On the model flexibility of siamese dipyramids (Q669607)

The authors review the problem of flexibility models of siamese dipyramides. Siamese dipyramides are a particular class of polyhedral surfaces. They analyse the flexibility properties of physical models of such objects. In particular, they show that the siamese dypiramids are not flexible in the classical way. They analyse the space of siamese dipyramides using both analytical and topological methods. They use this space to introduce the concept of almost flexion, which models the idea of model flexibility with insignificant variations on the lenght of the edges of the model. Using this approach they state their main result: ``For every \(n \geq 3\) there exists \(n\)-gonal siamese dipyramids which admit continuous deformations preserving the combinatorial structure and such that negligigble relative variations in the length of edges produce significant relative variations in their spatial shapes''. Finally, they analyse concrete examples of such siamese dipyramides.