this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2023
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At work we somehow landed on the topic of how many holes a human has, which then evolved into a heated discussion on the classic question of how many holes does a straw have.

I think it's two, but some people are convinced that it's one, which I just don't understand. What are your thoughts?

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

A regular straw has zero holes. The central cavity, through which beverages flow, is not part of the straw, and hence it's endpoints are not holes in the straw.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (2 children)

A straw is topologically the same as a donut. It absolutely has one hole.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Doughnuts don't have holes, "donutholes" notwithstanding. A doughnut is a torus. If you poke through the side of a doughnut, then it has a hole.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Take a pancake. Put a hole in it. It's now a torus.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Sure, but it's a pancake with a hole in it. Pancakes ought to be disks (which is, topologically, a squashed sphere).

If you put a hole in a doughnut it is no longer a torus. A hole deforms the manifold of an object.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

by that logic, holes do not exist. holes are by definition not part of the material.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

But they are present where you'd expect the material of the object. No one expects a straw to be a solid cylinder, ergo, the central cavity is not a hole.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

That's not how it works. It's pretty unanimously understood that a donut has a hole, yet nobody expects material to be there, even though there are donuts without holes.

There are no straws without a hole. A straw without a hole is a stick. The hole is an integral part of the straw.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I see, so like, if it identifies as a hole it's not a hole? So a cheese grater has no holes. But if I jam a screwdriver through the cheese grater, now it has a hole? What if I like the new hole and want to consider it a part of the cheese grater? Do we hold a vote on which hole identifies as a property of the object? Or do objects self-identify? I don't speak cheese grater, this is going to get difficult.