A Congruence Problem for Polyhedra

DOI10.4169/000298910X480081zbMATH Open1207.52011arXiv0811.4197OpenAlexW1514054282WikidataQ58136264 ScholiaQ58136264MaRDI QIDQ3058129FDOQ3058129

Authors: Alexandr Borisov, Mark Dickinson, S. P. Hastings 

Publication date: 18 November 2010

Published in: The American Mathematical Monthly (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: It is well known that to determine a triangle up to congruence requires three measurements: three sides, two sides and the included angle, or one side and two angles. We consider various generalizations of this fact to two and three dimensions. In particular we consider the following question: given a convex polyhedron $P$, how many measurements are required to determine $P$ up to congruence? We show that in general the answer is that the number of measurements required is equal to the number of edges of the polyhedron. However, for many polyhedra fewer measurements suffice; in the case of the unit cube we show that nine carefully chosen measurements are enough. We also prove a number of analogous results for planar polygons. In particular we describe a variety of quadrilaterals, including all rhombi and all rectangles, that can be determined up to congruence with only four measurements, and we prove the existence of $n$-gons requiring only $n$ measurements. Finally, we show that one cannot do better: for any sequence of $n$ distinct points in the plane one needs at least $n$ measurements to determine it up to congruence.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/0811.4197

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zbMATH Keywords

polyhedronrigidityabstract polyhedron

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Three-dimensional polytopes (52B10) Polyhedra and polytopes; regular figures, division of spaces (51M20) Rigidity and flexibility of structures (aspects of discrete geometry) (52C25)

Cited In (7)

• Title not available (Why is that?)
• On a problem of Stocker
• Reconstruction of tetrahedra from sets of edge lengths
• ON THE DIMENSIONS OF THE REALIZATION SPACES OF POLYTOPES
• Rigidity, tensegrity, and reconstruction of polytopes under metric constraints
• Polyhedra and commensurability
• Efficient generation of large-scale Pareto-optimal topologies

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