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by mhb 1014 days ago
No. It's the other way around. If someone did FEA on the track and showed you a stress map, it would be obvious how uninteresting framing it as an engineering problem is.
2 comments

The question opens with a question about the material properties of a physical object and many of the replies address that.

As a pure math problem it’s got a few constraints such as the track not physically intersecting with itself which go beyond the stated question.

So yes it’s a toy problem, but one constrained by real world objects.

Yeah, that's human interest to get you interested in the problem and how it occurred to the author. Do you think the trolley problem is about trolley cars on rails with switches?
The most upvoted response was objectively wrong due to real world constraints.

The real world is irrelevant in the trolly problem or the 4 color theorem etc.

You may personally be interested in it as a purely mathematical problem, but he’s looking for a real world answer so poor abstractions are useless. On the other hand “I would first check for track flatness. When locked in with extra effort, the loop will warp a little, basically going into 3d instead of flat 2d.” is a useful shortcut.

> he’s looking for a real world answer

Based on his history in StackExchange, it is unlikely Lezzup is looking for a real world answer. The top tags of his posts are: mathematics, sudoku, geometry, logical-deduction, sequence, and enigmatic-puzzle.

https://puzzling.stackexchange.com/users/84683/lezzup

“I am sure this could be calculated mathematically, but I prefer a more quick, practical way.”
As it seems that English is not his first language, and that quote you offered appears to contradict "I know I could just take one piece out, and put it back in to feel it myself, but I am looking for a more logical way, so I am able to reason it", and based on the provenance of his other postings, these appeals to contort the question into some kind of uninteresting material science one are not credible.
It's a real world problem, but one constrained by toy objects.
I’d argue is a chemistry problem, or maybe material science, as the type of plastic dictates the stress tolerance.