Skip to main content

All Questions

Filter by
Sorted by
Tagged with
28 votes
3 answers
2k views

Is the ratio Perimeter/Area for a finite union of unit squares at most 4?

Update: As I have just learned, this is called Keleti's perimeter area conjecture. Prove that if H is the union of a finite number of unit squares in the plane, then the ratio of the perimeter and ...
22 votes
3 answers
1k views

Equilaterally triangulated surfaces with prescribed boundary

There is a problem in Richard Kenyon's list (Wayback Machine) which I would like to post here, because although I have thought about it from time to time, I have not been able to make the slightest ...
9 votes
2 answers
310 views

Generalized figures of constant width

Is it known which plane figures $Q$ can rotate touching three given circles $A$, $B$, and $C$? This question was asked by Lazar Lyusternik in 1946, there is only one reference to this paper that ...
3 votes
1 answer
94 views

Convex polygon shadows: Shortest equivalent segments

Let $P$ be a convex polygon. Q1. What is the shortest collection of line segments $S$ inside $P$ with the property that both $P$ and $S$ have the same sequence of orthogonal shadows as $P$ and $S$ ...
99 votes
7 answers
20k views

Can we cover the unit square by these rectangles?

The following question was a research exercise (i.e. an open problem) in R. Graham, D.E. Knuth, and O. Patashnik, "Concrete Mathematics", 1988, chapter 1. It is easy to show that $$\sum_{1 \...
43 votes
12 answers
2k views

Can a discrete set of the plane of uniform density intersect all large triangles?

Let S be a discrete subset of the Euclidean plane such that the number of points in a large disc is approximately equal to the area of the disc. Does the complement of S necessarily contain triangles ...
16 votes
1 answer
774 views

Minimizing the excursion of a sum of unit vectors

I have $n$ unit-length vectors $v_i$ in $\mathbb{R}^3$, whose sum is zero: $$ v_1 + v_2 + \cdots + v_n = 0 \; .$$ Now I form the closed polygon $P$ in space by placing them head to tail. So the ...
11 votes
1 answer
424 views

Needle probing for a convex body

Suppose there is an unknown closed convex body $K$ of volume vol$(K) = V$ inside the unit cube $[-\frac{1}{2}, \frac{1}{2}]^d$ in $\mathbb{R}^d$. You are permitted to probe with a (one-dimensional) ...
7 votes
1 answer
439 views

Integral straight-line embeddings of planar graphs

Wikipedia says (in the article on Fáry's theorem), "Heiko Harborth raised the question of whether every planar graph has a straight line representation in which all edge lengths are integers. The ...
27 votes
6 answers
2k views

When shorter means smaller?

Assume a convex figure $F\subset \mathbb R^2$ satisfies the following property: if $f:F\to \mathbb R^2$ is a distance-non-increasing map then its image $f(F)$ is congruent to a subset of $F$. Is it ...