RigidBracingsofaGrid.doc-DepartmentofMathematics.docVIP

Undergraduate Research Opportunity Programme in Science Rigid Bracings of a Grid Pow Tien Min, Jaron Kok Chee Kean Lai Yong Chieng, Marvin A/P Tay Tiong Seng Department of Mathematics National University of Singapore 2002/2003 List of Contents 1. Acknowledgements 2 2. Definition of infinitesimal rigidity 3 3. Motions of an m ( n grid 5 4. The Bracing Problem using 1x2 braces 11 5. Cycles 14 6. Even and Odd Spaces 15 7. Further definitions 16 8. Bibliography 25 1. Acknowledgements We would like to express our sincere thanks to A/P Tay Tiong Seng. Prof Tay has been a major driving force for the 3 of us in this project. The weekly meetings with him were insightful and always full of discoveries. We greatly enjoyed meeting with him week in week out. For we know that he is always so earnest and willing to help us solve our problems whenever we meet with some obstacle or thinking barrier. He is always to spend the extra effort to work out our unresolved problems each week, and come up with a systematic and “easy enough to follow” outline on what we should focus on the following week. Without his guide, we would not have been able to complete as much of the project as we did. The 3 of us are especially interested in Graph Theory, which was why we ventured into a project based study of the subject in the first place. Doing this project has helped broaden our horizons and look more in depth at one of the many applications of Graph Theory. We would like to express our gratitude again to our supervisor, Prof Tay for being with us throughout this project. It has certainly been a joy to work under him, and we’re sure more students would be looking for him to supervise in their projects in future. 2. Definition of Infinitesimal Rigidity A k-dimensional framework (V,E,p) consists of a graph (V,E) (known as the structure graph) and a function p (known as the embedding function) from the vertex set into k-space, p:V→ (k , where p(ai)