The other day in calc class, my teacher cut up a pear into a bunch of circular slices. We then approximated the volume of the slices to get a good guess of what the volume of the pear was. It made me realize just what a funny thing a pear is. Its a fruit with which i have little experience. I already knew about this volume by integration technique she was trying to teach, so my mind decided to explore the food pyramid some more.
I became troubled when i thought about coconuts and pineapple. My limited recollection of biology told me that a fruit has seeds and vegetables don't. I've never seen seeds in a pineapple before. I've also never seen a coconut with seeds; i thought it was a seed - so does that make it a fruit or a nut?
My quest for answers led me to the fruit page of Wikipedia. It was able to calm me down by explaining that only the pineapples with vestigial seeds are generally commercially available and that coconuts are in fact fruits because they come from the flowery part of the plant.
If you ever get bored, Wikipedia can be a fun place to go. They have a lot of intersting lists or you can just check out a random page.
Posted by Matthew at February 7, 2004 10:05 PM