Mystery of points charges after C.F,Gauss, J.C.Maxwell, and M.Morse

Speaker
Boris Shapiro (Stockholm universitet)
Date
23/11/2025 - 13:00 - 12:00Add to Calendar 2025-11-23 12:00:00 2025-11-23 13:00:00 Mystery of points charges after C.F,Gauss, J.C.Maxwell, and M.Morse We discuss the problem of finding an upper bound for the number of equilibrium points of a potential of several fixed point charges in R^n. This question goes back to J. C. Maxwell  and M. Morse. Using fewnomial theory we show that for a given number of charges there exists an upper bound independent of the dimension, and show it to be at most 12 for three charges. We conjecture an exact upper bound for a given configuration of nonnegative charges in terms of its Voronoi diagram, and prove it asymptotically. (201) Math Seminar room אוניברסיטת בר-אילן - המחלקה למתמטיקה mathoffice@math.biu.ac.il Asia/Jerusalem public
Place
(201) Math Seminar room
Abstract

We discuss the problem of finding an upper bound for the number of equilibrium points of a potential of several fixed point charges in R^n. This question goes back to J. C. Maxwell  and M. Morse. Using fewnomial theory we show that for a given number of charges there exists an upper bound independent of the dimension, and show it to be at most 12 for three charges. We conjecture an exact upper bound for a given configuration of nonnegative charges in terms of its Voronoi diagram, and prove it asymptotically.

תאריך עדכון אחרון : 16/11/2025