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10 votes
3 answers
683 views

Circles avoiding rational points of height $\le h$

Q. Which origin-centered circles $C(r)$ (or spheres in dimension $d$) of radius $r < 1$ avoid all rational points of height $\le h$? A rational point is a point all of whose coordinates are ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
9 votes
2 answers
449 views

Rational points on circular spirals

Is it the case that every unit-radius circular spiral, $$x = \cos(t)$$ $$y = \sin(t)$$ $$z = c \cdot t$$ for $c \in \mathbb{R}^+$ is dense in rational-coordinate points (i.e., all three coordinates ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
28 votes
6 answers
2k views

Patterns among integer-distance points

Mark each point of $\mathbb{N}^2$ ($\mathbb{N}$ the natural numbers) if its Euclidean distance from the origin is an integer. One obtains a plot like this, symmetric about the $45^\circ$ diagonal. ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
9 votes
2 answers
928 views

Shortest irrational path

What is the shortest curve $\gamma$ in $\mathbb{R}^2$ from the origin $o=(0,0)$ to a rational point $p=(a,b)$ that (a) passes through no other rational point, and (b) contains no point a ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar