Tumbling Downhill along a Given Curve
Mathematical Physics
2024-06-25 v1 Differential Geometry
math.MP
Classical Physics
Abstract
A cylinder will roll down an inclined plane in a straight line. A cone will roll around a circle on that plane and then will stop rolling. We ask the inverse question: For which curves drawn on the inclined plane can one carve a shape that will roll downhill following precisely this prescribed curve and its translationally repeated copies? This simple question has a solution essentially always, but it turns out that for most curves, the shape will return to its initial orientation only after crossing a few copies of the curve - most often two copies will suffice, but some curves require an arbitrarily large number of copies.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2406.16336,
title = {Tumbling Downhill along a Given Curve},
author = {Jean-Pierre Eckmann and Yaroslav I. Sobolev and Tsvi Tlusty},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2406.16336},
year = {2024}
}