Generalizing the rattle theorem (Q1090976)

A crumpled cube C in \(E^ 3\) is the union of a topological 2-sphere with its interior. Many investigations have explored conditions that ''tame \(\Sigma\) '', guarantee that \(\Sigma\) is tame from its interior. One picturesque description views the 2-sphere and its interior as a baby's rattle. From the author's summary: ''The rattle theorem states that a baby's rattle [is tame] if the marble rattle in its interior touches every point of \(\Sigma\) as it rolls around inside the rattle. Other than rattlers that themselves contain marbles (such as a solid ellipsoid), there are no known substitutes for the marble in this theorem. Examples are given to show that some natural rattler choices among convex polyhedra fail to tame the rattle. However \(\Sigma\) is nearly tame in \(E^ 3\) if it can be touched at each of its points by the tip of a cone from a family of congruent cones in \(\Sigma\cup Int \Sigma\) with sufficiently large cone angles.'' The examples discussed are based on the Fox-Artin wild arc in a construction similar to earlier work of the author of this paper. The construction of the examples shows that some wild spheres can be touched with the tips of ''sharp pencils'', and the rattle theorem suggests that sufficiently wide-angled cones may tame spheres, but open questions remain regarding the size of cone angles that distinguish among degrees of wildness.