Saturday, 27 June 2015

general topology - Constructing a circle from a square




I have seen a [picture like this] several times:



troll proof




featuring a "troll proof" that π=4. Obviously the construction does not yield a circle, starting from a square, but how to rigorously and demonstratively prove it?



For reference, we start with a circle inscribed in a square with side length 1. A step consists of reflecting each corner of figure Fi so that it lies precisely on the circle and yielding figure Fi+1. F0 is the square with side length 1. After infinitely many steps we have a figure F. Prove that it isn't a circle.



Possible ways of thinking:




  1. Since the perimeter of figure Fi indeed does not change during a step, it is invariant. Since it does not equal the perimeter of the circle, π4, it cannot be a circle.




While it seems to work, I do not find this proof demonstrative enough - it does not show why F which looks very much like a circle to us, is not one.




  1. Consider one corner of the square F0. Let t be a coordinate along the edge of this corner, 0t1 and t=0,t=1 being the points of tangency for this corner of F0 and the circle.
    By construction, all points tA={n2m|(n,mN)&(n<2m)} of F lie on the circle. I think it can be shown that the rest of the points, ˉA=[0;1]A, lie in an ε-neighbourhood U of the circle. I also think that in the limit ε0, points tˉA also lie on the circle. Am I wrong in thinking this? Can we get a contradiction from this line of thought?



Any other elucidating proofs and thoughts are also welcomed, of course.


Answer



You have rigorously defined Fi, but how do you define F? You cannot say: "after infinitely many steps...".




In this case you could define F=iFi (i.e. the intersection of all Fi), since Fi is a decreasing sequence this is a good notion of limit. Notice however that F is a circle! But this does not mean that the perimeter of Fi should converge to the perimeter of F.



You could also choose a metric on subsets of the plane to define some sort of convergence FiF as i. In any case, if you choose any good metric you find that either F is the circle or that the sequence does not converge.



The point here is that the perimeter is not continuous with respect to the convergence of sets... so even if FiF (in any decent notion of convergence) you cannot say that P(Fi)P(F) (where P is the perimeter).


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