Simple polygons with an infinite sequence of deflations (Q5948409): Difference between revisions

P. Erdős was the first to propose the usage of flips for convexifying a simply closed polygon in the plane. Here a flip stands for the following: Take a line of support of a non convex polygon: This divides the polygon into two parts. Reflect one part at the line of support and fit this together with the other part. This procedure has been studied by a series of authors and had been called an ``inflation'' in recent publications. There is an obvious inverse of this procedure, with the requirement that no self-intersections should occur. This is called ``deflation'', and there are closed polygons which cannot be deflated. The authors give an example of a quadrangle for which deflation can be iterated infinitely many times. This gives a counterexample to a conjecture made in \textit{B. Wegner} [Beitr. Algebra Geom. 34, 77-85 (1993; Zbl 0772.52004)] that for every polygon these iterations come to a non-deflatable end. For inflations the procedure always will stop after a finite number of iterations.