The configuration space of almost regular polygons

Abstract

A bstract . For a given angle y , consider the configuration space C n of equilateral n -gons in R 3 whose bond angles are equal to y except for two successive ones. We show that when n b 8 and y is su‰ciently close to the inner angle n (cid:1) 2 n p of the regular n -gon, C n is homeomorphic to the ð n (cid:1) 4 Þ -dimensional sphere S n (cid:1) 4 .