Shape theft

Shape theft is a crime against mathematical constants in which a fundamental shape, often a triangle, is "stolen" from a volume of space.

Famous examples of shape theft include:

• The near-instantaneous disassembly of the Eiffel Tower (triangle theft)
• The delapidation of the Great Pyramid at Cheops (cuboid theft)
• The simultaneous multiple abductions of the Hula Hoop craze and the Frisbee craze (circle theft)

Cubic desserts liquified, Shape Theft suspected

Mid-1960's astronaut dessert cubes "at high risk of Shape Theft due to their historical significance and the great desire by citizens of every nation to experience the last remaining astronaut dessert cubes with their own eyes, if not their own taste buds."

APTO Math Crime Alert—

Shape Theft gang believed responsible for disappearance of cube geometry — Formerly cubic desserts liquified

Shape Thieves "steal" shapes (cube, square, hypercube) from a volume of space

Be sure to lock your geometry!

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In the News

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  The Cornish Xansty Shape Theft event is an annual emergence of petty shape theft crimes against Cornish Xansty spawn. These young Xansties will liquify when the rectangular geometry is removed from their spatial domain.

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  Screenshot of the "Shape theft" article.

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  Screenshot of "Astronaut dessert cubes at risk of shape theft" sidebar image.

Commentary

The problem is entirely physics-based.

Culture is not involved, apart from "what should society do about shape theft?"

An archetypal shape — a Form, in Plato's terminology — is removed from a volume of Euclidean space.

Those Cornish Xansty larva will convert from cuboids to liquids if their rectilinear geometry is unavailable for any reason. (See also Geometry solvent.)

You probably wouldn't remember this, because it got preliminated by #APTO, but all of the triangles were stolen from the Eiffel Tower in a lightning raid by the Forbidden Ratio gang —

Without the concept of triangles, the structural members and fasteners sprang apart like the tribes of Man at the Fall of Babel.

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Fiction cross-reference

• Cornish Xansty Shape Theft
• Crimes against mathematical constants
• Forbidden ratio - criminal mathematical function with power over ratios
• Geometry solvent
• Gnomon algorithm
• Gnomon Chronicles
• Gnotilus - criminal mathematical function obsessed with spirals
• Mathematics

Nonfiction cross-reference

• Geometry (nonfiction)
• Mathematics (nonfiction)

External links

• Post @ Twitter (31 March 2021)