The Wobbling Table

There is a very simple fix for a wobbling table: rotate it.

Sometimes a table needs to keep the orientation it has, but if you're free to rotate it, give it a try. It's amazing how often it works. In fact, under certain conditions (all legs equal, table symmetrical, no steps in ground) it has been mathematically proven to always work.

My favorite intuitive proof that this works goes like this:
Think of how a four-legged table wobbles: Two diagonally opposite legs are in contact with ground and it wobbles between the other two. Call the legs a, b, c and d. To start with the table is wobbling between a and c. now rotate the table 90 degrees. Now b and d are where a and c were, so it’s wobbling between b and d. At some point between these two states, it had to transition between the two wobbles, so at that point there was no wobble at all.