English

No Krasnoselskii number for general sets in $\mathbb{R}^2$

Combinatorics 2020-12-14 v1 Computational Geometry Logic

Abstract

For a family F\mathcal{F} of sets in Rd\mathbb{R}^d, the Krasnoselskii number of F\mathcal{F} is the smallest mm such that for any SFS \in \mathcal{F}, if every mm points of SS are visible from a common point in SS, then any finite subset of SS is visible from a single point. More than 35 years ago, Peterson asked whether there exists a Krasnoselskii number for general sets in Rd\mathbb{R}^d. Excluding results for special cases of sets with strong topological restrictions, the best known result is due to Breen, who showed that if such a Krasnoselskii number in R2\mathbb{R}^2 exists, then it is larger than 88. In this paper we answer Peterson's question in the negative by showing that there is no Krasnoselskii number for the family of all sets in R2\mathbb{R}^2. The proof is non-constructive, and uses transfinite induction and the well ordering theorem. In addition, we consider Krasnoselskii numbers with respect to visibility through polygonal paths of length n \leq n, for which an analogue of Krasnoselskii's theorem was proved by Magazanik and Perles. We show, by an explicit construction, that for any n2n \geq 2, there is no Krasnoselskii number for the family of general sets in R2\mathbb{R}^2 with respect to visibility through paths of length n\leq n. (Here the counterexamples are finite unions of line segments.)

Cite

@article{arxiv.2012.06014,
  title  = {No Krasnoselskii number for general sets in $\mathbb{R}^2$},
  author = {Chaya Keller and Micha A. Perles},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2012.06014},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

11 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-23T20:53:19.057Z