학술논문
On sphere-filling ropes
Document Type
Working Paper
Author
Source
Amer. Math. Monthly 118, no. 10 (2011), 863--876
Subject
Language
Abstract
What is the longest rope on the unit sphere? Intuition tells us that the answer to this packing problem depends on the rope's thickness. For a countably infinite number of prescribed thickness values we construct and classify all solution curves. The simplest ones are similar to the seamlines of a tennis ball, others exhibit a striking resemblance to Turing patterns in chemistry, or to ordered phases of long elastic rods stuffed into spherical shells.
Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures
Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures