How to avoid being hit by a laser in a room of mirrors
source link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDZzyi-EaLQ
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How to avoid being hit by a laser in a room of mirrors
This is an illustration of the so-called blocking property, explained in the video https://youtu.be/jJ6FD59U0_E - Assume you are in a square room, whose four walls are perfect mirrors. An opponent tries to shoot you with a laser, either directly or by one or several reflections on the walls of the room. You are allowed to place a finite number of objects to protect you from the laser rays. Your position and the position of the shooter being fixed, is it possible to place the objects in such a way, that no laser ray can reach you? It turns out that this is always possible, by placing at most 16 objects (see the above video for a detailed explanation). This simulations illustrates the principle, by showing two different placements of shooter and target, with the corresponding 16 obstacles. The laser rays are replaced by 5000 particles shot in different directions, which are reflected by the walls and absorbed by the obstacles.
Music: "Street Lamp", by Silent Partner
Current version of the C code used to make these animations: https://github.com/nilsberglund-orlea... https://www.idpoisson.fr/berglund/sof...
Some outreach articles on mathematics: https://images.math.cnrs.fr/_Berglund... (in French, some with a Spanish translation)
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