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August 15, 2008 9:12 AM

Water Cube Actually a Complex Hexahedron

BEIJING -- The legitimacy of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics was called into question today when one American journalist revealed that the dimensions of the famed Water Cube do not meet the geometric specifications for a cube.

The Water Cube -- the home of Beijing's swimming and diving events -- is actually a parallelepiped, commonly referred to as a hexahedron with three pairs of parallel sides. It is also known in industry circles as "a box."

Experts from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology quickly confirmed the allegations about the building, which is infrequently referred to as the National Aquatics Centre.

"Most certainly, with its right rectangular features, this so-called Water 'Cube' is nothing more than a hoax," said Clark Segal, the university's director of geometric studies. "As everyone knows, this venue could be referred to as a cuboid prism, but certainly not a cube."

Spokesmen from the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games called the assertion "a joking-me assessment."

"Your geometric knowledge is clearly slanted," BOCOG's Xiande Shui said. "We are all friends here, united under one giant cube." He then invited reporters to a noontime briefing on Adidas sneakers held next door to the Main Press Centre's McDonald's restaurant.

Credit for the discovery of the falsified cube goes to Bob Monroe of the Wauwinet Herald, a small bi-weekly based in southern New Jersey.

"You know, I was just sitting there during [Michael] Phelps' 200 meter individual gold medal swim, trying to figure out how to put this new Olympic pin on my bag, when I looked up at the roof," Monroe said. "I just knew something felt wrong with it."

Monroe initially believed that the Water Cube was a six-faced polyhedron, but he also noted afterward that he spent most of his 9th grade geometry class playing Tetris on his TI-83 Plus calculator.

The discovery does raise doubts about the legitimacy of these Olympics, skeptics said.

Mark Spitz, winner of seven gold medals at the 1972 Munich Games, will hold a press conference later today declaring that Michael Phelps' six gold medals should be disqualified due the swimming venue's illegitimate properties, a Spitz spokesperson said.

Others believe the Cube's real identity could lead to even further complications among members of China's Politburo.

"They say they're creating democracy in the Asian sphere," said Lewis Struck, a Fulbright scholar at Beijing Normal University. "But how can we be sure that they're really spreading free markets symmetrically at ratios consistent with pi?"

Many reporters said they were considering using an asterisk when referring to the Water Cube in future stories.

Posted by Dan Oshinsky at 9:12 AM | Comments (11)

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