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Proof Is In: Kansas Is Flatter Than A Pancake 104

Posted by timothy from the but-is-it-as-boring-as-hell dept.
plotdot writes "When motorists drive across Kansas with its expansive, fertile fields of grain, they most often observe that the state is flat as a pancake. Now, three scientists have proved that observation wrong. The May/June issue of Annals of Improbable Research (AIR) carries a story by Mark Fonstad, William Pugatch, and Brandon Vogt proving that Kansas is actually flatter than a pancake."
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Proof Is In: Kansas Is Flatter Than A Pancake More

Proof Is In: Kansas Is Flatter Than A Pancake

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  • In related news... (Score:4, Funny)

    by momerath2003 ( 606823 ) on Wednesday July 23, 2003 @12:16AM (#6508716) Journal
    Pancake sales in Kansas increase by 20% because the Citizens of Kansas now feel in some way superior to the pancakes!

  • Wrong measure for flatness. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Ayanami Rei ( 621112 ) * <rayanami@@@gmail...com> on Wednesday July 23, 2003 @12:33AM (#6508790) Journal
    I think that "flatness" was incorrectly measured in this case. What should have been used as the flatness measure is the RMS of the discrete slopes in the measurements at a sampling interval measured at the lowest of the two sampling intervals (if the pancake laser raster contained 500 measurements, then only 500 measurements (derived?) of the USGS cross section would be considered).

    Fitting an ellipse just tells you if the state is eccentric. If the state was a completely upwards tilted plane, either it's perflectly flat, or it's moderately (but constantly) non-flat. I assume it's the latter. Now imagine a state containing nothing but up-and-down hills of the same gradient as before. According to the ellipsoid measure, the state could be considered flatter, when in fact it is should be less flat because of the changes in grade.

    • Re:Wrong measure for flatness. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Goldsmith ( 561202 ) on Wednesday July 23, 2003 @01:07AM (#6508942)
      What you're referring to is mathmatically called roughness. Obviously, the expression is not "rougher than a pancake". If we're going to do this scientifically, we have to use the proper scientific definitions.
      • I was wondering if a West-East measurement of Kansas was a valid approach. The assumption is that Kansas is a very small part of a very large spheroid [wolfram.com] (where two of the axis have the same radius). This is true because Kansas is a part of Earth, and the Earth is most closely approximated by an oblate spheroid (called the reference ellipsoid). But like I said, the assumption is that Kansas is like the rest of the world, where it could be dramatically different (assuming there were an anti-Kansas that was equa
        • Actually what this means is that Kansas lays on the globe at a point where the Semi-Major Axis and the Semi-Minor Axis are almost equal, thus Kansas is a near perfect spheriod. A perfect spheriod at the diameter of the earth would seem flat (in human terms) and is thus called flat.

          While I don't necessarily agree with their conclusion in this experiment. I do believe that it meets the definition of improbable research. I give these guys credit on innovative thinking and wonder what they could do on a r
      • 1) I was kidding. I mean, well, the expression is just that: an expression... and it's using the word in an ambigous way. I countered one wrong way to look at flatness with other troll-ish semi-informed thing to be silly.

        And I got modded informative? Sheesh.

        2) RMS of the magnitude of discretely sampled gradients is probably a misleading indicator anyway. You really want is to know: 1) how much of Kansas is "tilted" and to what average magnitude; 2) how much of these titled areas are surrounded by areas of
        • Of course.

          I was simply trying to out-troll-ish you. I think you win being modded informative.

          I don't think you can take any discussion of AIR seriously.
    • flatness measure is the RMS of the discrete slopes

      Shouldn't it be called GNU/flatness?
    • I agree.

      "One common method of quantifying 'flatness' in geodesy is the 'flattening' ratio. The length of an ellipse's (or arc's) semi-major axis a is compared with its measured semi-minor axis b using the formula for flattening, f = (a - b) / a."

      In the case of the surface of the earth, this measurement would be accurate. This is not the case when applied to a pancake. Look down at the graphics of Kansas and the pancake. The pancake corresponds to a plateau. (steep edges, flat on top). Maybe this could be

    • Somewhere I read that if you where to scale the Earth down to the size of a 1" steel ball bearing, it would be smoother than any ball bearing that we can manufacture...

  • I live in Kansas... (Score:5, Funny)

    by xenocide2 ( 231786 ) on Wednesday July 23, 2003 @12:48AM (#6508869) Homepage
    Its not exactly hilly like a costal California city might be, but most of it isn't too flat. I live in the Kansas City area; there's plenty of hills around. And when I'm not in KC I'm attending school at KSU, where it is also not flat. The region is called the Flint Hills. Not the Flint Plains, nor the Flint Flatter-than-Pancakes. Hills.

    Of course, do be warned, I've never lived on a pancake, so my anecdotal evidence might be flawed =).

    • Re:I live in Kansas... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Fritzed ( 634646 )
      Ok, I'll be honest and say I haven't seen a lot of Kansas. I've only been in it for short bursts because Nebraska's main airport is right on the state borderline. However, if the "hills" in Nebraska are similar to the "hills" in Kansas, and I'll bet they are, they are very gradual. The average slope on the hills can't be more than 7 degrees, the real steep hills having a 10 degree slope.

      Now this doesn't mean the hills or valleys don't have an impact on the landscape. On the contrary, they stand out beca
      • I live in Nebraska, I've been through Kansas a number of times. I've also seen genuine hills and mountains while travelling outside the region. I believe most of the "hills" in Kansas and Nebraska (and Oklahoma etc.) are officially called "rolling plains". I think it's a matter of human nature, thinking what you have is better than it actually is.

        A similar argument could be started when talking about football.
        • Of course there's the other human nature to perceive that "the grass is greener" in places other than where you are. No?
        • I remember a silly TV news item about the "highest mountain" in Kansas. (Apparently defined as the highest point in the state.) It proved to be a three foot high lump right on the Colorado border.

          Speaking of flat... drive across South Dakota sometime, on the interstate highway (I-90, IIRC). Once you get out of the Black Hills, it's flat as a board as far as the eye can see -- until you get to the Missouri River. You go WAY DOWN one bank in low gear, across the bridge, and WAY UP the other bank in low gear.
    • I've been across Kansas by car - twice. (there, and back again)

      Only a few hours of direct subjective experience, but it was FLAT.

      IMHO your "hills" are comparable to the topological deformities found when you put blueberries into the pancakes.
      • Driving hardly represents and acurate sample of the state. I would assume you used the interstate systems of roads?
        Civil enginers worked very hard to make sure that the interstates were as flat and strait as posible, there is even a requirement in the laws establishing the interstate system that a certen persentage of the interstates be totaly strate and flat so that they can be used as runways in times of war.
        I don't really thing the fact that a government employe actualy did his job should be held against
        • Yep, my experience of Kansas is limited to visual range of I70. (or is it I80?)

          At least there the Civ-Es did their job. My brother has horror stories of I80 west of Laramie, Wyoming where they didn't.

          I also lived in Cleveland for four years, so I know what it's like living in a national joke.
        • there is even a requirement in the laws establishing the interstate system that a certen persentage of the interstates be totaly strate and flat so that they can be used as runways in times of war.

          Wonder how they dealt with this requirement in West Virginia?
        • there is even a requirement in the laws establishing the interstate system that a certen persentage of the interstates be totaly strate and flat so that they can be used as runways in times of war.

          Actually, that is not true [snopes.com]
    • I won't look down on you for choosing KSU over KU, but Lawrence is also very non-flat.

      The campus of KU sits on a hill, and some of the residential streets resemble San Francisco with very steep inclines.

    • Totally true-- I grew up in Manhattan (KS, that is). Going from my parent's back yard straight up the hill is a ~16% grade, about 200ft vertical climb. Compare that to the Los Angeles basin, where you can look out from the Getty and see friggin' Orange County with nary a hill in between (well, alright. You could see Orange County if it wasn't for the smog). Central KS is flat, but anybody who thinks the flint hills are flat should have to jog up & down Manhattan Ave from Kimball to Anderson a few times!
    • I grew up in Kansas. If you've ever been in the west-central, southwest near Garden City and Scott City then you'll know that it is plain flat. There are NO hills! The curvature of the earth is the only thing preventing you from seeing forever.

  • What, too cheap to get the 3 pancake stack!? (Score:5, Funny)

    by jeeves99 ( 187755 ) * on Wednesday July 23, 2003 @01:07AM (#6508944)
    Declaring kansas flatter than a pancake based upon a comparison to ONE pancake hardly seems fair. A mean value for the flatness of a pancake should have been derived from multiple pancakes and a standard deviation value given. Besides, you get hash browns and a side of variable meat with the 3-pancake special at IHOP.

  • Flatness Humor (Score:3, Interesting)

    by fm6 ( 162816 ) on Wednesday July 23, 2003 @02:05AM (#6509173) Homepage Journal
    I'm reminded of a scene in one of Donald Westlakes weirder caper novels [wordboost.com]. Two guys are travelling through a really flat section of Oklahoma. One is a stone killer with no sense of humor or irony. They reach a place where the land is so flat and featureless, you can't even see the horizon. The killer turns to the other guy and says, "You know, before the white man came, there was absolutely nothing here!"
  • I mean, why would anyone waste their time to prove Kansas is flatter than a friggin pancake? Sure, we've seen pretty pointless things on slashdot, but in what way is this gonna help us discover The Meaning Of Life?

    They should use their time to find out The Meaning Of Life.
  • that no one got paid for that.
    • Hell, its a publication, with slashdot and all it has an high impact factor and that all that counts (at least at some institutes ...)
  • We collected macro-pancake topography through digital image processing of a pancake image and ruler for scale calibration

    With a statement like that, nothing else needs to be said.

  • ... Kansas is flattering a pancake. But then I wonder what for?

  • Does this mean... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You need less maple syrup to cover kansas than the equivilent sized pancake????
    • You need less maple syrup to cover kansas than the equivilent sized pancake????


      Not necessarily. Remember that cute problem in your calc course, where the volume of a certain function rotated about the X-axis is finite, but its surface area is infinite, so you can put a finite amount of paint into it but it takes an infinite amount of paint to cover it?

  • I-70 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by wowbagger ( 69688 ) * on Wednesday July 23, 2003 @07:46AM (#6510288) Homepage Journal
    The single biggest problem is that Interstate 70 (which runs across the northern section of the state) goes through some of the most MIND-NUMBINGLY BORING terrain I've ever seen, and since that is how most people who cross the state see it they form an unjustified opinion.

    Most of Kansas used to be inland see, millenia ago. Hence the flatness - the ocean bottom deposited uniformly across the state.

    However, IF you are going to be going through Kansas, let me give you some pointers on where to go:

    Southeastern section: Go see Big Brutus [bigbrutus.org] in West Mineral, KS. [mapquest.com]. If you have any interest in mechanical engineering you'll love this.

    South Central: The Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center [cosmo.org] has the best collection of Russian space hardware outside Russia itself, as well as US gear. They were the first to be made a Smithsonian partner, and that was as much so that the Smithsonian could gain access to the Cosmospere's collection as the other way around. Hutchinson, KS [mapquest.com] - and if you were planning on going across on I-70 I's suggest you drop down on I-35 (throught the Flint Hills [lasr.net])to US-50 then across into Hutch. Stop by Yoder, KS and get some Cinnamon Rolls at the Carriage Crossing Restaurant.
    If you are going towards New Mexico, drop down and take I-160 from Medicine Lodge [mapquest.com] through the Gypsum Hills [naturalkansas.org]. There IS scenery in Kansas - we just don't run our major roads through it.

    North West: If you are heading to Denver, you pretty much have to take either I-70 or K-96. If you are on I-70, stop through Quinter, KS [mapquest.com] and see Castle Rock [naturalkansas.org], a natural formation akin to the Badlands in South Dakota.
    Also, you can go to Monument Rocks [washburn.edu] which is a similar sort of geography.
    Also on I-70 in Hays, KS [mapquest.com] is the Sternberg Museum of Natural History [fhsu.edu] which will be a hit with any parent of children who are interested in dinosaurs.
    • Funny reading this story on /. this morning. I am driving down to Hutchinson, Kansas on Friday. Perhaps i should take along a pancake.....
    • The single biggest problem is that Interstate 70 (which runs across the northern section of the state) goes through some of the most MIND-NUMBINGLY BORING terrain I've ever seen, and since that is how most people who cross the state see it they form an unjustified opinion.

      I disagree. I've driven that section of I-70 and quite enjoyed it. Heck, a lot of it isn't even flat - there are awe very pretty pastoral hills.

    • I've always said that the biggest problem isn't the fact that parts of the state are flat, it's that there are few enough trees (compared to the area from the Ozarks to Ohio), and our roads are built up enough, that you can see how flat the horizon is in most places especially along I-70. Being from Topeka, and driving to Manhattan as a college student in the 90s, I noticed that most of the time when you are on a hill, the next hill is the same height, giving the illusion of flatness, when you have a large

    • Did you just say... Flint Hills? With real hills? In Kansas? Did the guys take that into account in the study?

    • I agree with the poster -- Kansas isn't necessarily boring. Heck, my ex girlfriend lives there, which should count for a lot of excitement, at least in the Wichita area (and she'd skew ANY measure of flatness, except maybe surface roughness, at least at a mesoscopic scale, WAYYY up). However, I'll disagree about the REASON for Kansas' flatness (any other-than-armchair-geologists out there?). By far most of the continental US has been under the ocean for some part of its life, receiving a uniform depositi
    • Most of Kansas used to be inland see, millenia ago
      As opposed to the beautiful Kansas coastline we see today. Oh wait, inland sea. Never mind.
      David
  • Now I just moved home to Central Illinois after living in Kansas for 4 years. I lived in the KC area and I've toured Western Kansas several times and I can tell you that Central Illinois is way flatter than Kansas. Kansas has rolling hills/plains and is only really flat on I-70. Central Illinois is flat. There's no getting around it. When you can look out your door and see 30 miles away (when the corn is down) then you know flat. Of course I've also been to Colorado and Kansas sure looks flat compared
    • Is that even possible? I thought the horizon drops at 16-20 miles? Do you mean skyscrapers? Grain silos?

      No sarcasm intended.
      -Chris
      • Well, maybe 30 miles is a bit of an exageration. But from my house, on a clear day, I can see the Univeristy of Illinois Assembly Hall which is probably 10 stories above ground. The Assembly Hall is about 20 miles North of our place. That's with just the right conditions though. The rest of the time you can easily see 10 miles.
  • As the title says...And Still No Cure for Cancer.
    • And Still No Cure for Cancer.

      I hope you're not trying to suggest that as soon as you graduate from scientist-school you're automatically compelled to always work on curing cancer, 100% of your working time.

      Of course I could be missing your point. Which is entirely possible since I've been working on the hypothesis that London air is murkier than pea-soup all morning and am feeling a little worn down at the moment.
  • Research Experience:
    A year of research to determined Kansas was flatter than a well cooked pancake.

    I would have to skip this candidate just on the conclusion that this person has no life and found a completely meaningless experiment that most likely will be proved to be incorrect by some other hapless soul.

    Now if it were compared to say, Jennifer Lopez's arse, then we have some research there.

  • Poorly run experiment (Score:3, Funny)

    by MiniMike ( 234881 ) on Wednesday July 23, 2003 @10:20AM (#6511596)
    This research is faulty in many ways. They did not account for anisotropy is the samples (i.e. different flatness in different directions) and they fail to mention if the pancake was from the bottom or the top of the stack. Also, I don't think a confocal microscope is the best tool- they probably could have gotten better results with a stylus or an AFM (Atomic Food Microscopy) instrument. With an AFM they could have also nano-indented the sample to hold more syrup. The pancake measurement seems under-sampled from both the digital image processing and the confocal measurements, and it was probably stale well before they finished. I think that this report would have a 'rougher' time in any peer-reviewed journal.

    P.S. Their next research- seeing if the humid summer air is really thicker (more viscous?) than the leftover maple syrup...
    • "Thin air? Why is it always thin air? Never fat air, chubby air, mostly-fit-could-stand-lose-a-few-pounds air?"

      -Garibaldi (Grey 17 is Missing)
  • ...and I can certainly say that not all of Kansas is flat. The Flinthills certainly aren't flat (where I'm from) as anyone that has ever tried to haul a load up one of those hills can tell you. Sure Western Kansas is quite flat. Basically the entire western half of the state is flat (with some exceptions of course, and the line that devides the flat part of Kansas from the feature-rich part of Kansas isn't really straight). Central and Eastern Kansas is anything but flat. Our glacier-cut hills are fair

    • This [ukans.edu] doesn't look very flat.

      LOL! Sure looks flat to me. I think you need to get out of your state more. I'd call that gently rolling countryside, and if that's the best example you can come up with, I don't think there's much left to be said.

      Of course, I've lived in California, New Hampshire, and New York. All of these states have substantial mountain ranges.

      Also, I think the analysis was incorrect. It looks like they included the nearly vertical sides of the pancake, which is not what people refe

  • What They Didn't Tell You (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Euphonious Coward ( 189818 ) on Wednesday July 23, 2003 @11:48AM (#6512475)
    What they carefully left out was that every place you can think of is flatter than a pancake. "Nepal is flatter than a pancake" would have been news to most people, but not so funny.
  • Highest point in Kansas is the smallest mountian in the US.
    See: Mount Sunflower [google.com]
  • See the photo here [confluence.org]. (No joke.)
  • So...Hawaii is perfectly flat, then? Same elevation on all sides...
  • Unfortunately, it seems they used pancakes from International House of Pancakes. The so-called food from this so-called restaurant is severely inferior to any real pancake. Therefore, all of this intensive research should be thrown out and the researchers jailed for gross misconduct.
  • any comments from a ninja that loves pancakes?

    Maybe next they can determine if pouring hot grits down your pants has any effect on petrifying a naked Natalie Portman.

  • I have also heard that if the earth were the size of a billards ball, it would be smoother than any normal current billards ball today.

    hope that makes sense

  • Is the auto-quote generator using PageRank to determine the content of the discussion or something ?

    Bottom quote from this story page:
    Federal grants are offered for... research into the recreation potential of interplanetary space travel for the culturally disadvantaged.

    but the real question is, if space is curved, and Kansas is flatter than a pancake, do interplanetary travelers need maple syrup ?
    ;)
  • Does anybody else think that this sounds remarkably like a headline for a SimCity game??? -dg

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