272 research outputs found
Decompositions of a polygon into centrally symmetric pieces
In this paper we deal with edge-to-edge, irreducible decompositions of a
centrally symmetric convex -gon into centrally symmetric convex pieces.
We prove an upper bound on the number of these decompositions for any value of
, and characterize them for octagons.Comment: 17 pages, 17 figure
Hinged Dissections Exist
We prove that any finite collection of polygons of equal area has a common
hinged dissection. That is, for any such collection of polygons there exists a
chain of polygons hinged at vertices that can be folded in the plane
continuously without self-intersection to form any polygon in the collection.
This result settles the open problem about the existence of hinged dissections
between pairs of polygons that goes back implicitly to 1864 and has been
studied extensively in the past ten years. Our result generalizes and indeed
builds upon the result from 1814 that polygons have common dissections (without
hinges). We also extend our common dissection result to edge-hinged dissections
of solid 3D polyhedra that have a common (unhinged) dissection, as determined
by Dehn's 1900 solution to Hilbert's Third Problem. Our proofs are
constructive, giving explicit algorithms in all cases. For a constant number of
planar polygons, both the number of pieces and running time required by our
construction are pseudopolynomial. This bound is the best possible, even for
unhinged dissections. Hinged dissections have possible applications to
reconfigurable robotics, programmable matter, and nanomanufacturing.Comment: 22 pages, 14 figure
Survey of two-dimensional acute triangulations
AbstractWe give a brief introduction to the topic of two-dimensional acute triangulations, mention results on related areas, survey existing achievements–with emphasis on recent activity–and list related open problems, both concrete and conceptual
The Gromov Norm of the Product of Two Surfaces
We make an estimation of the value of the Gromov norm of the Cartesian
product of two surfaces. Our method uses a connection between these norms and
the minimal size of triangulations of the products of two polygons. This allows
us to prove that the Gromov norm of this product is between 32 and 52 when both
factors have genus 2. The case of arbitrary genera is easy to deduce form this
one.Comment: The journal version contains an error that invalidates one direction
of the main theorem. The present version contains an erratum, at the end,
explaining thi
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