On Hammersley's minimum problem for a rolling sphere

Abstract

AbstractThe problem posed by Hammersley (1983) of finding the shortest path along which a sphere can roll from one prescribed state to another is formulated by using quaternion calculus of variations and optimal control theory. This leads to a system of coupled nonlinear differential equations with prescribed end conditions. From the resulting expression for the curvature, it is shown that the differential equation of the required path in intrinsic coordinates is the same as the equation of motion of a simple pendulum, giving a solution in terms of elliptic integrals.