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Visualizing Minkowski's theorem

enter image description here

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POSTED BY: Diego Ramos
10 Replies

This is a very nice theorem! Thank you for sharing your clear demonstration of this effect.

As a shy remark: I could not resist making graphical representation of the successively blocked angles.

If we have this simple situation:

ClearAll["Global`*"]

latticePts = Flatten[Table[{nx, ny}, {nx, 10}, {ny, 10}], 1];
radius = .1;
demoxy = {6, 7};
bar[p1_, p2_, llength_] := Rectangle[p1, {llength, Last[p2]}]

(* blocked angle range: *)
\[Phi]range = Module[{\[Phi], \[Delta]\[Phi], dist},
     \[Phi] = ArcTan[#1, #2];
     dist = Norm[{#1, #2}];
     \[Delta]\[Phi] = ArcTan[radius/dist];
     {{dist, \[Phi] - \[Delta]\[Phi]}, {dist, \[Phi] + \[Delta]\[Phi]}}] & @@@ latticePts;

Graphics[{Disk[#, radius] & /@ latticePts, Red, Arrow[{{0, 0}, demoxy}]}, 
 PlotRange -> {{0, Automatic}, {0, Automatic}}, Frame -> True]

enter image description here

Then the blocked angle ranges look like:

Graphics[{Black, Line /@ \[Phi]range,
  Red, Arrow[{{0, ArcTan @@ demoxy}, {Norm[demoxy], 
     ArcTan @@ demoxy}}],Gray, Opacity[.2], bar[#1, #2, 15] & @@@ \[Phi]range}, 
 AspectRatio -> .8, ImageSize -> 700, Frame -> True, FrameLabel -> {"Norm", "Angle \[Phi]"}]

enter image description here

I think this is at least aesthetically pleasing.

POSTED BY: Henrik Schachner

Very creative data representation. It seems that the non-overlapping of the rectangles is crucial for the existence of visibility lines. One might extract some other insights from this chart. Thanks!

POSTED BY: Diego Ramos

I just wanted to add an update based on https://mathworld.wolfram.com/OrchardVisibilityProblem.html

POSTED BY: Diego Ramos

Small technicality: I think it's actually the tree radius has to be .16 m (otherwise it might only occlude as little as half of that strip). But very nice in any case.

POSTED BY: Daniel Lichtblau

It is assumed that the origin is the point of vision. In fact any light ray from a outside point to the origin lies (symmetrically in the middle) in a visibility strip. Since any visibility strip contains at least a lattice point at its interior, the corresponding tree occlude the light ray for its size exceeds half of this visibility strip.

POSTED BY: Diego Ramos

The visibility strip contains a lattice point. But that point need not be along the midline of the strip. If it is near a border then almost half the strip is not occluded.

POSTED BY: Daniel Lichtblau

The importante fact is that the midline is always occluded by a tree, hence the "eye" located at Origin cannot see the light ray ( midline of the strip) that comes from outside.

POSTED BY: Diego Ramos

Place the midline so that lattice point is on center (so the center of the tree lies on the line of sight). Now shift the strip so that the center of the tree barely hits the strip. Then the center line is indeed occluded. But there are lines of sight, within the strip, that are not necessarily occluded (shift your eyes a smidge off the center line, away from the side hitting the tree).

Stated slightly differently, there is no guarantee that a tree is centered on every line of sight (and indeed that cannot happen with a lattice). The Minkowski guarantee is that a tree center exists withing each visibility strip. Not the same thing.

POSTED BY: Daniel Lichtblau

The eye is a point, it has no extension.

POSTED BY: Diego Ramos

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