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