"Maximizing Your Fruit Haul: The Collapse Threshold of Fruit Displays"
Researchers from Chile have developed a computer simulation to determine the stability of granularly arranged monolayers, such as fruit piles with sloped edges, and predict the point of collapse when spheres are removed. The study, published in Physical Review E, shows that while extreme slopes can collapse with the removal of a single sphere, modest slopes can withstand the removal of many spheres without collapsing. On average, up to 10% of the spheres can be removed before a pile collapses, suggesting that individual shoppers are unlikely to cause a collapse by taking one piece of fruit, unless multiple extractions have already occurred at the same spot. The team aims to apply their findings to other potential collapse scenarios in the real world.