Main content
Math for fun and glory
Course: Math for fun and glory > Unit 1
Lesson 1: Spirals, Fibonacci and being a plant- Doodling in math: Spirals, Fibonacci, and being a plant [1 of 3]
- Doodling in math: Spirals, Fibonacci, and being a plant [2 of 3]
- Doodling in math: Spirals, Fibonacci, and being a plant [3 of 3]
- Open letter to Nickelodeon, re: SpongeBob's pineapple under the sea
- Angle-a-trons
© 2023 Khan AcademyTerms of usePrivacy PolicyCookie Notice
Open letter to Nickelodeon, re: SpongeBob's pineapple under the sea
SpongeBob background designer's response: "OK, I guess the jig is up... I'm tired of living a lie." See his full message and pineapple redesign: http://kennypittenger.blogspot.com/2012/01/called-out.html
P.S. http://youtu.be/sFTwc8kHSu4
For more on Fibonacci and Plants: http://youtu.be/ahXIMUkSXX0
For more snail: http://youtu.be/xbsAUq_nvxE. Created by Vi Hart.
Want to join the conversation?
- Who agrees that Nickelodeon just got BURNED?(35 votes)
- Did anyone else click "More Snail"?(8 votes)
- Am I the only one who loves that snail?(6 votes)
- Why is there a snail in the video?(3 votes)
- They taste good, Without a couple tons of salt on them anyway.(3 votes)
- but isnt the pineapple just a animation
yes so its not gonna be a real pineapple when its just a animation(2 votes)- Vi Hart is trying to teach us about mathematics and spirals, and she knows many people like Spongebob, so maybe she figured that making a video about Spongebob would be fun for people. Also, the past three videos were about finding Fibonacci number spirals in real-life things, so maybe Vi decided to make a video about lack of spirals in cartoon things.
Maybe that makes sense.
--Blue Leaf(4 votes)
- does she look for math in everything(2 votes)
- Well, she doesn't actually look for math. She's a mathematician, and so she just sees the math running all over the place.(4 votes)
- it's a cartoon. cartoons do THE IMPOSSIBLE, besides in the "p.s." you forgot pineapples FLOAT!
p.s. what if they only wanted to entertain very young people, what if they edit it to make it less enjoyable for toddlers, what then? they do S.B.S.P. for money they will not listen to you(3 votes)- That's true. Cartoonists do go all out and do the impossible, like they did with SpongeBob. But for real, if a pineapple COULD stay underwater for so long, either it rots because of the salty water or the sea critters eat it BEFORE it gets the chance to rot. Either way it ends up happening.(2 votes)
- Okay, this is a little random but if Sandy has to wear an air tank outside her house, does Sponge Bob wear a water tank in her house?(2 votes)
- SpongeBob actually does wear a water tank over his face when he visits Sandy's house.(5 votes)
- why is the snail there in the video(2 votes)
Video transcript
Dear Nickelodeon, I've gotten
over how SpongeBob's pants are not actually square. I can ignore most of the
time that Gary's shell is not a logarithmic spiral. But what I cannot forgive is
that SpongeBob's pineapple house is a mathematical
impossibility. There's three easy ways to
find spirals on a pineapple. There's the ones that
wind up it going right, the ones that spiral
up to the left, and the ones that go almost
straight up-- keyword almost. If you count the number
of spirals going left and the number of
spirals going right, they'll be adjacent
Fibonacci numbers-- 3 and 5, or 5 and 8, 8 and
13, or 13 and 21. You claim that
SpongeBob Squarepants lives in a pineapple under
the sea, but does he really? A true pineapple would
have Fibonacci spiral, so let's take a look. Because these
images of his house don't let us pick it
up and turn it around to count the number of
spirals going around it, it might be hard to figure out
whether it's mathematically a pineapple or not. But there's a huge clue in the
third spiral, the one going upwards. In this pineapple there's 8
to the right, 13 to the left. You can add those
numbers together to get how many spirals
are in the set spiraling steeply upwards. In this case, 21. The three sets of
spirals in any pineapple are pretty much always
adjacent Fibonacci numbers. The rare mutant cases might
show Lucas numbers or something, but it will always be three
adjacent numbers in a series. What you'll never have
is the same number of spirals both ways. Pineapples, unlike people,
don't have bilateral symmetry. You'll never have
that third spiral be not a spiral, but just
a straight line going up a pineapple. Yet, when we look at
SpongeBob's supposed pineapple under the sea, it
clearly has lines of pineapple things
going straight up. It clearly has
bilateral symmetry. It clearly is not actually
a pineapple at all, because no pineapple could
possibly grow that way. Nickelodeon, you need to take
a long, hard look in the mirror and think about the way
you're misrepresenting the universe to your viewers. This kind of
mathematical oversight is simply irresponsible. Sincerely, Vi Hart.