Outperforming. Expo 2010 Shanghai
Outperforming. Expo 2010 Shanghai

Summary/Abstract: "I really like the Gomboc,” an Indian said to my wife after visiting Hungary’s pavilion at the Shanghai World Fair. He should have said Gömböc,1 the term for a brilliant invention by Hungarian scientists Gábor Domokos and Péter Várkonyi, but innocently used the Hungarian word for dumpling instead. The Gömböc, discovered in 2006, is a homogeneous body with one stable and one unstable point of equilibrium—think of the Weeble, a self-righting toy immortalized by the slogan: “Weebles wobble, but they don’t fall down.” If you believe what the curmudgeonly Hungarian press has written, however, the Gömböc showcased inside Hungary’s pavilion is an apt symbol for the country’s entire Shanghai effort: it capitalizes on its clever scientists yet get the details of the overall plan wrong, it wobbles and turns dough-like. Thankfully, unlike Humpty Dumpty, another mathematical confection, it hasn’t fallen down.

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