OLYMPIC RINGS

Now B log, sit down, take a deep breath, make yourself a nice strong coffee and concentrate. Concentrate with a capital ‘C’. I don’t want to get technical with you, but we could make a killing here! Do you know anyone with connections to any of the Chinese Triads, the Mafia, Italian or American?? Anyone who can knock off a few thousand printed t-shirts and would like to join us in our enterprise?

Bear with me.

The Olympic authorities are a bit keen when someone tries to use their rings. They have them registered? Have they? All of them?? Just think if we use the rings on a few thousand commemorative t-shirts, we could make a killing … but we need a quick turn around on the printing front!!!!

Bear with me.

In 1964, while I was doing a few sums at the Pink Panther University, I took a night off my regime of intense study and I went to the cinema with a few other fellow students who were also athletes. We went to the cinema to see the regarded film of the 1964 Olympic Games. At about the same time I was looking around for an interesting subject about sums to give to my tutor for a thesis. Semi-conscious, watching the film reel in, an idea suddenly hit me. I think it was an idea that suddenly hit me but it could have been a lump of ice cream thrown by one of my mates. Rings. Five ring. Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding! That was it … my dissertation … rings and knots. Not been done before?? A Kirkham original?? I checked and it was an original idea!

Bear with me.

My first mistake was that I assumed the rings of the Olympic Games were consistent, that is, they were the same configuration for every Olympic Games. I checked. Oh no … Melbourne was different. Was that because the Melbourne Games were in the Southern hemisphere?? Possibly. (in 2000, I learned that this was not the case, Sydney conformed). No matter, it didn’t dampen my enthusiasm. It did not change the theory I had bussing in my head.

Bear with me, Blog.

What if the Olympic authorities had registered their set of rings only!!! That leaves me, you Blog and the Chinese triad, the Mafia, American or Italian, to make a killing without fear of any prosecution. We could use the other 15 sets! 15 you ask Blog?? Why 15?? Well it’s like this. What I investigated all those years ago, was the number of possible intersections of five rings of the colours blue, yellow, black, green, red taken in that order. Now rather that slog through a load of colouring of rings, I decided to impress my tutor by adopting a sums approach to the problem.

Wake up, Blog. Bear with me.

Using binary, a ‘1’ to indicate a crossing over and a ‘0’ for a crossing under for each intersection, there being eight intersections in each pattern of rings …so taken in order, left to right, the flag now used by the Olympic committee is

10101010

Each pair indicating a single colour. So, without wishing to send you completely to sleep, Blog, or to give you nightmares, ….. Blog. BLOG. BLOG.BLOG. BLOG. Come back here. This is interesting. Sit down, shut up and pay attention. Listen and you might learn something. Each pair indicating a single colour, but it might be easier for you Blog to just concentrate on the yellow and green intersections; not the best sums way but easier to understand!!! So from left to right. The yellow is over (1) then under (0) the blue continuing to travel from left to right, the yellow is over then under the black and so on, thus producing 10101010. As I said, Blog, not a goodie sums way but not to worry, we can’t all be a little Gottfried can we?

Now, so the rings don’t fall apart, a ring must intersect the next ring only once, for each of the five rings. So an over (1) must be followed by an under (0) in a pair, and visa versa. Now it is dead easy peasy to find all the arrangement of rings just by messing with the (1)s and (0)s, not allowing two same digit pairs to occur together.

Wakey, wakey, we are nearly there Blog….

10101010

10101001

10100110

10011010

01101010

01011010

01100110

01101001

01010101

01010110

01011001

01100101

10010101

10100101

10011001

10010110

So there you have it, Blog. I am glad you are back with us. 16 Olympic flags. And the Olympic committee only use one. Get in touch with the Triad and Mafia like now, Blog. Get the colour screen printing presses going like crazy. What shall we do with the first quids, Blog? Buy an Olympic commemorative T-shirt? Which pattern?

Shall I colour in the rings for you, now Blog? Oh yes, no fooling, no mistake matey boy, in case you were wondering!!!!

 

Photograph Quiz:

Photo no. 77:-And which one of the above patterns was used for the design of the Melbourne Olympic flag??

We could expand on the idea. We could also do T shirts in the above with five triangles, five squares, five ellipses, five fingers, five veg a day, five tiny toes, high five, five aside football, the famous five. Three dimensions is much more interesting … set off with five cubes before you try five spheres Blog. Why? Try it.

And what happened with my dissertation? My piss der resistance. Well I did more than five rings in a line, built the pattern above and below and then went onto different types of knots:- ‘Mr Kirkham, are you trying to run circles around this department? Are you trying to tie us down? Olympic rings and nots are knot whot we are about at the Pink Panther University’. So Senate gave me an attendance certificate. Ta.

                                                  Colin