Related papers: Distinct distances on two lines

Let $\mathcal{P}$ be a set of $n$ points in the Euclidean plane. We prove that, for any $\epsilon > 0$, either a single line or circle contains $n/2$ points of $\mathcal{P}$, or the number of distinct perpendicular bisectors determined by…

Let $p$ be an odd prime and $A \subseteq \mathbb{F}_p$ be a subset of the finite field with $p$ elements. We show that $A \times A \subseteq \mathbb{F}_p^2$ determines at least a constant multiple of $\min\{p, |A|^{3/2}\}$ distinct pinned…

A point set $P \subset {\Bbb{R}}^d$ is {\it separated} if the minimum distance between any two points in $P$ is at least $1$. For $d \ne 4,5,$ we determine, for every $t_1,t_2 \ge 1$, and for $n$ at least a suitable $n_d$, the maximum…

Let $P$ be a finite point set in $\mathbb{R}^2$ with the set of distance $n$-chains defined as $$ \Delta_n(P)=\{(|p_1-p_2|,|p_2-p_3|,\ldots,|p_n-p_{n+1}|):p_i \in P\}.$$ We show that for $2\leq n=O_{|P|}(1)$ we have $$|\Delta_n(P)|\gtrsim…

In 1946, Erd\H{o}s posed the distinct distance problem, which seeks to find the minimum number of distinct distances between pairs of points selected from any configuration of $n$ points in the plane. The problem has since been explored…

Let $ l =[l_0,l_1]$ be the directed line segment from $l_0\in {\mathbb R}^n$ to $l_1\in{\mathbb R}^n.$ Suppose $\bar l=[\bar l_0,\bar l_1]$ is a second segment of equal length such that $l, \bar l$ satisfy the "two sticks condition": $\|…

We study the unit distance and distinct distances problems over the planar hypercomplex numbers: the dual numbers $\mathbb{D}$ and the double numbers $\mathbb{S}$. We show that the distinct distances problem in $\mathbb{S}^2$ behaves…

A classic theorem of Euclidean geometry asserts that any noncollinear set of $n$ points in the plane determines at least $n$ distinct lines. Chen and Chv\'atal conjectured that this holds for an arbitrary finite metric space, with a certain…

The Erd\H{o}s distinct distance problem is a ubiquitous problem in discrete geometry. Less well known is Erd\H{o}s' distinct angle problem, the problem of finding the minimum number of distinct angles between $n$ non-collinear points in the…

It is shown that given a set of $N$ points in the plane or on the sphere, there is a subset of size $\gtrsim N^{1/3}/\log N$ with all pairwise distances between points distinct.

Given a set $P$ of $n$ points in the plane, its separability is the minimum number of lines needed to separate all its pairs of points from each other. We show that the minimum number of lines needed to separate $n$ points, picked randomly…

In this paper, we prove that a set of $N$ points in ${\bf R}^2$ has at least $c{N \over \log N}$ distinct distances, thus obtaining the sharp exponent in a problem of Erd\"os. We follow the set-up of Elekes and Sharir which, in the spirit…

We study a generalization of Erd\H os's unit distances problem to chains of $k$ distances. Given $\mathcal P,$ a set of $n$ points, and a sequence of distances $(\delta_1,\ldots,\delta_k)$, we study the maximum possible number of tuples of…

Erd\H{o}s and Fishburn studied the maximum number of points in the plane that span $k$ distances and classified these configurations, as an inverse problem of the Erd\H{o}s distinct distances problem. We consider the analogous problem for…

For each $d>0$, we find all the smallest fullerenes for which the least distance between two pentagons is $d$. We also show that for each $d$ there is an $h_d$ such that fullerenes with pentagons at least distance $d$ apart and any number…

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…

An alternating distance is a link invariant that measures how far away a link is from alternating. We study several alternating distances and demonstrate that there exist families of links for which the difference between certain…

Every set of points $\mathcal{P}$ determines $\Omega(|\mathcal{P}| / \log |\mathcal{P}|)$ distances. A close version of this was initially conjectured by Erd\H{o}s in 1946 and rather recently proved by Guth and Katz. We show that when near…

We show that, for a constant-degree algebraic curve $\gamma$ in $\mathbb{R}^D$, every set of $n$ points on $\gamma$ spans at least $\Omega(n^{4/3})$ distinct distances, unless $\gamma$ is an {\it algebraic helix} (see Definition 1.1). This…

A flat membrane with given shape is displayed; two points in the membrane are randomly selected; the probability that the separation between the points have a specified value is sought. A simple method to evaluate the probability density is…