I agree, great question. The 1-dimensiononal version is trivial, so the simplest (possibly-)nontrivial version is dimension 2 with a circle rolling on a 1-dimensional floor (I think we always want to assume codimension 1 here). So 1, 2, and 3 bubbles can be arranged in all ways by taking symmetrical positions, leaving 4 the first nontrivial case.The best I can do offhand is to put one in the center and three evenly spaced along the edge, which I think gives 12 orders. But there are over 2000 entries in the OEIS starting 1, 2, 6, 12-24, >= 12, ... so this isn't even enough to see if the sequence has been studied before. Charles Greathouse Analyst/Programmer Case Western Reserve University On Fri, Oct 17, 2014 at 6:02 PM, Dan Asimov <dasimov@earthlink.net> wrote:
What a great question!
--Dan
On Oct 17, 2014, at 2:54 PM, David Wilson <davidwwilson@comcast.net> wrote:
A clear marble has N tiny bubbles in it, numbered 1 through N.
Roll the marble on the floor, then list the bubbles in order of their distance from the floor (ignore situations where two or more bubbles are at the same height).
Given an optimal distribution of bubbles, what is the largest possible number of bubble orders you could record?
What if you measure distance from the contact point of the marble and floor?
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