Related papers: The algebraic square peg problem

A problem that is simple to state in the context of spherical geometry, and that seems rather interesting, appears to have been unexamined to date in the mathematical literature. The problem can also be recast as a problem in the real…

We consider smooth surfaces $S \subset \Pq$ containing a plane curve $P$ and prove some general result concerning the linear system $|H-P|$. We then look at regular surfaces lying on hypersurfaces of degree $s$ having a plane of…

Here is a square problem: in a unit square, is there a point with four rational distances to the vertices? A probability argument suggests a negative answer. This paper proves several special cases of the square problem: if the point sits…

We report on the problem of the existence of complex and real algebraic curves in the plane with prescribed singularities up to analytic and topological equivalence. The question is whether, for a given positive integer $d$ and a finite…

We develop a Morse-Lusternik-Schnirelmann theory for the distance between two points of a smoothly embedded circle in a complete Riemannian manifold. This theory suggests very naturally a definition of width that generalises the classical…

We study the topological complexity, in the sense of Smale, of three enumerative problems in algebraic geometry: finding the 27 lines on cubic surfaces, the 28 bitangents and the 24 inflection points on quartic curves. In particular, we…

In this paper, the problem of bounding the number of reducible curves in a pencil of algebraic plane curves is addressed. Unlike most of the previous related works, each reducible curve of the pencil is here counted with its appropriate…

Let K be a field of characteristic different from 2 and C an elliptic curve over K given by a Weierstrass equation. To divide an element of the group C by 2, one must solve a certain quartic equation. We characterise the quartics arising…

We show that the maximal number of planes in a complex smooth cubic fourfold in ${\mathbb P}^5$ is $405$, realized by the Fermat cubic only; the maximal number of real planes in a real smooth cubic fourfold is $357$, realized by the…

Let n_\delta be the number of \delta-nodal curves lying in a suitably ample complete linear system |L| and passing through appropriately many points on a smooth projective complex algebraic surface. A major open problem is to understand the…

In many singular metric spaces, the regularity of a shortest-length curve is unknown. Algebraic varieties, or more generally sets defined by finitely many polynomial or real analytic equalities or inequalities, all locally partition into…

We study the lengths of curves passing through a fixed number of points on the boundary of a convex shape in the plane. We show that for any convex shape $K$, there exist four points on the boundary of $K$ such that the length of any curve…

We obtain an upper bound for the volume of the convex hull of a simple closed Frenet curve with exactly four vertices, i.e., four points of vanishing torsion, and lying on the boundary of its convex hull. Moreover, we show that the upper…

A very general surface of degree at least four in projective space of dimension three contains no curves other than intersections with surfaces. We find a formula for the degree of the locus of surfaces of degree at least five which contain…

Semialgebraic splines are bivariate splines over meshes whose edges are arcs of algebraic curves. They were first considered by Wang, Chui, and Stiller. We compute the dimension of the space of semialgebraic splines in two extreme cases. If…

We bound the maximal number N of singular points of a plane algebraic curve C that has precisely one place at infinity with one branch in terms of its first Betti number $b_1(C)$. Asymptotically we prove that $N<\sim{17/11}b_1(C)$ for large…

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…

We study the structure of collections of algebraic curves in three dimensions that have many curve-curve incidences. In particular, let $k$ be a field and let $\mathcal{L}$ be a collection of $n$ space curves in $k^3$, with…

We discuss the existence of the angle between two curves in Teichm\"uller spaces and show that, in any infinite dimensional Teichm\"uller space, there exist infinitely many geodesic triangles each of which has the same three vertices and…

Given a smooth complex variety $X$, an algebraically skew embedding of $X$ is an embedding of $X$ into a complex projective space $\mathbb{P}^N$ such that for any two points $x,y\in X$, their embedded tangent spaces in $\mathbb{P}^N$ do not…