The Hexagonal Honeycomb Conjecture

DOI10.1090/S0002-9947-99-02356-9MaRDI QIDQ4235610zbMATH OpenWikidataFDO

Authors Frank Morgan

Publication date 22 March 1999

Published in Transactions of the American Mathematical Society (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://doi.org/10.1090/S0002-9947-99-02356-9

zbMATH Keywords

beeshexagonal honeycombisoperimetricperimeter-minimizing

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Length, area, volume, other geometric measure theory (28A75) Variational problems in a geometric measure-theoretic setting (49Q20) Length, area, volume and convex sets (aspects of convex geometry) (52A38)

Review text

The general conjecture that the hexagonal honeycomb is the least-perimeter way to enclose and separate infinitely many regions of unit area in the plane is still open (despite mathematical folklore to the contrary). Some restricted versions of it have been solved; but there are many possible variations, both in what constitutes a legal set of regions (may there be empty space? must the regions be connected?) and in how the perimeter shall be compared. In general, it is not even known whether there exists an optimal solution to some of these problems. It is known that, for any finite \(n\), there is a cluster of \(n\) unit-area cells achieving the minimum perimeter, although the exact nature of the minimizing cluster is unknown in most cases. By piecing together such clusters, the author shows the existence of an infinite cluster that achieves the minimal limiting perimeter-to-area ratio. The resulting infinite cluster has large empty spaces between its finite components; it is not known whether the same result can be obtained without allowing empty space, or whether a better solution might be found using disconnected regions. Another version of the problem requires the total perimeter within large balls to be minimized, without permitting empty space (that is, faces with infinite area or finite area greater than 1) or (again) disconnected regions. The author shows that there must exist a partition of the plane which achieves this minimum.

Recommendations

• The honeycomb conjecture
• On the Application of the Honeycomb Conjecture to the Bee's Honeycomb
• The dodecahedral conjecture
• The Hexagonal Packing Lemma and the Rodin Sullivan Conjecture
• A theory of hexaflexagons
• The Erdős problem for hexagons
• Convex hulls of polyominoes
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 5875567
• Proof of Blum's conjecture on hexagonal dungeons
• A partial proof of the Erdős-Szekeres conjecture for hexagons

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Cited in

(19)

• All the facets of the six-point Hamming cone
• The honeycomb conjecture
• The silent hexagon: explaining comb structures
• An isoperimetric problem for three-dimensional parallelohedra
• Phase field approach to optimal packing problems and related Cheeger clusters
• Proof of the honeycomb asymptotics for optimal Cheeger clusters
• The Hexagonal Packing Lemma and the Rodin Sullivan Conjecture
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 739021 (Why is no real title available?)
• On the honeycomb conjecture for a class of minimal convex partitions
• On the honeycomb conjecture for Robin Laplacian eigenvalues
• Minimal clusters of four planar regions with the same area
• Phase-field modelling and computing for a large number of phases
• On the Application of the Honeycomb Conjecture to the Bee's Honeycomb
• Lattice tilings with minimal perimeter and unequal volumes
• A note on the honeycomb optimality among periodic convex tilings
• The honeycomb conjecture in normed planes and an alpha-convex variant of a theorem of Dowker
• Lattice tilings minimizing nonlocal perimeters
• Minimal periodic foams with fixed inradius
• Periodic double tilings of the plane

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