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From: gjk@talcott.UUCP (Greg J Kuperberg)
Newsgroups: net.math
Subject: Re: Re: Strange Shapes
Message-ID: <121@talcott.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 25-Nov-84 17:26:33 EST
Article-I.D.: talcott.121
Posted: Sun Nov 25 17:26:33 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 28-Nov-84 03:00:47 EST
References: <3489@ecsvax.UUCP>
Organization: Harvard
Lines: 14

> I have heard this one before - you can't paint it, but can
> fill it with paint, pour out the paint and thus it is painted.
> My only problem is the amount of time it takes to fill it with
> a finite amount of paint.  (Ref: FTL discussion in net.physics.)
> --henry schaffer  north carolina state university

A little thought will give a better answer:

Painting an object means putting a coat of paint *of uniform thickness* on
the object.  All objects with finite volume and infinite surface area have
arbitrarily small cracks and crevices where a coat of paint "does not fit".

As someone aptly pointed out, an example of such an object is a snowflake.
Try putting a coat of paint on a snowflake.