Periodic billiard trajectories in regular polygons and closed geodesics on regular polyhedra (Q2452187)

Move a point along a geodesic with unit velocity inside a face of a regular polyhedron in Euclidean 3-space. As the point hits an edge, we can either continue along another face, as a geodesic, or we can reflect into the same face, as a billiard. The billiard and the geodesic are periodic under exactly the same circumstances. The author raises the problem of relating the periods. The periods have small integer ratio, but the precise value of that integer is dependent on the particular geodesic. The author has determined previously the relations between the periods in regular tetrahedra and octahedra. In this paper, he determines these relations for cubes and regular icosahedra, and discusses the problem for regular dodecahedra. He finds a very surprising (for the reviewer) relation to modular groups, with proofs given by explicitly drawing pictures.