Minimizing the footprint of your laptop (on your bedside table)

TL;DR

This paper presents a mathematical solution to optimize the placement of a laptop on a bedside table to minimize its contact area, addressing a common practical problem with an elegant approach.

Contribution

It introduces a novel mathematical method to determine the optimal laptop placement for minimal footprint on a bedside table.

Findings

Derived a formula for minimal contact area placement

Provided a practical solution for arranging laptops in constrained spaces

Demonstrated the application of elementary mathematics to real-world spatial problems

Abstract

I often work on my laptop in bed. When needed, I park the laptop on the bedside table, where the computer has to share the small available space with a lamp, books, notes, and heaven knows what else. It often gets quite squeezy. Being regularly faced with this tricky situation, it finally occurred to me to determine once and for all how to place the laptop on the bedside table so that its ``footprint'' - the area in which it touches the bedside table - is minimal. In this note I give the solution of this problem, using some very pretty and elementary mathematics.