The six cylinder problem

A continuous path of configurations of six cylinders of radius 1 in contact with a ball of radius 1. The cylinders only touch each other at the two endpoints of this path. At the largest separation, the closest pairs have a gap between them of size (√33-5)/4.

This family of configurations was found by Oleg Ogievetsky and Senya Shlosman. See arXiv:1805.09833.

Drag the model to rotate it. Use the slider to move along the path of configurations. The current gap size is .

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