And it's even freely available on the web!: http://www.math.psu.edu/tabachni/Books/taba.pdf Chapter 14 deals with the smooth version of the problem, summarily dismissing the non-smooth version by invoking the construction that Dan and I are skeptical about. Thanks, Dan. I'll see what Erik thinks about the construction of Figure 14.2 in the book Jim Propp On Tuesday, October 27, 2015, Dan Asimov <dasimov@earthlink.net> wrote:
A more useful reference is the book "Thirty Lectures on Classic Mathematics" by Dmitry Fuchs and Serge Tabachnikov, whose Chapter 14 is all about this problem.
—Dan
On Oct 27, 2015, at 8:03 AM, James Propp <jamespropp@gmail.com> wrote:
Dan Asimov wrote:
Dan, may I forward your email to him?
No.
Understood.
Also, can anyone provide the Gardner reference Dan has in mind?
6th Book of Mathematical Diversions, p. 63, with illustation.
Gardner says there is a proof in Stephen Barr's Experiments in Topology (1964), but Barr attributes the method to Gardner and provides no proof.
I'm trying to locate this in my CD of all Gardner's columns, but unfortunately when MAA re-released the books, they gave them different titles (and possibly traded material between books). Can anyone locate this column on the CD, or provide a word from the column that uniquely specifies it? (Lots of columns contain the words "Stephen", "Barr", and "Topology", and I don't know how to get my Mac to search for two-word phrases.)
Thanks,
Jim Propp _______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com https://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
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