English

The equal tangents property

Metric Geometry 2012-05-07 v2

Abstract

Let M be a smooth strictly convex closed surface in space and denote by H the set of points x in the exterior of M such that all the tangent segments from x to M have equal lengths. In this note we prove that if H is either a closed surface containing M or a plane then M is an Euclidean sphere. Moreover, we shall see that the situation in the Euclidean plane is very different.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1205.0142,
  title  = {The equal tangents property},
  author = {J. Jeronimo-Castro and G. Ruiz-Hernandez and S. Tabachnikov},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1205.0142},
  year   = {2012}
}

Comments

a typo corrected

R2 v1 2026-06-21T20:57:04.673Z