English

Similar dissection of sets

Metric Geometry 2011-12-05 v1

Abstract

In 1994, Martin Gardner stated a set of questions concerning the dissection of a square or an equilateral triangle in three similar parts. Meanwhile, Gardner's questions have been generalized and some of them are already solved. In the present paper, we solve more of his questions and treat them in a much more general context. Let DRdD\subset \mathbb{R}^d be a given set and let f1,...,fkf_1,...,f_k be injective continuous mappings. Does there exist a set XX such that D=Xf1(X)...fk(X)D = X \cup f_1(X) \cup ... \cup f_k(X) is satisfied with a non-overlapping union? We prove that such a set XX exists for certain choices of DD and {f1,...,fk}\{f_1,...,f_k\}. The solutions XX often turn out to be attractors of iterated function systems with condensation in the sense of Barnsley. Coming back to Gardner's setting, we use our theory to prove that an equilateral triangle can be dissected in three similar copies whose areas have ratio 1:1:a1:1:a for a(3+5)/2a \ge (3+\sqrt{5})/2.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1001.4203,
  title  = {Similar dissection of sets},
  author = {Shigeki Akiyama and Jun Luo and Ryotaro Okazaki and Wolfgang Steiner and Jörg Thuswaldner},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1001.4203},
  year   = {2011}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-21T14:38:32.300Z