Meissner Bodies
Meissner and Schilling showed how to modify the Reuleaux tetrahedron to form a surface of constant width, by replacing three of its edge arcs by curved patches formed as the surfaces of rotation of a circular arc. According to which three edge arcs are replaced (three that have a common vertex or three that form a triangle) there result two noncongruent shapes that are sometimes called Meissner bodies or Meissner tetrahedra (for interactive pictures and films see Weber). Bonnesen and Fenchel conjectured that Meissner tetrahedra are the minimum-volume three-dimensional shapes of constant width, a conjecture which is still open. In connection with this problem, Campi, Colesanti and Gronchi showed that the minimum volume surface of revolution with constant width is the surface of revolution of a Reuleaux triangle through one of its symmetry axes.
Read more about this topic: Reuleaux Tetrahedron
Famous quotes containing the word bodies:
“when such bodies join
There is no touching here, nor touching there,
Nor straining joy, but whole is joined to whole;
For the intercourse of angels is a light
Where for its moment both seem lost, consumed.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)