Outer billiards

Abstract

In this paper outer, or dual, billiards outside regular polygons are studied; in particular, periodic points for cases of strictly convex "tables" and for regular n-gons with n = 3,4,6,8,12 are discussed. The main results of the paper are: 1) proof of an existence of aperiodic points for outer billiards outside regular octagon and dodecagon; 2) proof of the fact that for regular octagon, set of periodic points is of full measure; 3) list of all possible periods for case of regular octagon.