ConjecturesandOpenQuestionsinRigidity-International.PDFVIP

Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians Helsinki, 1978 Conjectures and Open Questions in Rigidity Robert Connelly* I. Introduction. The study of the rigidity of frameworks and surfaces is fairly old, going back at least to the time of Euler, but progress has been slow and painful. Even today knowledge is meager, and many basic simple questions are still un- answered. One gets the feeling that in the past these questions were considered more a source of embarrassment than a source of conjectures or goals for future study. My feeling is that reasonable conjectures and problems are useful and essential to progress in mathemtics. Even if such questions turn out to be poorly stated, ambiguous, or ultimately uninteresting, they usually have been useful, at least for inspiration if nothing else. Rigidity is a subject very close to the reality of our world. If a structure is proved to be rigid one can always build it and see if it collapses. Theorems had better hold up. The opportunities for beneficial interaction among engineers, architects, and mathematicians seem very attractive. The subject is versatile and sufficiently un- developed that contributions can be made at all levels. I have chosen five categories of questions about which I think it would be nice to know more information. Naturally, some are ambiguous and not too detailed. If I knew the answers, I would not be asking. H. Definitions and history. It is useful to state rigidity in terms of things called frameworks. The name is probably inspired from structural engineering, and physically one should think of a framework as a gad