Maximum overhang

Paterson, Mike; Peres, Yuval; Thorup, Mikkel; Winkler, Peter; Zwick, Uri

Maximum overhang

Authors

Description

How far can a stack of $n$ identical blocks be made to hang over the edge of a table? The question dates back to at least the middle of the 19th century and the answer to it was widely believed to be of order $\log n$. Recently, Paterson and Zwick constructed $n$-block stacks with overhangs of order $n^{1/3}$, exponentially better than previously thought possible. We show here that order $n^{1/3}$ is indeed best possible, resolving the long-standing overhang problem up to a constant factor.
20 pages, 8 figures