Related papers: On the number of ordinary conics

We prove a variant of the Sylvester-Gallai theorem for cubics (algebraic curves of degree three): If a finite set of sufficiently many points in $\mathbb{R}^2$ is not contained in a cubic, then there is a cubic that contains exactly nine of…

The Sylvester-Gallai theorem states that for a finite set of points in the plane, if every line determined by any two of these points also contains a third, then the set is necessarily made of collinear points. In this paper, we first…

We prove that any $n$ points in $\mathbb{R}^2$, not all on a line or circle, determine at least $\frac{1}{4}n^2-O(n)$ ordinary circles (circles containing exactly three of the $n$ points). The main term of this bound is best possible for…

The Sylvester-Gallai theorem says that for any finite set of non-collinear points in $\R^2$, there is some line passing through exactly two points of the set. Over the complex numbers, this theorem fails: there are finite configurations…

Let $P$ be a finite set of points in the plane. A c-ordinary triangle is a set of three non-collinear points of $P$ such that each line spanned by the points contains at most $c$ points of $P$. We show that if $P$ is not contained in the…

Let $\mathcal{S}$ be a set of $n$ points in real four-dimensional space, no four coplanar and spanning the whole space. We prove that if the number of solids incident with exactly four points of $\mathcal{S}$ is less than $Kn^3$ for some…

An ordinary circle of a set $P$ of $n$ points in the plane is defined as a circle that contains exactly three points of $P$. We show that if $P$ is not contained in a line or a circle, then $P$ spans at least $\frac{1}{4}n^2 - O(n)$…

Let $P$ be a finite set of points in the plane in general position, that is, no three points of $P$ are on a common line. We say that a set $H$ of five points from $P$ is a $5$-hole in $P$ if $H$ is the vertex set of a convex $5$-gon…

Kelly's theorem states that a set of $n$ points affinely spanning $\mathbb{C}^3$ must determine at least one ordinary complex line (a line passing through exactly two of the points). Our main theorem shows that such sets determine at least…

Let P be a set of n points in the plane, not all on a line. We show that if n is large then there are at least n/2 ordinary lines, that is to say lines passing through exactly two points of P. This confirms, for large n, a conjecture of…

An ordinary plane of a finite set of points in real 3-space with no three collinear is a plane intersecting the set in exactly three points. We prove a structure theorem for sets of points spanning few ordinary planes. Our proof relies on…

Given a rank 3 real arrangement $\mathcal A$ of $n$ lines in the projective plane, the Dirac-Motzkin conjecture (proved by Green and Tao in 2013) states that for $n$ sufficiently large, the number of simple intersection points of $\mathcal…

A classical theorem of Siegel asserts that the set of S-integral points of an algebraic curve C over a number field is finite unless C has genus 0 and at most two points at infinity. In this paper we give necessary and sufficient conditions…

Given a finite set of non-collinear points in the plane, there exists a line that passes through exactly two points. Such a line is called an ordinary line. An efficient algorithm for computing such a line was proposed by Mukhopadhyay et…

Say that a subset S of the plane is a "circle-center set" if S is not a subset of a line, and whenever we choose three noncollinear points from S, the center of the unique circle through those three points is also an element of S. A problem…

Poncelet's theorem states that if there exists an n-sided polygon which is inscribed in a given conic C and circumscribed about another conic D, then there are infinitely many such n-gons. Proofs of this theorem that we are aware of,…

Given a subset S of R^n, let c(S,k) be the smallest number t such that whenever finitely many convex sets have exactly k common points in S, there exist at most t of these sets that already have exactly k common points in S. For S = Z^n,…

Consider the smooth projective models C of curves y^2=f(x) with f(x) in Z[x] monic and separable of degree 2g+1. We prove that for g >= 3, a positive fraction of these have only one rational point, the point at infinity. We prove a lower…

A finite set X in the Euclidean space is called an s-inner product set if the set of the usual inner products of any two distinct points in X has size s. First, we give a special upper bound for the cardinality of an s-inner product set on…

We show that if a set of points in $\mathbb{C}^2$ lies on a family of $m$ concurrent lines, and if one of those lines contains more than $m-2$ points, then there is a line passing through exactly two points of the set. The bound $m-2$ in…