Related papers: An improved upper bound on the number of billiard …
We give a new and elementary proof that the number of elastic collisions of a finite number of balls in the Euclidean space is finite. We show that if there are $n$ balls of equal masses and radii 1, and at the time of a collision between…
We consider systems of "pinned balls," i.e., balls that have fixed positions and pseudo-velocities. Pseudo-velocities change according to the same rules as those for velocities of totally elastic collisions between moving balls. The times…
We prove by example that the number of elastic collisions of $n$ balls of equal mass and equal size in $d$-dimensional space can be greater than $n^3/27$ for $n\geq 3$ and $d\geq 2$. The previously known lower bound was of order $n^2$.
We obtain an upper bound of the number of collisions of any billiard trajectory in a polyhedral angle in terms of the minimal eigenvalue of a positive definite matrix which characterizes the angle. Elements of the matrix are scalar products…
We present a game inspired by research on the possible number of billiard ball collisions in the whole Euclidean space. One player tries to place $n$ static "balls" with zero radius (i.e., points) in a way that will minimize the total…
We consider systems of "pinned balls," i.e., balls that have fixed positions and pseudo-velocities. Pseudo-velocities change according to the same rules as those for velocities of totally elastic collisions between moving balls. The times…
The principal angles between binary collision subspaces in an $N$-billiard system in $d$-dimensional Euclidean space are computed. These angles are computed for equal masses and arbitrary masses. We then provide a bound on the number of…
In this work we study the problem of one-dimensional elastic collisions of billiard balls, considered as rigid bodies, in a framework very different from the classical one presented in text books. Implementing the notion of impedance…
We review a virial-type estimate which bounds the strength of interaction for a gas of $N$ hard spheres (billiard balls) dispersing into Euclidean space $\mathbb{R}^d$. This type of estimate has been known for decades in the context of…
Let the kissing number $K(d)$ be the maximum number of non-overlapping unit balls in $\mathbb R^d$ that can touch a given unit ball. Determining or estimating the number $K(d)$ has a long history, with the value of $K(3)$ being the subject…
A simple relation is developed between elastic collisions of freely-moving point particles in one dimension and a corresponding billiard system. For two particles with masses m_1 and m_2 on the half-line x>0 that approach an elastic barrier…
We consider a flat metric with conical singularities on the sphere. Under the assumption that no partial sum of angle defects is equal to $2\pi$, we draw on the geometry of immersed disks to obtain an explicit upper bound on the number of…
Recently were introduced physical billiards where a moving particle is a hard sphere rather than a point as in standard mathematical billiards. It has been shown that in the same billiard tables the physical billiards may have totally…
Billiard systems, broadly speaking, may be regarded as models of mechanical systems in which rigid parts interact through elastic impulsive (collision) forces. When it is desired or necessary to account for linear/angular momentum exchange…
We provide a new lower bound on the number of $(\leq k)$-edges of a set of $n$ points in the plane in general position. We show that for $0 \leq k \leq\lfloor\frac{n-2}{2}\rfloor$ the number of $(\leq k)$-edges is at least $$ E_k(S) \geq…
We study billiards on polytopes in $\Rr^d$ with contracting reflection laws, i.e. non-standard reflection laws that contract the reflection angle towards the normal. We prove that billiards on generic polytopes are uniformly hyperbolic…
We study the collision dynamics of a spinning cue ball approaching a static object ball with equal mass on a plane, common in billiards. While typical collisions in billiards are nearly perfectly elastic, with a restitution coefficient…
By definition, a rigid graph in $\mathbb{R}^d$ (or on a sphere) has a finite number of embeddings up to rigid motions for a given set of edge length constraints. These embeddings are related to the real solutions of an algebraic system.…
Consider the system of $n$ identical hard balls in $\mathbb R^3$ moving freely and colliding elastically. We show that there exist initial conditions such that the number of collisions is exponential in $n$.
We study the geometry of billiard orbits on rectangular billiards. A truncated billiard orbit induces a partition of the rectangle into polygons. We prove that thirteen is a sharp upper bound for the number of different areas of these…