Related papers: Mutually touching infinite cylinders in the 3D wor…
We provide a complete classification of possible configurations of mutually pairwise touching infinite cylinders in Euclidian 3D space. It turns out that there is a maximum number of such cylinders possible in 3D independently on the shape…
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…
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 $N \leq 10$.…
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…
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 \[…
Given a set of planar curves (Jordan arcs), each pair of which meets -- either crosses or touches -- exactly once, we establish an upper bound on the number of touchings. We show that such a curve family has $O(t^2n)$ touchings, where $t$…
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…
In this paper we study circles tangent to conics. We show there are generically $184$ complex circles tangent to three conics in the plane and we characterize the real discriminant of the corresponding polynomial system. We give an explicit…
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 estimate from below the number of lines meeting each of given 4 disjoint smooth closed curves in a given cyclic order in the real projective 3-space and in a given linear order in the Euclidean 3-space. Similarly, we estimate the number…
We consider the problem of finding the maximum number $e_d(n)$ of pairs of touching circles in a packing of $n$ congruent circles of diameter $d$ in the hyperbolic plane of curvature $-1$. In the Euclidean plane, the maximum comes from a…
It is well known that not every combinatorial configuration admits a geometric realization with points and lines. Moreover, some of them do not even admit realizations with pseudoline arrangements, i.e., they are not topological. In this…
Given $n$ lines in general position in the plane, how many bounded triangular faces can the arrangement have? We construct a straight-line affine arrangement of $19$ lines satisfying the conditions of the iterative construction by…
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 $(\mathbb{R}^3, \Sigma)$…
Over the complex numbers, there are 92 plane conics meeting 8 general lines in projective 3-space. Using the Euler class and local degree from motivic homotopy theory, we give an enriched version of this result over any perfect field. This…
Let $M$ be an irreducible, compact, connected, orientable 3-manifold whose boundary is a torus. We show that if $M$ is hyperbolic, then it admits at most six finite/cyclic fillings of maximal distance 5. Further, the distance of a…
The absolute upper bound on the number of equiangular lines that can be found in $\mathbf{R}^d$ is $d(d+1)/2$. Examples of sets of lines that saturate this bound are only known to exist in dimensions $d=2,3,7$ or $23$. By considering the…
We consider packings of congruent circles on a square flat torus, i.e., periodic (w.r.t. a square lattice) planar circle packings, with the maximal circle radius. This problem is interesting due to a practical reason - the problem of "super…