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[GIF] Cloud (Configuration space of pentagons)

Configuration space of pentagons

Cloud

Consider all possible equilateral pentagons in the plane, including self-intersecting polygons. If we only care about shapes of pentagons, we may as well mod out by translations and rotations, which we can achieve by, say, fixing vertex 2 to be $(0,0)$ and vertex 3 to be $(1,0)$. The two adjacent sides to this fixed edge will form angles $\theta_1$ and $\theta_2$, so vertex 1 and vertex 4 move on the unit circles centered on $(0,0)$ and $(1,0)$. Now, for each value of $(\theta_1,\theta_2)$, there are either 0, 1, 2, or infinitely many possible locations for the fifth vertex depending on whether the distance between vertices 1 and 4 is greater than 2, equal to 2, or strictly between 0 and 2, or equal to 0 (when vertices 1 and 4 coincide, vertex 5 can be anywhere on the unit circle centered at vertex 1/4).

Here's an animation showing some possible configurations, with a blue pentagon and a red pentagon when there are two solutions and the four edges shown in black when there are no solutions:

Some pentagons and non-pentagons

Now, since there are two free parameters and (generically), finally many points for each parameter, it's natural to guess that the space of all possible planar pentagons is a surface; indeed, Havel, Kamiyama, and Kapovich--Millson have showed that it's an orientable surface of genus 4.

In an attempt to visualize this space, I took the coordinates $(x_1,y_1)$, $(x_4,y_4)$, and $(x_5,y_5)$ of vertices 1, 4, and 5, interpreted as points $(x_1, y_1, x_4, y_4, x_5, y_5)$ in $\mathbb{R}^6$, sampled 13,940 points, and then projected to the 3-dimensional linear subspace of maximum variance (i.e., the span of the singular vectors corresponding to the three highest singular values). This is in some sense kind of a stupid thing to do, because all of the singular values are large, so this is still projecting away a lot of information. Still, it makes for an interesting animation!

Here's the code.

First of all, a function which turns $(\theta_1,\theta_2)$ into the four obvious vertices and a function which returns the two possible locations for the firfth vertex (when it exists):

FourPointConfiguration[?1_, ?2_] := {{Cos[?1], 
    Sin[?1]}, {0, 0}, {1, 
    0}, {1, 0} + {Cos[?2], Sin[?2]}};
FifthPoints[?1_, ?2_] := {x, y} /. # & /@ 
   Solve[Norm[{x, y} - {Cos[?1], Sin[?1]}] == 1 && 
     Norm[{x, y} - {1 + Cos[?2], Sin[?2]}] == 1, {x, y}];

Also, a function to check when there is a fifth vertex at all (notice that this excludes the case when there is exactly one solution, which in practice isn't going to matter so much:

LegalConfiguration[?1_, ?2_] := 
      Norm[FourPointConfiguration[?1, ?2][[1]] - 
         FourPointConfiguration[?1, ?2][[-1]]] < 2;

Now, when vertices 1 and 4 coincide, we get a whole circle's worth of possible locations for the fifth vertex. Notice that this only happens when $(\theta_1,\theta_2) = (\pi/3,2\pi/3)$ or $(5\pi/3,4\pi/3)$. Here's a function which returns the pentagons corresponding to $n$ equally-spaced points on these two circles:

SampleBadPentagons[n_] := 
  Join[ParallelTable[
    Flatten[Append[
      FourPointConfiguration[?/3., 2 ?/3.][[{1, 4}]], 
      FourPointConfiguration[?/3., 2 ?/3.][[
        4]] + {Cos[?], Sin[?]}], 1], {?, 0, 
     2 ? - 2 ?/n, 2 ?/n}], 
   ParallelTable[
    Flatten[Append[
      FourPointConfiguration[5 ?/3., 4 ?/3.][[{1, 4}]], 
      FourPointConfiguration[5 ?/3., 4 ?/3.][[
        4]] + {Cos[?], Sin[?]}], 1], {?, 0, 
     2 ? - 2 ?/n, 2 ?/n}]];

Now, here's a function which generates $\theta_1$ and $\theta_2$, each as $n$ evenly-spaced points on the circle (so $n^2$ total points), throws away the values which don't produce pentagons, builds both possible pentagons for each legal pair $(\theta_1,\theta_2)$, and then tacks some of the weird pentagons from the previous function. I did some playing around and found that taking $n/3$ points from each of the two weird circles of pentagons seems to give about the same density of points.

SamplePentagonSpace[n_] := Module[{angles, legalAngles},
   angles = 
    Flatten[Table[{?1, ?2}, {?1, 0., 
       2 ? - 2 ?/n, 2 ?/n}, {?2, 0., 
       2 ? - 2 ?/n, 2 ?/n}], 1];
   legalAngles = Select[angles, LegalConfiguration @@ # &];
   Join[Flatten[
     ParallelTable[
      Flatten[Append[
          FourPointConfiguration[legalAngles[[i, 1]], 
            legalAngles[[i, 2]]][[{1, 4}]], #]] & /@ 
       FifthPoints[legalAngles[[i, 1]], legalAngles[[i, 2]]], {i, 1, 
       Length[legalAngles]}], 1], SampleBadPentagons[Floor[n/3]]]
   ];

With all that code written, we now just need to sample a bunch of points

pentagonsamplesSmall = SamplePentagonSpace[100];

...and then project and visualize:

DynamicModule[{cols = RGBColor /@ {"#86EE60", "#2B3752"}, svd, data},
 svd = SingularValueDecomposition[pentagonsamplesSmall, 3];
 data = Manipulate[
   ListPointPlot3D[svd[[1]].svd[[2]], BoxRatios -> {1, 1, 1}, 
    ImageSize -> 540, SphericalRegion -> True, Boxed -> False, 
    Axes -> None, 
    PlotStyle -> Directive[PointSize[.007], Opacity[.3], cols[[1]]], 
    Background -> cols[[-1]], 
    ViewPoint -> 3 {Cos[?], Sin[?], .1}, 
    ViewVertical -> {0, 0, 1}], {?, 0, 2 ?}]
 ]

enter image description here - another post of yours has been selected for the Staff Picks group, congratulations! We are happy to see you at the top of the "Featured Contributor" board. Thank you for your wonderful contributions, and please keep them coming!

POSTED BY: Moderation Team
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