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A Strange But Elegant Approach to a Surprisingly Hard Problem (GJK Algorithm)

A 32-minute video by Reducible about control and dynamics, computing mechanisms and algorithms and data structures, on the Mathematics shelf. It came up in r/math, in a thread called “What are some of your favorite math explainer videos that aren’t from mathologer, numberphile, or 3b1b?”.

Reducible, Video, 32 min, 2021, on the Mathematics shelf

In 1988, three engineers came together and developed one of the most clever solutions to the problem of detecting when two complex objects collide. Their solution, the Gilbert Johnson Keerthi (GJK) algorithm, named after the authors, made an incredible impact in the fields of robotics, control, and computer graphics. This video is about understanding this ingenious algorithm from first principles.