Related papers: The mathematics of taffy pullers
The existence of excircles and an Apollonius circle for a triangle in taxicab geometry are connected to the concept of inscribed triangles.
We calculate the Heegaard Floer homologies for three-manifolds obtained by plumbings of spheres specified by certain graphs. Our class of graphs is sufficiently large to describe, for example, all Seifert fibered rational homology spheres.…
This paper covers a variety of mathematical folk puzzles, including geometric (Tangrams, dissection puzzles), logic, algebraic, probability (Monty Hall Problem, Birthday Paradox), and combinatorial challenges (Eight Queens Puzzle, Tower of…
We introduce a new family of one-player games, involving the movement of coins from one configuration to another. Moves are restricted so that a coin can be placed only in a position that is adjacent to at least two other coins. The goal of…
The paper introduces a generalization for known probabilistic models such as log-linear and graphical models, called here multiplicative models. These models, that express probabilities via product of parameters are shown to capture…
Delaunay triangulations of a point set in the Euclidean plane are ubiquitous in a number of computational sciences, including computational geometry. Delaunay triangulations are not well defined as soon as 4 or more points are concyclic but…
Using computational algebraic geometry techniques and Hilbert bases of polyhedral cones we derive explicit formulas and generating functions for the number of magic squares and magic cubes.
In this paper we continue our systematic analysis of the operatorial approach previously proposed in an economical context and we discuss a {\em mixed} toy model of a simplified stock market, i.e. a model in which the price of the shares is…
In late May of 2014 I received an email from a colleague introducing to me a non-transitive game developed by Walter Penney. This paper explores this probability game from the perspective of a coin tossing game, and further discusses some…
Numerical studies of the average size of trivially knotted polymer loops with no excluded volume are undertaken. Topology is identified by Alexander and Vassiliev degree 2 invariants. Probability of a trivial knot, average gyration radius,…
This article reformulates the theory of computable physical models, previously introduced by the author, as a branch of applied model theory in first-order logic. It provides a semantic approach to the philosophy of science that…
From the geometric study of the elementary cell of hexagonal circle packings --- a flower of 7 circles --- the class of conformally symmetric circle packings is defined. Up to Moebius transformations, this class is a three parameter family,…
A sphere is a fundamental geometric object widely used in (computer aided) geometric design. It possesses rational parameterizations but no parametric polynomial parameterization exists. The present study provides an approach to the optimal…
This is a short exposition--mostly by way of the toy models ``double logarithm'' and ``triple logarithm''--which should serve as an introduction to a forthcoming article in which we establish a connection between multiple polylogarithms,…
In this paper, we systematize the modeling of probabilistic systems for the purpose of analyzing them with model counting techniques. Starting from unbiased coin flips, we show how to model biased coins, correlated coins, and distributions…
We introduce snowballs, which are compact sets in $\R^3$ homeomorphic to the unit ball. They are 3-dimensional analogs of domains in the plane bounded by snowflake curves. For each snowball $B$ a quasiconformal map $f\colon \R^3\to \R^3$ is…
Several recent papers in digital topology have sought to obtain fixed point results by mimicking the use of tools from classical topology, such as complete metric spaces and homotopy invariant fixed point theory. We show that in many cases,…
A regular polygon circumscribing another regular polygon (with a different side number) may be tightened to minimize the difference of both areas. The manuscripts computes the optimum result under the restriction that both polygons are…
We give a characterization of a contact metric manifold as a special almost contact metric manifold and discuss an almost contact metric manifold which is {a} natural generalization of the contact metric manifolds introduced by Y. Tashiro.
By a heuristic argument, we relate two conjectures. One is a version of Manin's conjecture about the distribution of rational points on a Fano variety. We concern specific singular Fano varieties, namely quotients of projective spaces by…