Sum of Empty Skies for a Set of Planets

Initializing live version
Download to Desktop

Requires a Wolfram Notebook System

Interact on desktop, mobile and cloud with the free Wolfram Player or other Wolfram Language products.

Consider a set of circular planets in the plane (disks), all of the same radius and no two intersecting. On the circumference of each planet, look at the set of points not visible from any other planet (indicated by a dark sector). Incredibly, the total length of these sets is equal to the circumference of one planet! This problem was in the short list of the 22nd International Mathematical Olympiad, proposed by the Soviet Union. You can drag the disks to see the set of shadows they impose on one another.

Contributed by: Jaime Rangel-Mondragon (August 2012)
Open content licensed under CC BY-NC-SA


Snapshots


Details

Reference

[1] R. Gelca and T. Andreescu, Putnam and Beyond, New York: Springer, 2007.



Feedback (field required)
Email (field required) Name
Occupation Organization
Note: Your message & contact information may be shared with the author of any specific Demonstration for which you give feedback.
Send