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5 votes
0 answers
199 views

Existence of a honeycomb composed by nearly-hyperspherical $d$-dimensional cells having the same shape and size

Let $\mathcal{H}$ the class of all honeycombs composed by $d$-dimensional cells $C$ having all the same shape and size in a $d$-dimensional space $\mathcal{S}$. Let $s(C)$ and $\ell(C)$ be ...
7 votes
3 answers
1k views

How can we count lines in an n-x-n rectangular array?

Is there a formula for the number of lines that contain exactly two points through an n x n rectangular array of points?
4 votes
0 answers
246 views

Distance properties of the permutations of a set of points in a Euclidean space

We are given a set of $n$ distinct points $S=\{\mathbf{x}_1, \mathbf{x}_2, \ldots, \mathbf{x}_n\}$ in a Euclidean space $\mathbb{R}^d$, where the distance between two points $\mathbf{x}_i,\mathbf{x}_j\...
5 votes
2 answers
304 views

Is there a 4-polytope without 3-gonal and 4-gonal faces, other than the 120-cell?

The question is in the title: Question: Is there any 4-dimensional polytope without 3-gonal and 4-gonal faces (of dimension two), other than the 120-cell? I consider only convex polytopes (convex ...
13 votes
2 answers
3k views

How many squares can be formed by using n points?

How many squares can be formed by using n points on a 3 dimensional space? Like using 4 points, there is 1 square be formed Using 5 points, still 1 square Using 6 points, 3 squares can be formed
5 votes
1 answer
361 views

What is known about the duals of cyclic polytopes?

What is known about the duals of cyclic polytopes, in particular, their facets (or equivalently, the vertex-figures of cyclic polytopes)? In even dimensions, all facets of the dual are ...
4 votes
1 answer
293 views

Number of points in a lattice and an oblong box

I have a very simple question in geometry of numbers. (It is a slight modification of Counting points on the intersection of a box and a lattice .) There's a bound I can easily prove, and it's good ...
14 votes
2 answers
878 views

Sets of evenly distributed points in the Euclidean plane

Is there a set $P \subset \mathbb{R}^2$ of points in the Euclidean plane whose intersection with every convex subset of $\mathbb{R}^2$ of area $1$ is nonempty but finite? If the answer is yes, can $P$...
1 vote
2 answers
227 views

A question about dense sets

Suppose that $A$ is a given subset of $I=[0,1],\ $ and $ \left\{ x_j = \frac{j}{m} \right\}_{j=0}^{m}\ $ is the $m$-partition of $I$, and $\nu(m)$ is the number of $\ [x_{i-1},x_{i}]\ $ such that $\ [...
5 votes
1 answer
177 views

Orientations of triples of points in the plane

Given a finite indexing-set $I$ and a collection $P = \{P_i: \ i \in I\}$ of points in the plane no three of which are collinear, let $I_{(3)}$ denote the set of ordered triples of distinct elements ...
4 votes
2 answers
94 views

Finding a not too slim triangulation with prescribed vertices on $\mathbb R^2$

Let us fix a constant $r>1$. Let $d(x,y)$ denote the distance between points $x,y\in \mathbb R^2$. Suppose we have a discreet subset $X\subset \mathbb R^2$ such that 1) For any two points $x,x'\...
4 votes
0 answers
81 views

Number of orders of distances between points on a line

Points $a_1, a_2, \dots, a_n$ on a line form a set from $n(n-1)/2$ distances between them. Suppose all that distances are different, numerating them from the shortest to the longest one we obtain some ...
6 votes
0 answers
247 views

An extension of Erdos' distinct distances problem based on circles of various radii

Consider a collection $C_1,C_2, \dots, C_n$ of circles in the plane and suppose that the center of $C_i$ is $o_i$ and the radius of $C_i$ is $r_i$. We will define the relative distance between the ...
11 votes
2 answers
797 views

Three half circles on the plane may not meet nicely

Let $H$ denote the union of the northern hemisphere of the unit circle $S^{1}$ with the interval $[-1,1]$ on the $x$-axis. That is, $H=\{(x,\sqrt{1-x^{2}}):-1\le x\le 1\}\cup\{(x,0):-1\le x\le 1\}$ ...
3 votes
1 answer
152 views

Are there any more polytopes whose 2-faces are identical 4-gons?

What are examples for convex polytope $P\subset \Bbb R^d,d\ge 3$ for which holds $P$ is 2-face transitive (that is, all 2-faces are equivalent under the symmetries of $P$), and all 2-faces of $P$ are ...
6 votes
1 answer
429 views

Bichromatic pencils

A pencil is a collection of some lines through a point, called the center of the pencil. If the points of the plane are colored, then call a pencil bichromatic if there is a color that is present on ...
3 votes
0 answers
137 views

Aperiodic tile with rational area

Margulis and Mozes constructed aperiodic tiling system on the hyperbolic plane consisting of a single tile(hyperbolic polygon) whose area (or each inner angle) is irrational multiple of $\pi$. Having ...
7 votes
0 answers
122 views

Discrepancy of the finite approximation of the Lebesgue measure

Let $\mu$ be a probabilistic measure on the unit square $Q$ which is the average of $N$ delta-measures in some points in this square; let $\lambda$ denote the Lebesgue measure on $Q$. What is the rate ...
7 votes
1 answer
153 views

Above/below directed graph on cells of arrangement of lines

This question concerns the structure of a directed graph built on the cells of an arrangement of lines. My basic question is whether this graph has been studied before, perhaps in another guise. I ...
3 votes
2 answers
344 views

Is a vertex- and edge-transitive polytope already a uniform polytope?

I want to consider (convex) polytopes $P=\mathrm{conv}\{p_1,...,p_n\}\subset\Bbb R^d$ which are both, vertex- and edge-transitive (or maybe stronger: 1-flag-transitive). Question: Is every such ...
6 votes
0 answers
1k views

How to pack 27 $a\times b\times c$ blocks into a cube of side $a+b+c$ with some kind of symmetry?

Recently I stumbled on the problem quoted here about a geometric proof of the AM-GM inequality $$(a_1+\cdots+a_n)^n\ge n^n a_1\cdots a_n$$ by packing $n^n$ rectangular $ n$-dimensional boxes of sides $...
6 votes
1 answer
508 views

How many triangulations of a regular octahedron are there, without introducing new vertices?

It is easy to find three triangulations, each consisting of four tetrahedra. Are there more?
10 votes
5 answers
834 views

Tessellating $\mathbb{R}^n$ by bricks.

Let us call the $\ell_1$-product of intervals $[0,k_1]\times...\times [0,k_n]$ a brick of size $k_1+...+k_n$. Consider a tessellation $T$ of $\mathbb{R^n}$ by (shifted) bricks so that every point ...
16 votes
2 answers
1k views

Are Penrose tilings universal? Do aperiodic universal tilings exist?

Consider a tiling of the plane using tiles of at least two types (e.g, a Penrose tiling such as that shown at the bottom of this question, which tiles the plane with two types of tiles). List the tile ...
16 votes
2 answers
466 views

Does a certain points and lines configuration exist?

For which $n$ we may mark $n$ red and $n$ blue points on the Euclidean plane, not all on a line, so that any line which passes through two points of different colour contains another point? For $n=...
7 votes
3 answers
2k views

Partitioning a rectangle into different isosceles triangles

After all the discussion raised by this old question, I am wondering about a somewhat complementary one: For any given rectangle, does there exist a finite set of pairwise different isosceles ...
15 votes
2 answers
2k views

Partitioning a Rectangle into Congruent Isosceles Triangles

Is it possible to partition any rectangle into congruent isosceles triangles?
2 votes
1 answer
153 views

Bounding number of $k$-nearest neighbor sets in $\mathbb{R}^d$

Suppose that $\mathcal{X} \subseteq \mathbb{R}^d$ is compact. Let there be $n$ distinct points $X = \{ x_1,...,x_n \} \subseteq \mathcal{X}$ and $k = \lfloor n^\alpha \rfloor$ where $0 < \alpha &...
6 votes
2 answers
381 views

Lattice-cube minimal blocking sets

Let $C_d(n)$ be the lattice cube consisting of the $n^d$ points with each of its $d$ coorindates in $\lbrace 1,2,\ldots,n \rbrace$. Define a blocking set for a lattice cube to be a set of points in ...
4 votes
1 answer
422 views

Can $n$ circles on a plane generate $m$ intersection points where at least $k$ circles intersect?

Can $n$ circles on a plane generate $m$ intersection points where at least $k$ circles intersect? For $k = 2$ the answer is obvious since we can always place circles so that every one of them ...
10 votes
2 answers
387 views

What is Kept Fixed for Flexible Spheres

For background to this question much recent exciting related things, see this videotaped lecture by Alexander Gaifullin. Consider a triangulation $K$ of a two-dimensional sphere and consider maps ...
7 votes
1 answer
318 views

Finding a short path using $(0.99n)!$ permutations

Suppose I have $n$ points $x_1,\dots,x_n$ that are all independent uniform samples in the unit square, and I'd like to find a short path (in terms of Euclidean length) that touches all of them (a ...
3 votes
1 answer
190 views

How many points are in such set with the same norm-2

Let $L=[a,b]\cap\mathbb{N}$ with $a,b\in\mathbb{N}$, let $D\in\mathbb{N}$, and let $C=L^D$. Then I would like to know how many points are there in $C$ with the same given norm-2 $d$. I.e., I'm looking ...
10 votes
1 answer
277 views

Optimization of points on a plane

Suppose we have $n$ points on a plane. Let $D$ be the sum of the squares of all the pairwise distances between the points. Let $A$ be the area of the convex hull. What is the minimum possible value of ...
7 votes
1 answer
209 views

Are the primary parallelotopes classified? (equivalently, Voronoi cells of lattices)

A primary parallelohedron is a polyhedron that can fill space with infinite translated copies. It is known (e.g., Coxeter, H. S. M. Regular Polytopes, 3rd ed. New York: Dover, pp. 29-30, 1973; or, ...
5 votes
0 answers
135 views

What is the maximal convex hull in $\mathbb R^3$ of a tree with fixed total length?

Denote by $\mathcal T_n$ the set of all trees on $n$ nodes. For a tree $T\in\mathcal T_n$, we assign to each edge a non-negative length such that the sum of all lengths is 1. Denote by $v(T)$ the ...
5 votes
1 answer
303 views

Intersection of rotating regular polygons

This question has a recreational flavor, but may not be entirely uninteresting. Let $P_k$ be a unit-radius regular polygon of $k$ sides, and $P_n$ a unit-radius regular polygon of $n \ge k$ sides. ...
4 votes
0 answers
94 views

Finding closest set of K disjoint hyperspheres to a point in $\mathbb{R}^n$ with uniform radius

I am interested in the following problem: in $\mathbb{R}^n$, we have $N$ overlapping hyperspheres all with the same radius. Given a point $p$ in $\mathbb{R}^n$, the objective is to find the $K$ non ...
3 votes
1 answer
222 views

Number of lines of symmetry of a set of lattice points

Given some finite $S\subseteq\mathbb R^2$, it is clearly possible for $S$ to have arbitrarily many lines of symmetry. However, it is not very clear if the same is necessarily true for subsets of $\...
13 votes
2 answers
572 views

The most number of points that realize only $k$ distinct distances

For $k \ge 1$, let $f_d(k)$ be the largest possible number of points $p_i$ in $\mathbb{R}^d$ that determine at most $k$ distinct (Euclidean) distances, $\|p_i-p_j\|$. Example. For points in the plane ...
10 votes
1 answer
300 views

Optimal shape for stabbing balls in $\mathbb{R}^3$

I have radius $r < \frac{1}{2}$ congruent balls with centers randomly distributed uniformly within a region, say, within a unit-radius sphere $S$. I shoot a ray/path through $S$, hoping to ...
11 votes
1 answer
807 views

Soft question: mathematics about truchet tiles

It seems that this is the first question on Truchet tiles on MO. Shown above is a picture of a random tile, which you can see the resulting configuration is much like many membranes of cells. I ...
9 votes
1 answer
665 views

Question about tetrahedron decomposition

Are there tetrahedra which can be subdivided into three non-overlapping parts similar to the original? I believe this would require splitting one face into three parts. I know some types of tetrahedra ...
6 votes
2 answers
268 views

Counting valid coordinates

We are given a matrix $D = (d(i,j))_{1 \leq i,j \leq n}$ such that $d(x,z) \leq d(x,y) + d(y,z)$ for each $1 \leq x,y,z \leq n$. It is also known that $d(x,y) \in \mathbb{N}$ (In this question $0 \in \...
10 votes
1 answer
535 views

Maximum number of Vertices of Hypercube covered by Ball of radius R

Let $R>0$ be given and let $H^n$ be the unit hypercube in $\mathbb{R}^n$. The problem I am facing is to find the maximum number of vertices of $H^n$ which can be covered by a closed $n$-dimensional ...
20 votes
1 answer
452 views

Hidden points in polygons

Let $h(n)$ be the largest number of mutually invisible points that can be located in a polygon $P$ of $n$ vertices. Two points $x$ and $y$ are mutually invisible if the segment $xy$ contains a point ...
4 votes
2 answers
287 views

Problems similar to Borsuk’s Theorem in the plane

Consider a 2-dimensional Borsuk's theorem: Every bounded set $S$ in the plane can be partitioned into three parts with diameter smaller than the diameter of $S$. I wonder if there are any results ...
2 votes
2 answers
255 views

What is the smallest number of subsets in such a subdivision?

Given any $30$ points in the plane, what is the smallest number of subsets in a subdivision of the set of $30$ points into subsets such that all the points in each subset are on the boundary of the ...
0 votes
1 answer
229 views

Is this bounded?

May be better to ask for help here. Let $v_{1}$, $v_{2}$, $\ldots$, $v_{m}$ be the vertices of a convex polygon in the plane and $v_{m+1}$ be a vertex in the interior of the convex polygon. Connect ...