• ChicoSuave@lemmy.worldEnglish
      371·
      3 months ago

      The math is so complex that research into Pringles with ridges was considered a national secret and it was classified. DARPA was rumored to have provided partial funding.

      • tetris11@lemmy.mlEnglish
        1·
        3 months ago

        Like Velcro and GPS, Pringle research came straight out of the US military-industrial complex, as a byproduct of the flying saucer research conducted at Area 51.

        • JackGreenEarth@lemm.eeEnglish
          108·
          3 months ago

          Lol, you’re both wrong. AI absolutely can assist, and sometimes be the main part in finding patterns/discoveries, but in the case of the hyperbolic plane, it was created by humans.

          • RecluseRamble@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            106·
            3 months ago

            AI absolutely can assist, and sometimes be the main part in finding patterns/discoveries

            Exactly. The figuring out part is a human interpretation of the finding. No machine learning model of the current tech can reliably tell you if it found something new.

      • zerakith@lemmy.mlEnglish
        17·
        3 months ago

        Though worth saying that the link suggests the computing was used for aerodynamics for ensuring production wouldn’t destroy them not. For the shape as such. I’ve also seem it said that the can is part of that too.

        • zerakith@lemmy.mlEnglish
          4·
          3 months ago

          I’m pretty sure it’s real. I met someone once who worked in materials research for food and they said that modelling was big there because the scope for experimentation is more limited. In materials for construction where they wanted to change a property they could play around with adding new additives and seeing what happens. For food though you can’t add anything beyond a limited set of chemicals that already have approval from the various agencies* and therefore they look at trying to fine tune in other ways.

          So for chocolate, for example, they control lots of material properties by very careful control of temperature and pressure as it solidifies. This is why if chocolate melts and resolidifies you see the white bits of milk that don’t remain within the materia.

          *Okay you can add a new chemical but that means a time frame of over a decade to then get approval. I think the number of chemicals that’s happened to is very very small and that’s partly because the innovation framework of capitalism is very short term.

  • blind3rdeye@lemm.eeEnglish
    55·
    3 months ago

    With the stuff about ‘super computers’, this seems more like a shitpost than a science meme.

        • FuglyDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
          81·
          3 months ago

          I mean, you can just google “pringles super computers” They did use a supercomputer in modeling the thing, most articles are useless cuz they’re not going to go into details about how or why.

          or here’s a CNN article about it. the blurb is just

          “Pringles potato chips are designed using [supercomputing] capabilities – to assess their aerodynamic features so that on the manufacturing line they don’t go flying off the line,” said Dave Turek, vice president of deep computing at IBM. Personally, though, you’re missing out on this gem

          Keep in mind, pringles were around since 1968, apparently. modeling and simulating dynamic airflow was probably barely in it’s infancy. (and even to day, computational fluid dynamics is some exceedingly hard math to rock)

          • prenatal_confusion@lemmy.oneEnglish
            1·
            3 months ago

            Thanks for the reply! Yes sure and I did that but was a bit irked that the link you posted as a source for information regarding the supercomputing was (sorry) useless.

            Anyways thanks for caring :)

            Cheers

  • LNRDrone@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    447·
    3 months ago

    Somehow they also designed them so the tube goes stale roughly 2 minutes after opening it. Also the lovely texture reminiscent of sawdust. Truly a marvel of engineering.

    • M137@lemmy.worldEnglish
      751·
      3 months ago

      I don’t think you’re supposed to eat the tube, shouldn’t matter that it goes stale.

    • smeg@feddit.ukEnglish
      5·
      3 months ago

      “Once you pop you can’t stop” is actually a warning about this

  • Ephera@lemmy.mlEnglish
    342·
    3 months ago

    Personally, it always decreased satisfaction that it breaks unpredictably, because I’d get crumbs everywhere. In particular, the shape also hinders putting them far enough into your mouth to catch the crumbs.
    Definitely prefer chips which are just sliced potatoes. Them being a naturally grown structure makes them unpredictable enough for my taste.

  • arin@lemmy.worldEnglish
    15·
    3 months ago

    Also abot 10-15% of thr chips crumble at the bottom to cushion the rest of the pringles

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.worldEnglish
    12·
    3 months ago

    This meme is wrong and likely based on a Reddit post that is itself wrong.

    “TIL that in the '50s P&G used a supercomputer for designing Pringles…”

    The only source I found referencing pringles association with a supercomputer was a 2007 article with this sentence:

    Pringles potato chips are designed using [supercomputing] capabilities – to assess their aerodynamic features so that on the manufacturing line they don’t go flying off the line," said Dave Turek, vice president of deep computing at IBM.)

    Pringle’s didn’t exist until 1968. Why would they waste a decade’s worth of supercomputing time (per the Reddit post that they were designed in the “‘50s using a supercomputer”) to design a potato chip?

    It does not state that the chips were designed in ‘68 with a supercomputer. It directly states that “today’s supercomputers”…”are creating potato chips”, so their current design was done that way for the purposes of expedited manufacturing processes.

    The Reddit posts even links to the article stating that the reference for supercomputer usage in Pringle’s design is modern.

      • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        3 months ago

        I developed it. I did not invent it. That was done by a German gentlemen whose name I’ve forgotten for years. I developed the machine that cooks them. He had invented the basic idea, how to make the potato dough, pressing it between two forms, more or less as in a wrap-around, immersing them in hot cooking oil, and so forth and so on. And we were then called in, I was in the engineering development division, and asked to develop mass production equipment to make these chips. And we divided the task into the dough making/dough rolling portion, which was done by Len Hooper, and the cooking portion, which was done by me, and then the pickoff and salting portion, which was done by someone else, and then the can filling/can sealing portion which was done by a man who was almost driven insane by the program. Because he would develop a machine, and he would have it almost ready to go, and they would say “Oh, instead of 300 cans a minute, make it 500 cans a minute.” And so he would have to throw out a bunch of stuff, and develop the new machine, and when he got that one about ready, they’d say “make it 700 cans a minute.” And they almost put him in a mental hospital. He took his job very seriously and he just about flipped out.

        So no mention of a supercomputer in this invention story.

    • xthexder@l.sw0.comEnglish
      191·
      3 months ago

      That actually makes way more sense why a supercomputer was involved. (Keeping in mind, our phones are likely more powerful than what they are talking about)

      Edit: Oh, it’s worse than I thought. The CRAY-1 supercomputer is 4.5x slower than a Raspberry Pi.

  • sundray@lemmus.orgEnglish
    7·
    3 months ago

    I remember reading somewhere that they also deliberately put different amounts of flavorant on each side of the chip so that you can choose to have more or less flavor intensity based on which side you place against your tongue.

    • StereoTrespasser@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      3 months ago

      If by deliberate you mean the sprayers that spray all the artificial flavors, liquefied added nutrients, and related shit are on top of the “chip” as it moves down a conveyor, then sure I guess it’s deliberate.

      • SkyezOpen@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        3 months ago

        Which sucks because right way up it fits perfectly around your tongue so it’s very easy to eat. But if you want the flavor, you gotta flip it over and it’s harder to completely cover it with your mouth, resulting in crumbs flying everywhere.

      • sundray@lemmus.orgEnglish
        1·
        3 months ago

        lol, well it was Pringles propaganda, so I’m sure they were trying to make themselves look like they spared no expense “engineering” their snack food. 😆

  • MonkderVierte@lemmy.mlEnglish
    71·
    3 months ago

    They should be smaller though, so they fit in one piece into the mouth withouth hurting yourself.

    • Thorry84@feddit.nlEnglish
      12·
      3 months ago

      Huh? I can very easily fit an entire Pringle in my mouth. And I don’t think I have that big of a mouth actually. They also don’t have any sharp corners or break into sharp pieces, so I can eat it without worrying about cutting the inside of my mouth.

      I don’t really like what this says about me.