• drop_table_username@lemmy.world
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    15 hours ago

    No he’s right. The solution for an optimal surface area to volume ratio is a sphere. The farther you deviate from a sphere the less optimal you become. The actual math for this is finding deltaSurfaceArea in respects to cylinder radius for a given volume and then finding the maxima, which is a Uni physics 1 problem I really don’t feel like doing. Long story short, optimal is when height = diameter, or as close to a sphere as a cylinder can be.

      • wuphysics87@lemmy.ml
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        4 hours ago

        It’s not really ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ it’s under a fixed set of assumptions. You raise a valid point. What does happen to the top and the bottom? I was ignoring them considering only the sides in the two most extreme cases.

        If I understand your case when the can is flatted the area gets much larger and when it gets taller it shrinks to a pin point. An equally valid approach