English

On the Erdos-Szekeres convex polygon problem

Combinatorics 2016-08-30 v2 Computational Geometry

Abstract

Let ES(n)ES(n) be the smallest integer such that any set of ES(n)ES(n) points in the plane in general position contains nn points in convex position. In their seminal 1935 paper, Erdos and Szekeres showed that ES(n)(2n4n2)+1=4no(n)ES(n) \leq {2n - 4\choose n-2} + 1 = 4^{n -o(n)}. In 1960, they showed that ES(n)2n2+1ES(n) \geq 2^{n-2} + 1 and conjectured this to be optimal. In this paper, we nearly settle the Erdos-Szekeres conjecture by showing that ES(n)=2n+o(n)ES(n) =2^{n +o(n)}.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1604.08657,
  title  = {On the Erdos-Szekeres convex polygon problem},
  author = {Andrew Suk},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1604.08657},
  year   = {2016}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-22T13:44:07.431Z