Why ice cream cones are shaped the way they are

Thanks for kind comments. Yes, it was meant as a little light hearted fun. I've been writing a series of articles about solids inscribed inside others, and this seemed a (stretched) way of giving the article a different spin.

Actually Δ ADE is not a right triangle. (Unless A is infinitely far away from D and E.)

Edit: thanks TheLoneWolfling, I was looking at the wrong angle.

Err, are you sure about that? It touches at one point, so that makes it a tangent, so it's perpendicular to the circle. I think it it a right angle.

(This is the internet, so I'm sure there will shortly be lots of posts of: Yes it is, no it isn't, and we'll find out for sure).

Wrong.

The angle ADE is a right angle, as AD is tangential to the sphere. Hence, Δ ADE is a right triangle.

I'm assuming your mistake was thinking that it was AED that was the right angle, not ADE.

That's pretty funny. Like the author said, it may not be true, but it's a fun piece of analysis.

I can almost remember doing math like this at school.