Cauchy's theorem (geometry)

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Cauchy's theorem is a theorem in geometry, named after Augustin Cauchy. It states that convex polytopes in three dimensions with congruent corresponding faces must be congruent to each other. That is, any polyhedral net formed by unfolding the faces of the polyhedron onto a flat surface, together with gluing instructions describing which faces should be connected to each other, uniquely determines the shape of the original polyhedron. For instance, if six squares are connected in the pattern of a cube, then they must form a cube: there is no convex polyhedron with six square faces connected in the same way that does not have the same shape.

Contents

This is a fundamental result in rigidity theory: one consequence of the theorem is that, if one makes a physical model of a convex polyhedron by connecting together rigid plates for each of the polyhedron faces with flexible hinges along the polyhedron edges, then this ensemble of plates and hinges will necessarily form a rigid structure.

Statement

Convex regular icosahedron Icosahedron.svg
Convex regular icosahedron

Let P and Q be combinatorially equivalent 3-dimensional convex polytopes; that is, they are convex polytopes with isomorphic face lattices. Suppose further that each pair of corresponding faces from P and Q are congruent to each other, i.e. equal up to a rigid motion. Then P and Q are themselves congruent.

To see that convexity is necessary, consider a regular icosahedron. One can "push in" a vertex to create a nonconvex polyhedron that is still combinatorially equivalent to the regular icosahedron; that is, one can take five faces of the icosahedron meeting at a vertex, which form the sides of a pentagonal pyramid, and reflect the pyramid with respect to its base.

History

The result originated in Euclid's Elements , where solids are called equal if the same holds for their faces. This version of the result was proved by Cauchy in 1813 based on earlier work by Lagrange. An error in Cauchy's proof of the main lemma was corrected by Ernst Steinitz, Isaac Jacob Schoenberg, and Aleksandr Danilovich Aleksandrov. The corrected proof of Cauchy is so short and elegant, that it is considered to be one of the Proofs from THE BOOK. [1]

See also

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References

  1. Aigner, Martin; Ziegler, Günter M. (2014). Proofs from THE BOOK. Springer. pp. 91–93. ISBN   9783540404606.
  2. Connelly, Robert (1977). "A counterexample to the rigidity conjecture for polyhedra" (PDF). Publications Mathématiques de l'IHÉS. 47: 333–338. doi:10.1007/BF02684342. ISSN   0073-8301. S2CID   122968997.
  3. Connelly, Robert (1979). "The Rigidity of Polyhedral Surfaces". Mathematics Magazine. 52 (5): 275–283. doi:10.2307/2689778. JSTOR   2689778.
  4. Gluck, Herman (1975). "Almost all simply connected closed surfaces are rigid". In Glaser, Leslie Curtis; Rushing, Thomas Benjamin (eds.). Geometric Topology. Lecture Notes in Mathematics. Vol. 438. Springer Berlin Heidelberg. pp. 225–239. doi:10.1007/bfb0066118. ISBN   9783540374121.