Related papers: One Hundred and Twelve Point Three Degree Theorem

A periodic orbit on a frictionless billiard table is a piecewise linear path of a billiard ball that begins and ends at the same point with the same angle of incidence. The period of a primitive periodic orbit is the number of times the…

Mathematical billiards is much like the real game: a point mass, representing the ball, rolls in a straight line on a (perfectly friction-less) table, striking the sides according to the law of reflection. A billiard trajectory is then…

For every quadrilateral sufficiently close to a rectangle, we shall show that it possess a periodic billiard path. This is an REU work done at ICERM in Summer 2012.

We give a complete solution of the following problem: Find, classify and count the (classes of) periodic orbits on an equilateral triangle. We prove that Fagnano's period 3 orbit is the only periodic orbit with odd period. A periodic orbit…

We consider the billiard map inside a polyhedron. We give a condition for the stability of the periodic trajectories. We apply this result to the case of the tetrahedron. We deduce the existence of an open set of tetrahedra which have a…

We confirm the following conjecture of Fekete and Woeginger from 1997: for any sufficiently large even number $n$, every set of $n$ points in the plane can be connected by a spanning tour (Hamiltonian cycle) consisting of straight-line…

Any periodic trajectory on an isosceles triangle gives rise to a periodic trajectory on a right triangle obtained by identifying the halves of the original triangle. We examine the relationship between periodic trajectories on isosceles…

We investigate a combinatorial optimization problem that involves patrolling the edges of an acute triangle using a unit-speed agent. The goal is to minimize the maximum (1-gap) idle time of any edge, which is defined as the time gap…

A periodic trajectory on a polygonal billiard table is stable if it persists under any sufficiently small perturbation of the table. It is a standard result that a periodic trajectory on an $n$-gon gives rise in a natural way to a closed…

There is an open set of right triangles such that for each irrational triangle in this set (i) periodic billiards orbits are dense in the phase space, (ii) there is a unique nonsingular perpendicular billiard orbit which is not periodic,…

Using Marden's Theorem from geometric theory of polynomials, we show that for every triangle there is a unique ellipse such that the triangle is a billiard trajectory within that ellipse. Since $3$-periodic trajectories of billiards within…

A polygon is called rational if the angle between each pair of sides is a rational multiple of $\pi.$ The main theorem we will prove is Theorem 1: For rational polygons, periodic points of the billiard flow are dense in the phase space of…

We propose the following conjecture extending Dirac's theorem: if $G$ is a graph with $n\ge 3$ vertices and minimum degree $\delta(G)\ge n/2$, then in every orientation of $G$ there is a Hamilton cycle with at least $\delta(G)$ edges…

We prove that any sufficiently small perturbation of an isosceles triangle has a periodic billiard path. Our proof involves the analysis of certain infinite families of Fourier series that arise in connection with triangular billiards, and…

Euclidean outer billiard on a regular polygon (that is not a triangle, square or a hexagon) has aperiodic points, i.e., points where all iterates of the outer billiard map are defined and yield pairwise distinct images. This result answers…

In 2003, Bohman, Frieze, and Martin initiated the study of randomly perturbed graphs and digraphs. For digraphs, they showed that for every $\alpha>0$, there exists a constant $C$ such that for every $n$-vertex digraph of minimum…

We show that every sufficiently large oriented graph $G$ with minimum indegree and outdegree both at least $(3|V(G)|-1)/8$ contains every orientation of a Hamilton cycle. This result improves the approximate bound established by Kelly and…

We study the dynamics of a piecewise map defined on the set of three pairwise nonparallel, nonconcurrent lines in $\mathbb{R}^2$. The geometric map of study may be analogized to the billiard map with a different reflection rule so that each…

Can any secrets still be shed by that much studied, uniquely integrable, Elliptic Billiard? Starting by examining the family of 3-periodic trajectories and the loci of their Triangular Centers, one obtains a beautiful and variegated gallery…

Planar point sets with many triple lines (which contain at least three distinct points of the set) have been studied for 180 years, started with Jackson and followed by Sylvester. Green and Tao has shown recently that the maximum possible…