What is the plane figure of least Area in which a line segment of width 1 can be freely rotated (where translation of
the segment is also allowed)? Besicovitch (1928) proved that there is no Minimum Area. This can be seen
by rotating a line segment inside a Deltoid, star-shaped 5-oid, star-shaped 7-oid, etc. When the figure is restricted
to be convex, Cunningham and Schoenberg (1965) found there is still no minimum Area. However, the smallest simple convex domain in which one can put a segment of length 1 which will coincide with itself when rotated by 180°
is
See also Curve of Constant Width, Lebesgue Minimal Problem, Reuleaux Polygon, Reuleaux Triangle
References
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Besicovitch, A. S. ``The Kakeya Problem.'' Amer. Math. Monthly 70, 697-706, 1963.
Cunningham, F. Jr. and Schoenberg, I. J. ``On the Kakeya Constant.'' Canad. J. Math. 17, 946-956, 1965.
Le Lionnais, F. Les nombres remarquables. Paris: Hermann, p. 24, 1983.
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Plouffe, S. ``Kakeya Constant.''
http://www.lacim.uqam.ca/piDATA/kakeya.txt.
Wagon, S. Mathematica in Action. New York: W. H. Freeman, pp. 50-52, 1991.