"More recently, though, pie at West Point lost its innocence. For cadets who passed through the Academy in the later decades of the 20th century, a favorite form of hazing centered on pie. At dinner in the mess hall, plebes were made to cut the dessert into a mathematically impossible number of exactly equal slices: seven, nine, or 11. Upperclassmen looked on, taunting. The Zip-Locks under plebes’ hats? They held pie-cutting templates—literal pie charts—that helped plebes cut perfect slices and, most importantly, avoid their elders’ wrath."
Posted for Pi day 2024.
It is not clear to me how this training will assist one on the battlefield or planning thereof.
ReplyDeleteThose very thin slices might assist one in fighting the battle of the bulge.
DeleteI don't think those are very thin slices - just overlapping templates of 6,7, 9, 10.
DeleteTrue.
DeleteOn a more serious note, on the subject of assisting "one on the battlefield": This entire exercise is a fusion of logic (geometry) and insanity (suspension of autonomy and common sense at the behest of a higher authority); a pretty good description of the psychology of war.
They are being taught to fear the wrath of senior ranking officers. Like a more manageable, therefore useful, fear of God.
ReplyDeletexoxoxoBruce
"JANUARY 29, 1943 . . . .
ReplyDeleteMONDAY. It is a strange, new thing, this being a first classman, but I love it. I have such fun misusing my power."
The Collected Works of Ducrot Pepys