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Length and thickness of bamboo internodes: a beautiful curve


The length of bamboo internodes increases from the base to the middle of the pole, and decreases from the middle to the tip. The thickness of the bamboo wall, for its part, decreases from base to tip.

Even if many techniques can be used by the craftsman, for instance straightening the strips using heat, understanding closely the structure of bamboo poles can elegantly save time and energy. I can infer a rough statistical model from these measurements, to predict the thickness of the wall depending on the location along the bamboo pole. I send this letter on the 1st day of each month to my gracious readers to update on my work in progress, my observations, my — hopefully elegant — experiments.

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