On the properties of the combinatorial Ricci flow for surfaces

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We investigate the properties of the combinatorial Ricci flow for surfaces, both forward and backward -- existence, uniqueness and singularities formation. We show that the positive results that exist for the smooth Ricci flow also hold for the combinatorial one and that, moreover, the same results hold for a more general, metric notion of curvature. Furthermore, using the metric curvature approach, we show the existence of the Ricci flow for polyhedral manifolds of piecewise constant curvature. We also study the problem of the realizability of the said flow in R³.