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0 pointsJonathonW6y ago0 comments

Blue isn't only for N=2; it starts showing up again at N=104.

It appears that circles are colored blue if their number of contacts (with either other circles or the outside) is equal to 1 or 2. They're magenta if their number of contacts is zero.

I'm not sure what the distinction between orange and yellow is-- it doesn't seem to be strictly number of contacts, because I can see cases where both orange and yellow have four contacts.

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robocat6y ago· 1 in thread

Reread my answer for orange, I'm sure it is correct. To say it a different way: a circle X is coloured orange if X is touching a circle Y, and both X and Y also touch circle Z. Y and Z can either be small circles or the main outer circle.

The colours are about constraints. Orange is a locked constraint between 3 circles (inner and outer included).

If you think about it, N=2 is the only solution that the circles are constrained to touch in two places (and N=1 is weird because it touches in infinite places).

At N=104, the blue circles are surely a drawing fault, they are actually unconstrained and should be magenta. Shown by fact that those blue circles have a dot in the middle (not touching), but a neighbour circle has a line pointing to the blue circle (touching), which is contradictory.

showdead6y ago

For N=104, if you look at the PDF and zoom in, you can see the blue circles have a line rather than a dot. Admittedly, it is hard to see why the blue circles do not have enough freedom to move slightly away and become magenta (particularly the one on N=108).

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