Reuleaux Tetrahedron - Meissner Bodies

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:

    The will to domination is a ravenous beast. There are never enough warm bodies to satiate its monstrous hunger. Once alive, this beast grows and grows, feeding on all the life around it, scouring the earth to find new sources of nourishment. This beast lives in each man who battens on female servitude.
    Andrea Dworkin (b. 1946)