Mia Schmallenbach knife set (designed by math)

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baking fool

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These knives look really cool but I wonder if they're actually good knives. I can imagine it might be hard to use a knife that is hollow in the middle like the chef's knife:

Instead of actually designing a set of knives to match their individual purposes, designer Mia Schmallenbach turned to math to tell her what shape they should be. The beautiful Meeting set is the result of drawing a diagram based on the Fibonacci sequence and almost literally joining the dots.

Despite this arbitrary choice, the knives look pretty handy, comprising a paring knife, a carving knife, a 15cm (6-inch) utility knife and a 20cm (almost 8-inch) chef’s knife. All of these knives nest together like Russian-dolls and fit perfectly inside a big stainless-steel (or wooden) block.

The Fibonacci sequence, you’ll no doubt remember from school, starts with 0, 1 and continues by adding the previous two numbers together: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 and so on. It can then be used to make shapes. Plotting squares whose sides are the length of successive Fibonacci numbers and then drawing an arc through their opposite corners will give the Golden Spiral, a shaped found in nature: the nautilus shell, for example. By making this shape, along with others suggested by the sequence, Schmallenbach came up with the design.
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/06/beautiful-nesting-knives-designed-by-mathematics/



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Mia Schmallenbach - Brussels, Belgium - Meeting
 
They look really spiffy. Looks like a case of form over function though.
 
I would not buy any knives that I hadn't held in my hand to get the feel of the heft and the handle.

A chef's knife should be an extension of your arm/hand.
 
Those Russian nesting dolls they mention have only one purpose - a toy, so I am afraid are these knives.
 
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