the Junda Ratio

If you’ve kept up with the exciting new developments in the field of conversation geometry as I have, you are surely salivating over the juicy thoughts of what is to come. However, another similarity we may have is the desire for a more unifying theory. Sure, we’ve presented plenty of ideas for you to mull over while you have much better things to be doing, but what happens when you encounter a conversation configuration that has not yet been catalogued by our visionary researchers. Well, what I present to you is a much anticipated theory that attempts to provide a more general look at the complex web of conversations we seem to ensnare ourselves in with uncanny regularity.

The Junda Ratio is quite simply put as the ratio of the perimeter of the conversation divided by the area enclosed by the conversation. Now, I know you are probably thinking, “how could a conversation possibly enclose an area?” The way I define area here is the area of the (quite possibly irregular and sometimes concave) polygon created by connecting each member of a conversation with a straight line. Then, obviously, the perimeter of this conversation is defined as the sum of the lengths of all of the aforementioned line segments.

The main principle behind this theory is that minimizing the perimeter to area ratio will ensure that, on the whole, members of a conversation are physically as close as possible to each other. It also ensures that there is a reasonably even distribution of people across the conversation. A brief look at the implications of this theory suggests that a circular table has the best conversation geometry of any configuration because it has the smallest possible Junda ratio. This seems to be in agreement with my common sense, boding well for the longevity of this theory.

MMJ