Random Triangles and Polygons in the Plane

DOI10.1080/00029890.2019.1535735MaRDI QIDQ3120222zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Jason Cantarella, Tom Needham, Clayton Shonkwiler, Gavin Stewart

Publication date 1 March 2019

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

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1702.01027

zbMATH Keywords

Grassmann manifold of 2-planesGrassmannian geometry of planar quadrilateralsGrassmannian geometry of trianglesmoduli space of unordered quadrilateralsplanar \(n\)-gonsrandom triangle

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Grassmannians, Schubert varieties, flag manifolds (14M15) Random convex sets and integral geometry (aspects of convex geometry) (52A22) Curves in Euclidean and related spaces (53A04) Geometric probability and stochastic geometry (60D05)

Abstract: We consider the problem of finding the probability that a random triangle is obtuse, which was first raised by Lewis Caroll. Our investigation leads us to a natural correspondence between plane polygons and the Grassmann manifold of 2-planes in real $n$-space proposed by Allen Knutson and Jean-Claude Hausmann. This correspondence defines a natural probability measure on plane polygons. In these terms, we answer Caroll's question. We then explore the Grassmannian geometry of planar quadrilaterals, providing an answer to Sylvester's four-point problem, and describing explicitly the moduli space of unordered quadrilaterals. All of this provides a concrete introduction to a family of metrics used in shape classification and computer vision.

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Cited in

(13)

• Random triangulations of the plane
• Spherical geometry and the least symmetric triangle
• Random triangles on flat tori
• Random triangles in planar regions
• Hall's conjecture on extremal sets for random triangles
• Generating equilateral random polygons in confinement. II
• Random triangles
• Generating triangulations at random
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1421016 (Why is no real title available?)
• Triangle inscribed-triangle picking
• RANDOM POLYGONS DETERMINED BY RANDOM LINES IN A PLANE
• A Wasserstein-type distance for Gaussian mixtures on vector bundles with applications to shape analysis
• A dynamical system in the space of convex quadrangles

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