PreprintCC BY 4.0arXiv
How Many Sides Does a Tire Have?
Abstract
How many sides does a tire have: two, three, or only one? The question is a joke only until we ask what the word ``side'' is supposed to measure. This article follows three reasonable answers into one small piece of topology: a loop on a tire can have no endpoints and still be a border of a chosen region. The point is not to find the official number of sides, but to see why the count changes when the model changes.
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BibTeX
@misc{stojanovic2026many,
title = {{How Many Sides Does a Tire Have?}},
author = {Vanja Stojanović},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2608.13733},
eprint = {2608.13733},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.13733},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - How Many Sides Does a Tire Have?
AU - Vanja Stojanović
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/09
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2608.13733
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.13733
AB - How many sides does a tire have: two, three, or only one? The question is a joke only until we ask what the word ``side'' is supposed to measure. This article follows three reasonable answers into one small piece of topology: a loop on a tire can have no endpoints and still be a border of a chosen region. The point is not to find the official number of sides, but to see why the count changes when the model changes.
ER -