Apparently, there is a long-running Twitter argument over whether or not hotdogs are sandwiches.

This is the most important issue in our placid year of 2020, but it amazes that the answer is in doubt.  Ignorance cannot account for the wrong answer; a physiological condition must be involved.  Most probably within the inner ear.  See your doctor.

A hot dog is a sandwich in the sense that the x axis is the y axis.  QED.

(“Quite Excellently Done.”)

While this obviously requires no elaboration, not everyone is well-versed in the theoretical side of gastro-engineering.  Learning a few basics might do wonders for your consumption regime, in both enjoyment and efficiency.

But first, to belabor:  sandwiches are composite foods whose load-bearing components—breads–are oriented along the x-axis (“horizontally”, for the layman).  Hotdogs are oriented “vertically”—via buns–with the y-axis. *

(As always in the so-called “real”, i.e. non-Minecraft world, the z-axis gets the short end of the x/y stick.)

On the off-chance that mental inadequacy is the source of confusion, let’s look at why orientation matters.  For you poor “a hot dog is a sandwich” souls, it’s something humans call gravity.

Gravity explains why buns are only theoretically a single unit of grain-based infrastructure.  Laughably impossible in practice, of course.  Sea-level air density is 1.225 kg/m^3, whereas at that same elevation a cubic meter of bratwurst weighs 2,037 lbs.

So…if your hotdog remains in one piece, you are not hotdogging correctly.

Sandwiches, then, are designed to work with gravity.  Hotdogs are a quixotic gesture thrust into the curved face of an uncaring space-time, for the same reason men teach dogs how to scuba-dive.  Because it can, however awkwardly, be done.

The main takeaway from this is obviously the need for standardized nomenclature**.  Communication is always key, and government research grants are desperately needed.

Oh, apologies.  Fourth-dimensional analytics were also promised.  But of course.  The t variable is very simple, involving only myriad organic thermochemical reactions within the foodstuff, an interactive dynamic stochastic environment, matrixed-condiment tables, and saliva.  It quickly becomes the most salient factor in interpersonal relationships, exemplified by phrases such as “…while it’s hot”, “this is how you get ants,” and, most poignantly, “NOT IN THE CAR!”.

And again:  research grants.  Needed.

*Of course, every load-bearing scenario involves all three spatial dimensions.  For example:  sandwich-lovers utilize a y-axis compression technique for containment purposes.  This advanced method is known, technically, as smushing.

**“Sandwich” is in fact the best generic term available to culinary science.  It entirely accounts for the x-axis for all values of N greater than one.  (N=1 foods are known by common terms such as pizza, tostada, decapitated Oreo, etc.  The legal designation for a N>2 sandwich is Dagwood.)