Related papers: Lines, Circles, Planes and Spheres

We show that for any large $n$, there exists a set of $n$ points in the plane with $O(n^2/\sqrt{\log n})$ distinct distances, such that any four points in the set determine at least five distinct distances. This answers (in the negative) a…

Let $m_{12}$, $m_{13}$, ..., $m_{n-1,n}$ be the slopes of the $\binom{n}{2}$ lines connecting $n$ points in general position in the plane. The ideal $I_n$ of all algebraic relations among the $m_{ij}$ defines a configuration space called…

Counting the number of Hamiltonian cycles that are contained in a geometric graph is {\bf \#P}-complete even if the graph is known to be planar \cite{lot:refer}. A relaxation for problems in plane geometric graphs is to allow the geometric…

We show that any planar drawing of a forest of three stars whose vertices are constrained to be at fixed vertex locations may require $\Omega(n^\frac{2}{3})$ edges each having $\Omega(n^\frac{1}{3})$ bends in the worst case. The lower bound…

Given a finite set of points in general position in the plane or sphere, we count the number of ways to separate those points using two types of circles: circles through three of the points, and circles through none of the points (up to an…

The Erd\H{o}s-Szekeres conjecture states that any set of more than $2^{n-2}$ points in the plane with no three on a line contains the vertices of a convex $n$-gon. Erd\H{o}s, Tuza, and Valtr strengthened the conjecture by stating that any…

Planes are familiar mathematical objects which lie at the subtle boundary between continuous geometry and discrete combinatorics. A plane is geometrical, certainly, but the ways that two planes can interact break cleanly into discrete sets:…

The maximum number of non-crossing straight-line perfect matchings that a set of $n$ points in the plane can have is known to be $O(10.0438^n)$ and $\Omega^*(3^n)$. The lower bound, due to Garc\'ia, Noy, and Tejel (2000) is attained by the…

We show that each set of $n\ge 2$ points in the plane in general position has a straight-line matching with at least $(5n+1)/27$ edges whose segments form a connected set, and such a matching can be computed in $O(n \log n)$ time. As an…

The study of extremal problems on triangle areas was initiated in a series of papers by Erd\H{o}s and Purdy in the early 1970s. In this paper we present new results on such problems, concerning the number of triangles of the same area that…

We consider the minimal number of points on a regular grid on the plane that generates $n$ line segments of points of exactly length $k$. We illustrate how this is related to the $n$-queens problem on the toroidal chessboard and show that…

For various triple systems $F$, we give tight lower bounds on the number of copies of $F$ in a triple system with a prescribed number of vertices and edges. These are the first such results for hypergraphs, and extend earlier theorems of…

We consider the space $F_n$ of configurations of $n$ points in $P^2$ satisfying the condition that no three of the points lie on a line. For $n = 4, 5, 6$, we compute $H^*(F_n; \mathbb{Q})$ as an $S_n$-representation. The cases $n = 5, 6$…

One of the general problems in algebraic geometry is to determine algorithmically whether or not a given geometric object, defined by explicit polynomial equations (e.g. a curve or a surface), satisfies a given property (e.g. has…

These notes are intended as an easy-to-read supplement to part of the background material presented in my talks on enumerative geometry. In particular, the numbers $n_3$ and $n_4$ of plane rational cubics through eight points and of plane…

In this paper we establish an improved bound for the number of incidences between a set $P$ of $m$ points and a set $H$ of $n$ planes in $\mathbb R^3$, provided that the points lie on a two-dimensional nonlinear irreducible algebraic…

Delaunay triangulations of a point set in the Euclidean plane are ubiquitous in a number of computational sciences, including computational geometry. Delaunay triangulations are not well defined as soon as 4 or more points are concyclic but…

We obtain new upper and lower bounds on the number of unit perimeter triangles spanned by points in the plane. We also establish improved bounds in the special case where the point set is a section of the integer grid.

We prove that if $N$ points lie in convex position in the plane then they determine $\Omega(N^{5/4})$ distinct angles, provided that the points do not lie on a common circle. This is derived from a more general claim that if $N$ points in…

For $n\in\nats$ and $3\leq k\leq n$ we compute the exact value of $E_k(n)$, the maximum number of edges of a simple planar graph on $n$ vertices where each vertex bounds an $\ell$-gon where $\ell\geq k$. The lower bound of $E_k(n)$ is…