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Soap Films and Grid Walks
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| Ivars Peterson (MathLand) | |
| A simple, physical demonstration of a mathematical truth can produce a lasting impression - one that inspires new questions and speculations. For Christopher C. Chang, a student at Henry M. Gunn Senior High School in Palo Alto, Calif., and one of 40 finalists in this year's Westinghouse Science Talent Search, that demonstration involved soap films and a classic problem invented nearly two centuries ago by Jakob Steiner, a professor at the University of Berlin. When Chang started to work on the Steiner problem, instead of finding Steiner points on a plane in which roads can go in any direction, he looked for them on a grid, meaning that the roads can go only in certain directions. This put the problem into the realm of discrete geometry. | |
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| Levels: | High School (9-12), College |
| Languages: | English |
| Resource Types: | Problems/Puzzles, Articles |
| Math Topics: | Graph Theory, Convex/Discrete Geometry |
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