Smoothing a rock by chipping

Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2007 Mar;75(3 Pt 1):031119. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.75.031119. Epub 2007 Mar 28.

Abstract

We investigate an idealized model for the size reduction and smoothing of a polygonal rock due to repeated chipping at corners. Each chip is sufficiently small so that only a single corner and a fraction of its two adjacent sides are cut from the object in a single chipping event. After many chips have been cut away, the resulting shape of the rock is generally anisotropic, with facet lengths and corner angles distributed over a broad range. Although a well-defined shape is quickly reached for each realization, there are large fluctuations between realizations.