English

Balancing polyhedra

Metric Geometry 2021-11-18 v3

Abstract

We define the mechanical complexity C(P)C(P) of a convex polyhedron P,P, interpreted as a homogeneous solid, as the difference between the total number of its faces, edges and vertices and the number of its static equilibria, and the mechanical complexity C(S,U)C(S,U) of primary equilibrium classes (S,U)E(S,U)^E with SS stable and UU unstable equilibria as the infimum of the mechanical complexity of all polyhedra in that class. We prove that the mechanical complexity of a class (S,U)E(S,U)^E with S,U>1S, U > 1 is the minimum of 2(f+vSU)2(f+v-S-U) over all polyhedral pairs (f,v)(f,v ), where a pair of integers is called a polyhedral pair if there is a convex polyhedron with ff faces and vv vertices. In particular, we prove that the mechanical complexity of a class (S,U)E(S,U)^E is zero if, and only if there exists a convex polyhedron with SS faces and UU vertices. We also give asymptotically sharp bounds for the mechanical complexity of the monostatic classes (1,U)E(1,U)^E and (S,1)E(S,1)^E, and offer a complexity-dependent prize for the complexity of the G\"omb\"oc-class (1,1)E(1,1)^E.

Cite

@article{arxiv.1810.05382,
  title  = {Balancing polyhedra},
  author = {Gábor Domokos and Flórián Kovács and Zsolt Lángi and Krisztina Regős and Péter T. Varga},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1810.05382},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

29 pages, 13 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-23T04:37:20.221Z