dlalic / windmill

A game inspired by the nice visualization of a problem from the 52nd IMO (International Mathematical Olympiad)

Windmill

A game inspired by the nice visualization of a problem from the 52nd International Mathematical Olympiad.

Problem

Let S be a finite set of at least two points in the plane. Assume that no three points of S are collinear. By a windmill we mean a process as follows. Start with a line l going through a point P ∈ S. Rotate l clockwise around the pivot P until the line contains another point Q of S. The point Q now takes over as the new pivot. This process continues indefinitely, with the pivot always being a point from S.

Show that for a suitable P ∈ S and a suitable starting line l containing P, the resulting windmill will visit each point of S as a pivot infinitely often.

Source and solution

Usage

cargo run

Key	Action
R	reset
U	increase speed
D	decrease speed
Esc	quit

Implementation

There are already a handful of open source implementations available in different languages and frameworks including the one from the visualization video. They're mostly implemented in a way that an angle between the line and the point is calculated and then compared to 0 or PI to detect new pivot. This implementation calculates point orientation in regards to the line and detects new pivot when orientation changes.