All Questions
7 questions
45
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Pach's "Animals": What if the genus is positive?
Janos Pach asked a deep question 23 years ago (1988) that remains unsolved today:
Can every animal—a topological ball in $\mathbb{R^3}$ composed of unit cubes glued face-to-face—be ...
- 151k
24
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Building a genus-$n$ torus from cubes
I wonder if this has been studied:
What is the fewest number of unit cubes
from which one can build an $n$-toroid?
The cubes must be glued face-to-face,
and the boundary of the resulting object ...
- 151k
13
votes
3
answers
1k
views
Random Reidemeister moves to unknot
Suppose one has a link diagram of the unknot, and applies random Reidemeister moves
until the unknot is reached.
Surely it requires an exponential number of moves, exponential in, say, the crossing ...
- 151k
12
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Fold-and-cut problem in three dimensions
The fold-and-cut theory states that "Any shape with straight sides can be cut from a single (idealized) sheet of paper by folding it flat and making a single straight complete cut. Such shapes include ...
- 851
2
votes
1
answer
143
views
Triangles and convex hulls in high dimensions
Given a set $S_n$ of $n$ points $\mathbf{x}_1, \mathbf{x}_2, \ldots, \mathbf{x}_n\in\mathbb{R}^d$, such that every $(d+1)$-tuple in $S_n$ is affinely independent, and let $C(S_n)$ be the convex hull ...
- 1,677
1
vote
1
answer
378
views
Bridges between geometry and combinatorics
Geometry and combinatorics are two different branches of mathematics. Does there exist any connection between them? In many cases, mathematicians solve some geometric problems by reducing them to a ...
- 613
1
vote
0
answers
39
views
Homology of the subcomplexes of the "diamond shaped" sphere under 1-norm in $R^n$ as a simplicial complex
The 1-norm on $\mathbb{R}^n$ is defined by $\|v\| = |v_1| + |v_2| + \cdots + |v_n|$ for a vector $v = (v_1, \ldots, v_n) \in \mathbb R^n$.
The unit sphere $S^{n-1}_1$ under the 1-norm is a simplicial ...
- 459