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Description of  Outer Billiards on Kites (AM-171) (Annals of Mathematics Studies)

Outer billiards is a basic dynamical system defined relative to a convex shape in the plane. B. H. Neumann introduced this system in the 1950s, and J. Moser popularized it as a toy model for celestial mechanics. All along, the so-called Moser-Neumann question has been one of the central problems in the field. This question asks whether or not one can have an outer billiards system with an unbounded orbit. The Moser-Neumann question is an idealized version of the question of whether, because of small disturbances in its orbit, the Earth can break out of its orbit and fly away from the Sun. In Outer Billiards on Kites, Richard Schwartz presents his affirmative solution to the Moser-Neumann problem.