Related papers: Symmetry, topology and the maximum number of mutua…
Recently we gave arguments that only two unique topologically different configurations of 7 equal all mutually touching round cylinders (the configurations being mirror reflections of each other) are possible in 3D, although a whole world…
John E. Littlewood posted the question {\em ``Is it possible in 3-space for seven infinite circular cylinders of unit radius each to touch all the others? Seven is the number suggested by counting constants.''} Boz\'oki, Lee, and R\'onyai…
It has been a challenge to make seven straight round cylinders mutually touch before our now 10-year old discovery [Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 015505 (2004)] of configurations of seven mutually touching infinitely long round cylinders (then…
Let $N$ denote the maximum number of congruent infinite cylinders that can be arranged in $\mathbb{R}^3$ so that every pair of cylinders touches each other. Littlewood posed the question of whether $N=7$, which remains unsolved. In this…
Motivated by a question of W. Kuperberg, we study the 18-dimensional manifold of configurations of 6 non-intersecting infinite cylinders of radius $r,$ all touching the unit ball in $\mathbb{R}^{3}.$ We find a configuration with \[…
We solve a problem of Littlewood: there exist seven infinite circular cylinders of unit radius which mutually touch each other. In fact, we exhibit two such sets of cylinders. Our approach is algebraic and uses symbolic and numerical…
Littlewood asked for the maximum number $N$ of congruent infinite cylinders that can be arranged in $\mathbb{R}^3$ so that every pair touches. We improve upon the proof of the second author that $N \leq 18$ to show that $N \leq 10$.…
In this article we give combinatorial criteria to decide whether a transitive cyclic combinatorial d-manifold can be generalized to an infinite family of such complexes, together with an explicit construction in the case that such a family…
The symmetries of surfaces which can be embedded into the symmetries of the 3-dimensional Euclidean space $\mathbb{R}^3$ are easier to feel by human's intuition. We give the maximum order of finite group actions on $(\mathbb{R}^3, \Sigma)$…
If the face\mbox{-}cycles at all the vertices in a map are of the same type, then the map is said to be a semi-equivelar map. Automorphism (symmetry) of a map can be thought of as a permutation of the vertices which preserves the…
The contact graph of an arbitrary finite packing of unit balls in Euclidean 3-space is the (simple) graph whose vertices correspond to the packing elements and whose two vertices are connected by an edge if the corresponding two packing…
A group-theoretical approach to the construction of quasiperiodic tilings of a Euclidean plane, possessing five-fold symmetry, is applied. Of the infinitely many of variants of quasiperiodic partitions of the plane, possessing the dihedral…
Every regular map on a closed surface gives rise to generally six regular maps, its "Petrie relatives", that are obtained through iteration of the duality and Petrie operations (taking duals and Petrie-duals). It is shown that the skeletal…
We show that for dynamically convex contact forms in three dimensions, the cylindrical contact homology differential d can be defined by directly counting holomorphic cylinders for a generic almost complex structure, without any abstract…
We consider the Poisson cylinder model in ${\mathbb R}^d$, $d\ge 3$. We show that given any two cylinders ${\mathfrak c}_1$ and ${\mathfrak c}_2$ in the process, there is a sequence of at most $d-2$ other cylinders creating a connection…
We study a quantum-mechanical system of three particles in a one-dimensional box with two-particle harmonic interactions. The symmetry of the system is described by the point group $D_{3d}$. Group theory greatly facilitates the application…
In this article, we give multiple situations when having one or two geometrically distinct closed geodesics on a complete Riemannian cylinder $M\simeq S^1\times\mathbb{R}$ or a complete Riemannian plane $M\simeq\mathbb{R}^2$ leads to having…
A chiral polyhedron has a geometric symmetry group with two orbits on the flags, such that adjacent flags are in distinct orbits. Part I of the paper described the discrete chiral polyhedra in ordinary Euclidean 3-space with finite skew…
Tight triangulations are exotic, but highly regular objects in combinatorial topology. A triangulation is tight if all its piecewise linear embeddings into a Euclidean space are as convex as allowed by the topology of the underlying…
We study the octahedral configurations $O_6$ of six equal cylinders touching the unit sphere. We show that the configuration $O_6$ is a local sharp maximum of the distance function. Thus it is not unlockable and, moreover, rigid.