Cylinder - the Wonderfully Round Object that Isn’t Donut-Shaped

The Cylinder, also known as a tube, is a three-dimensional geometric shape that’s always right where you left it. It’s the answer to the question, “What would happen if you rolled a rectangle into a tube?” Besides getting a headache from trying to answer that question, a Cylinder is incredibly useful.

It’s so useful that most of the time you don’t even realize you’re using it. Your pencil, drinking straw, and vacuum cleaner hose - all cylinders. The engine in your car? A bunch of cylinders working together, making your car go vroom-vroom like it’s showing off.

The Cylinder has been around for a long time, and has made its presence known in numerous areas. Archeologists have found ancient Egyptian burial urns shaped like cylinders, and engineers have utilized them in creating everything from engines to water pipes.

In terms of mathematics, the Cylinder is a “prism with circular bases,” which sounds pretty fancy if you ask us. Kind of like how a croissant is just a fancy pastry folded like a letter.

It’s a well-known fact that the Cylinder is not as important to human society as the donut, but let’s be real - it’s pretty close. If we didn’t have cylinders, we wouldn’t have straws, and without straws how would we ever sip our morning coffee without ruining our lipstick?

The beauty of the Cylinder is in its versatility. It can be big or small, long or short, skinny or fat- much like a person’s waistline on Thanksgiving.

So the next time you’re enjoying your morning coffee (thanks to the Cylinder), take a moment to appreciate the simple but invaluable little tube that is the Cylinder. It may not be as flashy as a diamond or a Lamborghini, but it’s essential, reliable and always there when you need it.