Number of intersections formed by chords connecting all N evenly spaced nodes on a circle

59 Views Asked by At

Non-mathematician here, sorry if terminology is wrong.

  • For a circle with N evenly spaced nodes on the perimeter;
  • With chords connecting every node to every other node;
  • What is the total number of unique intersections of chords?

'Unique' meaning that intersections of 2+ nodes should only be counted once.

I've been able to figure out that the number of line crossings is given by

(Formula)

where p is the pyramid addition function.

But this doesn't account for the 'uniqueness' criterion.

1

There are 1 best solutions below

0
On BEST ANSWER

If it happens that no three chords meet at the same point then the number of intersections is $\binom{n}4$ Otherwise it is less. Can you see why? The maximum happens for $n$ prime. That is perhaps not surprising, though that is far from trivial.

The exact formula depends on the congruence class $\bmod 2520=8*9*5*7.$ You can find a link to the proof in the OEIS entry linked above.