A Thrust to Trust Minimum Thrust

We determine the minimum value of thrust for a number of \(N\)-particle configurations. For \(N=5\) in three dimensions, an exact result is found for the first time. For larger \(N\), we obtain numerical results through optimisation. When a definite value cannot be reliably identified, the results are analysed in the context of Extreme Value Theory, using a Maximum Likelihood Estimate and a Bayesian analysis. Results are given for three spatial dimensions, two dimensions, and selected cases in \(d\) dimensions. Abstract Published by the Jagiellonian University 2026 authors