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7 votes
3 answers
377 views

Expected minimum face angle of random convex polyhedron in $\mathbb{R}^3$

Let $P_n$ be a "random convex polyhedron" in $\mathbb{R}^3$ of $n$ vertices, where "random" could follow any one of a number of models: (1) the convex hull of $n$ points randomly and uniformly ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
6 votes
4 answers
2k views

Delaunay triangulations and convex hulls

This is a reference request. I have the impression that those who work in computational geometry are accustomed to the following. You have some locally finite set of sites in $\mathbb{R}^n$ and you ...
Michael Hardy's user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
189 views

Slices of Simplices that are Simplices, Reference?

I am trying to find a reference for the following fact. It is elementary and not hard to prove, but I haven't been able to find the question treated anywhere. Let $A$ be an $l\times n$ matrix with ...
chris seaton's user avatar
11 votes
3 answers
665 views

Limit shape for fixed-perimeter lattice polygons

Let $P$ be a simple polygon defined by $n$ unit-length segments connecting lattice points of $\mathbb{Z}^2$. I have two operations that preserve the perimeter of $P$. The first is the "pop" of a ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
16 votes
4 answers
2k views

Point sets in Euclidean space with a small number of distinct distances

It is well known and not hard to prove that the regular simplex in n-dimensions is the only way to place n+1 points so that the distance between distinct pairs of points is always the same. My general ...
Edmund Harriss's user avatar
8 votes
1 answer
885 views

Maximal tetrahedra inscribed in ellipsoid

Pietro Majer quoted the theorem of Michel Chasles in his MO question, "Convex curves with many inscribed triangles maximizing perimeter," which states that the triangles of maximum perimeter inscribed ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
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 ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
29 votes
3 answers
2k views

Growing random trees on a lattice $\rightarrow$ Voronoi diagrams

Imagine growing trees from $k$ seeds on a square $n \times n$ region of $\mathbb{Z}^2$. At each step, a unit-length edge $e$ between two points of $\mathbb{Z}^2$ is added. The edge $e$ is chosen ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
13 votes
2 answers
1k views

Average degree of contact graph for balls in a box

Imagine you dump congruent, hard, frictionless balls in a box, letting gravity compress the balls into a stable configuration (I believe such configurations are called jammed.) Assume the box ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
16 votes
1 answer
1k views

Random polycube shapes

I am wondering if it is hopeless to obtain any firm results on the following model of a "random polycube shape." First, a polycube in $\mathbb{R}^3$ is a connected face-to-face gluing of unit cubes. (...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
12 votes
2 answers
1k views

Helly theorem + Nerve

Consider nerve $\mathcal N$ of a finite set of convex sets in $\mathbb R^n$. Helly theorem says that $\mathcal N$ is completely determined by its $n$-skeleton, say $\mathcal N_n$. It seems that not ...
ε-δ's user avatar
  • 1,785
15 votes
2 answers
737 views

Tiling survey that updates "Tilings and patterns"?

Can anyone suggest a survey (or surveys) that provides an update to Tilings and patterns by Grunbaum and Shepard? If there's a more recent book, that would be fantastic, but I don't see one. I am ...
Aaron Sterling's user avatar
10 votes
2 answers
930 views

What is determined by the combinatorics of the shadows of a convex polyhedron?

Define the shadow of a convex polyhedron $P$ in direction $u$ to be the orthogonal projection of $P$ onto a plane whose normal is $u$. The shadow is a convex $k$-gon. I am wondering to what degree $P$ ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
8 votes
0 answers
358 views

Coloring toroidal polyhedra with convex faces?

Consider a toroidal polyhedron, which is a topological torus, in which all faces are planar, two faces meet in at most an edge, and adjacent faces are not coplanar. The Szilassi polyhedron has 7 non-...
Leah Wrenn Berman's user avatar
14 votes
1 answer
781 views

Perimeters of random-walk polygons

I have a random walk on $\mathbb{Z}^2$ that takes a step with equal probability in the three directions that avoid retracing the previous step. The walk proceeds until it returns to a lattice point ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
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 ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
24 votes
2 answers
1k views

A geometric Ramsey problem

The following problem seems like one to which the answer could well be known: if so, I'd be interested to have a reference. How large does n have to be such that among any n points in the plane you ...
gowers's user avatar
  • 29k
21 votes
2 answers
1k views

Forbidden mirror sequences

Let $\cal{M}$ be a finite collection of two-sided mirrors, each an open unit-length segment in $\mathbb{R^2}$, and such that the segments when closed are disjoint. A ray of light that reflects off the ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
21 votes
5 answers
1k views

Is a rhombus rigid on a sphere or torus? And generalizations

If a rectangle is formed from rigid bars for edges and joints at vertices, then it is flexible in the plane: it can flex to a parallelogram. On any smooth surface with a metric, one can define a ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
938 views

Which knots' stick numbers are twice their crossing numbers?

Looking at a table of minimum stick numbers for knots (table here), it seems the known upper bound of $2 c(K)$ in terms of the knot crossing number $c(K)$ is realized by the trefoil $3_1$—it ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
11 votes
2 answers
1k views

Which (semi)regular polyhedra are combinations of two others?

The convex combination of convex polytopes is a convex polytope. An example in $\mathbb{R}^2$ is that a regular octagon can be obtained as $\frac{1}{2} S + \frac{1}{2} S'$, where $S$ is a square and $...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
142 views

Dimension of convex arrangements for hypergraphs

Suppose you have a hypergraph H on n vertices. Let d be the smallest integer such that we can find an arrangement A of convex subsets in Rd so that H represent the intersections of sets in A. Has ...
Thierry Zell's user avatar
  • 4,586
11 votes
1 answer
607 views

Largest pair of homometric Golomb rulers?

A Golomb ruler is a set of $n$ integers that determines $\binom{n}{2}$ distinct differences. Two sets are homometric if they determine the same (multiset) of differences. For example, $$\{0,1,4,10,12,...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
5 votes
2 answers
333 views

Characterization of combinatorial manifolds in terms of links

I need to reference the following result. Do you know a good source? The following conditions on an $n$-dimensional simplicial complex $S$ are equivalent: a) $S$ is an $n$ manifold; b) The link of ...
Kestutis Cesnavicius's user avatar

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