robot Interaction Podcast:

023: Zombies – Can robots be conscious?

Are robots zombies? This might seem like a strange question at first, but it leads to one of the most important questions in science today: what is consciousness and can robot’s become conscious? These questions fascinate many people. And when Blake Lemoine suggested that Google’s latest AI Lambda had become sentient, it triggered a worldwide media frenzy. In this HRI podcast episode, I talk with Professor Jack Copeland about machine consciousness.

Optimal Price For Swimming In Christchurch For Disabled Swimmers

The Christchurch City Council changed its fee structure for swimming pool admission as of October 1st, 2022. There are some important changes for disabled swimmers who have a Hāpai Access card.

While there is a 25% discount for annual pool membership, there is a 50% discount for casual entry fees. The later includes multi-visit pass. The question now is, how often do you need to swim per week before the annual membership becomes the cheaper option.

Annual Entry Costs based on number per weekly visits.

The graph above shows that you need to swim around 3.25 times on average per week before the annual membership becomes cheaper.

While I applaud the Christchurch City Council for increasing the discount for casual fees from 25% to 50%, I would have appreciated it even more if they had extended this discount to the annual membership. Active swimmers will be forced to give up their annual membership if they swim more than three times a week. Normally, discounts are setup so that the more you use a service, the higher the discount becomes.

No other discount category, such as Community Services Card or Super Gold Card, has this inconsistency.

For abled visitors with no discount or visitors with a 25% discount (Community Services Card or Super Gold Card), already visiting the pool more than twice a week justifies an annual pool membership:

 

It is unclear why the Christchurch City Council wants to make going to the pool for disabled swimmers more of a hassle than for others. Annual memberships is quick an easy. No need to constantly refresh the cards or pay every time at the counter.

It would be great if the CCC would make our live not only more affordable, but also easier.