Related papers: The Gion Shrine Problem: A Solution in Geometry

This is an expository treatise on the development of the classical geometries, starting from the origins of Euclidean geometry a few centuries BC up to around 1870. At this time classical differential geometry came to an end, and the…

In this piece, we examine one variant of the infamous 15 Tile Puzzle and develop a mathematical backing behind why it is unsolvable. Using concepts of permutations, bijectivity, and cycle transpositions, we not only prove how to model this…

We study the puzzle graphs of hexagonal sliding puzzles of various shapes and with various numbers of holes. The puzzle graph is a combinatorial model which captures the solvability and the complexity of sequential mechanical puzzles.…

Egyptologists and historians of mathematics around 1930 did an admirable job in showing that problem 14 of the newly discovered Moscow Papyrus from around 1850 BCE amounts to a general and exact calculation of the volume of a truncated…

We collect together various facts about G_2 and Spin(7) geometry which are likely well known but which do not seem to have appeared explicitly in the literature before. These notes should be useful to graduate students and new researchers…

This paper presents a systematic method to solve difficult 9 x 9 Sudoku puzzles by hand. While computer algorithms exist to solve these puzzles, these algorithms are not good for human's to use because they involve too many steps and…

Geometry is essentially a global language, which is fully understood in different times, countries and cultures. The proof of a geometric theorem (e.g. the Pythagorean Theorem) or a geometric construction (e.g. the construction of an…

Shikaku is a pencil puzzle consisting of a rectangular grid, with some cells containing a number. The player has to partition the grid into rectangles such that each rectangle contains exactly one number equal to the area of that rectangle.…

This paper collects some problems that I have encountered during the years, have puzzled me and which, to the best of my knowledge, are still open. Most of them are well-known and have been first stated by other authors. In this sad season…

In this paper we review nine previous proposed and solved problems of elementary 2D geometry, and we extend them either from triangles to polygons or polyhedrons, or from circles to spheres (from 2D-space to 3D-space) and make some…

Are you having trouble getting married? These days, there are lots of products on the market for dating, from apps to websites and matchmakers, but we know a simpler way! That's right -- your path to coupled life isn't through Tinder: it's…

Problems for the graduate students who want to improve problem-solving skills in geometry. Every problem has a short elegant solution -- this gives a hint which was not available when the problem was discovered.

This paper looks at how ancient mathematicians (and especially the Pythagorean school) were faced by problems/paradoxes associated with the infinite which led them to juggle two systems of numbers: the discrete whole/rationals which were…

Sophisticated computation methods were developed 4000 years ago in Mesopotamia in the context of scribal schools. The basics of the computation can be detected in clay tablets written by young students educated in these scribal schools. At…

While the formalism of isolated horizons is known for some time, only quite recently the near horizon solution of Einstein's equations has been found in the Bondi-like coordinates by Krishnan in 2012. In this framework, the space-time is…

The recognition that physical space (or space-time) is curved is a product of the general theory of relativity, such as dramatically shown by the 1919 solar eclipse measurements. However, the mathematical possibility of non-Euclidean…

Pulli Kolam is an ancient mathematical artform that is still practiced today in south India by over a quarter million people. "Pulli" in the Tamil language means dots. A specific type of pulli kolam is "sikku" kolam where a series of dots…

In the 1930's, Tarski introduced his plank problem at a time when the field Discrete Geometry was about to born. It is quite remarkable that Tarski's question and its variants continue to generate interest in the geometric and analytic…

Pythagoras' theorem, the area of a triangle as one half the base times the height, and Heron's formula are amongst the most important and useful results of ancient Greek geometry. Here we look at all three in a new and improved light, using…

Distance geometry problem belongs to a class of hard problems in classical computation that can be understood in terms of a set of inputs processed according to a given transformation, and for which the number of possible outcomes grows…