The Reuleaux triangle and its center of mass (Q1572960)

The authors discuss the drilling of holes into squares by using Reuleaux polygons. In particular, they present the so-called Reuleaux shape (= area that is cut out of a square \(S\) by rotating a Reuleaux triangle \(T\) within \(S)\) and the orbit of the center of mass of \(T\) under this procedure. Inspired by this geometric relation between Reuleaux triangles and squares, they investigate the analogous situation for larger vertex numbers of the involved Reuleaux polygons and prescribed regular polygons. More precisely, they show that for \(n>3\) a Reuleaux \(n\)-gon cannot revolve in a regular \((n+1)\)-gon \(P\) such that it has exactly one point in common with each side of \(P\).