Comments on generalized Heron polynomials and Robbins’ conjectures

AbstractHeron’s formula for a triangle gives a polynomial for the square of its area in terms of the lengths of its three sides. There is a very similar formula, due to Brahmagupta, for the area of a cyclic quadrilateral in terms of the lengths of its four sides. (A polygon is cyclic if its vertices lie on a circle.) In both cases if A is the area of the polygon, (4A)2 is a polynomial function of the square in the lengths of its edges. David Robbins in [D.P. Robbins, Areas of polygons inscribed in a circle, Discrete Comput. Geom. 12 (2) (1994) 223–236. MR 95g:51027; David P. Robbins, Areas of polygons inscribed in a circle, Amer. Math. Monthly 102 (6) (1995) 523–530. MR 96k:51024] showed that for any cyclic polygon with n edges, (4A)2 satisfies a polynomial whose coefficients are themselves polynomials in the edge lengths, and he calculated this polynomial for n=5 and n=6. He conjectured the degree of this polynomial for all n, and recently Igor Pak and Maksym Fedorchuk [Maksym Fedorchuk, Igor Pak, Rigidity and polynomial invariants of convex polytopes, Duke Math. J. 129 (2) (2005) 371–404. MR 2006f:52015] have shown that this conjecture of Robbins is true. Robbins also conjectured that his polynomial is monic, and that was shown in [V.V. Varfolomeev, Inscribed polygons and Heron polynomials (Russian. Russian summary), Mat. Sb. 194 (3) (2003) 3–24. MR 2004d:51014]. A short independent proof will be shown here

The area of cyclic polygons: Recent progress on Robbins' Conjectures

In his works [R1,R2] David Robbins proposed several interrelated conjectures on the area of the polygons inscribed in a circle as an algebraic function of its sides. Most recently, these conjectures have been established in the course of several independent investigations. In this note we give an informal outline of these developments.Comment: To appear in Advances Applied Math. (special issue in memory of David Robbins

On the Areas of Cyclic and Semicyclic Polygons

We investigate the ``generalized Heron polynomial'' that relates the squared area of an n-gon inscribed in a circle to the squares of its side lengths. For a (2m+1)-gon or (2m+2)-gon, we express it as the defining polynomial of a certain variety derived from the variety of binary (2m-1)-forms having m-1 double roots. Thus we obtain explicit formulas for the areas of cyclic heptagons and octagons, and illuminate some mysterious features of Robbins' formulas for the areas of cyclic pentagons and hexagons. We also introduce a companion family of polynomials that relate the squared area of an n-gon inscribed in a circle, one of whose sides is a diameter, to the squared lengths of the other sides. By similar algebraic techniques we obtain explicit formulas for these polynomials for all n <= 7.Comment: 22 page

Volumes of polytopes in spaces of constant curvature

We overview the volume calculations for polyhedra in Euclidean, spherical and hyperbolic spaces. We prove the Sforza formula for the volume of an arbitrary tetrahedron in $H^3$ and $S^3$. We also present some results, which provide a solution for Seidel problem on the volume of non-Euclidean tetrahedron. Finally, we consider a convex hyperbolic quadrilateral inscribed in a circle, horocycle or one branch of equidistant curve. This is a natural hyperbolic analog of the cyclic quadrilateral in the Euclidean plane. We find a few versions of the Brahmagupta formula for the area of such quadrilateral. We also present a formula for the area of a hyperbolic trapezoid.Comment: 22 pages, 9 figures, 58 reference

Critical configurations of planar robot arms

It is known that a closed polygon P is a critical point of the oriented area function if and only if P is a cyclic polygon, that is, $P$ can be inscribed in a circle. Moreover, there is a short formula for the Morse index. Going further in this direction, we extend these results to the case of open polygonal chains, or robot arms. We introduce the notion of the oriented area for an open polygonal chain, prove that critical points are exactly the cyclic configurations with antipodal endpoints and derive a formula for the Morse index of a critical configuration

Errata and Addenda to Mathematical Constants

We humbly and briefly offer corrections and supplements to Mathematical Constants (2003) and Mathematical Constants II (2019), both published by Cambridge University Press. Comments are always welcome.Comment: 162 page