Eight equally charged particles inside a sphere repel each other and come to rest; what figure do they form?
physics/charges.in.sphere New, unsolved
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Problem
Eight equally charged particles inside a sphere repel each other and come to rest; what figure do they form? 8 equally charged particles exist inside a perfect sphere. As is the nature of like charged objects, they all repel each other and come to rest in a forced position. Assume that these 8 particles now represent vertices in a geometrical figure. What figure do they portray? Repeat the same question for a different amount of particles. -- Roland Curit <rolandc@norfolk.infi.net> [ Editor: the title sentence above is a summary of the posting that follows it. Curit also posed it as a riddle: "I am a 3-dimensional figure whose vertices are formed by 8 like-charged particles inside a sphere. What am I?" ]
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No solution was found in the collected postings. [ Editor: the replies collected only suggested that it was a homework problem; Curit answered that he had made up the riddle himself, had the answer, and would give it in a later posting, which is not in the collected material. ]