Related papers: On sets defining few ordinary lines

We study filling sets of simple closed curves on punctured surfaces. In particular we study lower bounds on the cardinality of sets of curves that fill and that pairwise intersect at most k times on surfaces with given genus and number of…

Given a planar graph $G$, we consider drawings of $G$ in the plane where edges are represented by straight line segments (which possibly intersect). Such a drawing is specified by an injective embedding $\pi$ of the vertex set of $G$ into…

We consider the problem of identifying n points in the plane using disks, i.e., minimizing the number of disks so that each point is contained in a disk and no two points are in exactly the same set of disks. This problem can be seen as an…

A linear system of plane curves satisfying multiplicity conditions at points in general position is called special if the dimension is larger than the expected dimension. A (-1) curve is an irreducible curve with self intersection -1 and…

Let $C$ be a smooth projective absolutely irreducible curve of genus at least 2, defined over the rationals. For a number field $L$, we define the set of $L$-new points on $C$ to be $C(L)_{new} = \{P \in C(L) : \mathbb{Q}(P)=L\}$; this is…

A collection of sets is {\em intersecting} if every two members have nonempty intersection. We describe the structure of intersecting families of $r$-sets of an $n$-set whose size is quite a bit smaller than the maximum ${n-1 \choose r-1}$…

We study the Waldschmidt constant of some configurations in the projective plane. In the first part, we show that the Waldschmidt constant of a set $\mathbb{X}$ of $n$ points where at least $n-3$ points among them lie on a line is either…

Let $\mathcal{F}$ be a plane singular curve defined over a finite field $\mathbb{F}_q$. The linear system of plane curves of a given degree passing through the singularities of $\cF$ provides potentially good bounds for the number of points…

Suppose that $nk$ points in general position in the plane are colored red and blue, with at least $n$ points of each color. We show that then there exist $n$ pairwise disjoint convex sets, each of them containing $k$ of the points, and each…

Let X be an algebraic curve over Q and t a non-constant Q-rational function on X such that Q(t) is a proper subfield of Q(X). For every integer n pick a point P_n on X such that t(P_n)=n. We conjecture that, for large N, among the number…

We address the problem of the maximal finite number of real points of a real algebraic curve (of a given degree and, sometimes, genus) in the projective plane. We improve the known upper and lower bounds and construct close to optimal…

Given a regular $n$-gon on the plane, it is evident that from any point on the plane, taken as a center, one can draw $n$ concentric circles such that each circle passes through one of the vertices of the polygon. Naturally, this raises the…

We consider a problem posed by Erd\H{o}s, Herzog and Piranian on the maximum product of distances of a point set of order $n$ with a given diameter. We prove that it is sufficient to consider convex polygons and obtain results on the…

We introduce the abstract notion of a chain, which is a sequence of $n$ points in the plane, ordered by $x$-coordinates, so that the edge between any two consecutive points is unavoidable as far as triangulations are concerned. A general…

For $d\geq 2$ and any norm on $\mathbb R^d$, we prove that there exists a set of $n$ points that spans at least $(\tfrac d2-o(1))n\log_2n$ unit distances under this norm for every $n$. This matches the upper bound recently proved by Alon,…

The classical No-Three-In-Line problem seeks the maximum number of points that may be selected from an $n\times n$ grid while avoiding a collinear triple. The maximum is well known to be linear in $n$. Following a question of Erde, we seek…

We study separating systems of the edges of a graph where each member of the separating system is a path. We conjecture that every $n$-vertex graph admits a separating path system of size $O(n)$ and prove this in certain interesting special…

It is presented the simplest known disproof of the Borsuk conjecture stating that if a bounded subset of n-dimensional Euclidean space contains more than n points, then the subset can be partitioned into n+1 nonempty parts of smaller…

Let $S$ be a finite set of geometric objects partitioned into classes or \emph{colors}. A subset $S'\subseteq S$ is said to be \emph{balanced} if $S'$ contains the same amount of elements of $S$ from each of the colors. We study several…

Let X be a projective variety which is covered by a family of rational curves of minimal degree. The classic bend-and-break argument of Mori asserts that if x and y are two general points, then there are at most finitely many curves in that…