LEGO Trivia

Hob Took · Post by **Hob Took** » Mon Jan 28, 2008 2:07 am

I was just looking around wikipedia for some stuff and decided to search LEGO. Along with a rather lengthy description was a couple bits of trivia which I found interesting. For the link to the entire article click!

1.Lego Group produces over 306 million (miniature) tires each year - more than any other tire manufacturer in the world.

2.Six 2x4 Lego bricks of the same color can be put together in 915,103,765 ways, and just three bricks of the same color offer 1,560 combinations. The figure of 102,981,500 is often given for six pieces, but it is incorrect. The number 102,981,504 (four more than that figure) is the number of six-piece towers (of a height of six).

3.On average, there are 62 Lego bricks for every person on earth.

4.Only one percent of the plastic waste in Lego factories goes unrecycled.

I don't quite understand the second one though here is a list of how many combinations 2x4 bricks can be put in (without counting rotations).

Bricks Configurations
1 1
2 24
3 1,560
4 119,580
5 10,116,403
6 915,103,765
7 85,747,377,755
8 8,274,075,616,387

Hob Took

Donut · Post by **Donut** » Mon Jan 28, 2008 2:33 am

Six 2x4 Lego bricks of the same color can be put together in 915,103,765 way

I wonder how they calculated this, very impressive information.

Lord Felix · Post by **Lord Felix** » Mon Jan 28, 2008 2:55 am

Very impressive information, although 2x4 plates would be able to be put together even MORE ways (tilted plates fit between studs) !!

Post by **davee123** » Mon Jan 28, 2008 4:19 am

A bit more about the problem:
http://www.math.ku.dk/~eilers/lego.html

Essentially, Lego came up with the statistic in 1974 as a way to demonstrate the near infinite possibilities of building with Lego bricks. But because they didn't have any computers capable of the calculation back then (or, none that Lego could use if such things existed), they calculated a slightly different statistic, and published that. And now that we've got better computers, we can calculate what they probably *wanted* to calculate all those years ago.

DaveE

Donut · Post by **Donut** » Mon Jan 28, 2008 4:32 am

Very cool information DaveE, thanks for some shedding light on my question. I always loved probability problems.

Norro · Post by **Norro** » Mon Jan 28, 2008 12:34 pm

davee123 wrote:A bit more about the problem:
http://www.math.ku.dk/~eilers/lego.html

Cheers! I looked at Lego's number when I saw it in the Ultimate Lego Book and had a hunch it was wrong but lacked the skill to deduce why...

God Bless,

Nathan