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?

  • asterfield@lemmy.world
    3·
    1 year ago

    If you make the straw less long, it’s a donut. And a donut obviously has 1 hole. So a long donut only has one hole. Q.E.D

  • SHITPOSTING_ACCOUNT@feddit.de
    2·
    1 year ago

    How many holes does a donut have?

    Now make the donut higher. A lot higher. Now you have a donut-tunnel. Now make the walls thinner. Now shrink it. Now you have a straw.

    One hole.

  • krayj@lemmy.world
    2·
    1 year ago

    1 ‘hole’ if you can call it that. Imagine if the straw started life as a solid cylinder and you had to bore out the inside to turn it into a straw: if that were the case, you would drill 1 hole all the way through it.

    Another analogy is a donut. Would you agree that a donut has just 1 hole? I would say yes. Now stretch that donut vertically untill you have a giant cylinder with a hole in the middle. That’s basically now just a straw. The fact you stretched it doesn’t increase the number of holes it has.

    • Fanfpkd@aussie.zoneEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      So as you begin to bore, that is one hole. But when you go through the other side, you have in fact made two holes. I think a donut can actually be thought of either as one hole or two holes, or more correctly; two holes that are the same hole.

      Back to the straw; if you make another hole in the side of the straw half way up, would it still have one hole? Or two holes? Or three holes?

      A bit like thinking of the human digestive tract, most of us would agree that your mouth is a different hole to your anus, but we agree that they are in two ends of the same system

  • theherk@lemmy.world
    2·
    1 year ago

    Classic topology question. Absolutely one hole; it goes all the way through.

    Of course, connotatively, two is a fine assessment, but not in topology.

    How many holes does a donut have? Now just try to image the real difference between a straw and a donut. Is there one, aside from deliciousness?

  • ℕ𝕖𝕞𝕠@midwest.social
    1·
    1 year ago

    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.

  • Fedizen@lemmy.world
    0·
    1 year ago

    It has two exits, one hole.

    If you drill a hole in a block of wood you create one hole not two, note that whether or not the drill exits the opposite side, only one hole has been created despite differing numbers of exits.

  • assassinatedbyCIA@lemmy.world
    0·
    1 year ago

    A straw is geometrically the same as a circular piece of paper with a z depth of zero and a hole in the middle. Because the z depth is zero there is only one hole. As you add thickness the one hole remains. Therefore, a straw has one hole.