Related papers: On compact packings of the plane with circles of t…

A simple $n$-gon is a polygon with $n$ edges with each vertex belonging to exactly two edges and every other point belonging to at most one edge. Brass asked the following question: For $n \geq 5$ odd, what is the maximum perimeter of a…

We introduce and study certain notions which might serve as substitutes for maximum density packings and minimum density coverings. A body is a compact connected set which is the closure of its interior. A packing $\cal P$ with congruent…

Let P be a polygon with rational vertices in the plane. We show that for any finite odd-sized collection of translates of P, the area of the set of points lying in an odd number of these translates is bounded away from 0 by a constant…

We present an open problem about non-colliding freely moving hard disks in the Euclidean plane, together with related positive and negative partial results. The open problem is stated in a non-degenerate form: velocities are required to be…

Nested parentheses are forms in an algebra which define orders of evaluations. A class of well-formed sets of associated opening and closing parentheses is well studied in conjunction with Dyck paths and Catalan numbers. Nested parentheses…

In this paper we study polynomials $(P_n)$ which are hermitian orthogonal on two arcs of the unit circle with respect to weight functions which have square root singularities at the end points of the arcs, an arbitrary nonvanishing…

A covering path for a finite set $P$ of points in the plane is a polygonal path such that every point of $P$ lies on a segment of the path. The vertices of the path need not be at points of $P$. A covering path is plane if its segments do…

This paper gives $n$-dimensional analogues of the Apollonian circle packings in parts I and II. We work in the space $\sM_{\dd}^n$ of all $n$-dimensional oriented Descartes configurations parametrized in a coordinate system,…

This book uses optimal control theory to prove that the most unpackable centrally symmetric convex disk in the plane is a smoothed polygon. A smoothed polygon is a polygon whose corners have been rounded in a special way by arcs of…

For the Schnakenberg model, we consider a highly symmetric configuration of N spikes whose locations are located at the vertices of a regular N-gon inside either a unit disk or an annulus. We call such configuration a ring of spikes. The…

Because the problem of Apollonius is generally considered over the reals, it suffers from variance of number: there are at most eight circles simultaneously tangent to a given trio of circles, but some configurations have fewer than eight…

We explore an instance of the question of partitioning a polygon into pieces, each of which is as ``circular'' as possible, in the sense of having an aspect ratio close to 1. The aspect ratio of a polygon is the ratio of the diameters of…

We prove that the space of circle packings consistent with a given triangulation on a surface of genus at least two is projectively rigid, so that a packing on a complex projective surface is not deformable within that complex projective…

Let $f(x,y)$ be a real polynomial of degree $d$ with isolated critical points, and let $i$ be the index of $grad f$ around a large circle containing the critical points. An elementary argument shows that $|i| \leq d-1$. In this paper we…

An ordinary plane of a finite set of points in real 3-space with no three collinear is a plane intersecting the set in exactly three points. We prove a structure theorem for sets of points spanning few ordinary planes. Our proof relies on…

In this paper, we consider the problem of covering a plane region with unit discs. We present an improved upper bound and the first nontrivial lower bound on the number of discs needed for such a covering, depending on the area and…

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…

In the Euclidean plane ${\bf{E}}^2$, fix four pairwise distinct points \begin{equation*} \label{eqA} \begin{array}{ccc} A=(a_1,a_2),\ B=(b_1,b_2),\ C=(c_1,c_2),\ D=(d_1,d_2), \end{array} \end{equation*} together with four non-zero real…

Given a trivially graded polynomial ring $A=K[a_1,\dots,a_m]$ over a field $K$ and a positively graded polynomial ring $P=A[x_1,\dots,x_k]$, we study graded rings $R=P/I$, where $I$ is a homogeneous ideal in $P$ such that $I\cap A = \{0\}$.…

The famous conjecture of V.Ya.Ivrii (1978) says that {\it in every billiard with infinitely-smooth boundary in a Euclidean space the set of periodic orbits has measure zero}. In the present paper we study the complex algebraic version of…