Timeline for Minimum distance between two arbitrary circles in space?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
5 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Apr 15, 2012 at 13:35 | comment | added | Joseph O'Rourke | @Robert: Thanks for the explanation! | |
| Apr 15, 2012 at 5:04 | comment | added | Robert Israel | The critical points are the roots of a polynomial whose coefficients are analytic in the parameters of the circles. The only thing that could be "piecewise" is which root gives the minimum. The polynomial can be solvable by radicals for some particular values of the parameters (e.g. those for which the answer is obvious by symmetry), but not for "generic" values. | |
| Apr 12, 2012 at 21:37 | comment | added | Ryan Budney | To me it seems like a rather vain hope to think its purely solvable by radicals. But presumably there's a fairly simple piecewise solvable-by-radicals solution ? | |
| Apr 12, 2012 at 21:32 | history | edited | Joseph O'Rourke | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Added a second source.; deleted 1 characters in body
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| Apr 12, 2012 at 20:58 | history | answered | Joseph O'Rourke | CC BY-SA 3.0 |