Related papers: A note on the affine-invariant plank problem
In 1951, Bang posed the affine plank conjecture, which remains open: If a convex body in $\mathbb{R}^d$ is covered by planks, then the total relative width of the planks is at least one. We prove a lower bound of $2/(1+\sqrt{d})$ for this…
A {\em slab} (or plank) of width $w$ is a part of the $d$-dimensional space that lies between two parallel hyperplanes at distance $w$ from each other. It is conjectured that any slabs $S_1, S_2,\ldots$ whose total width is divergent have…
We consider the Tarski--Bang problem about covering of convex bodies by planks. The results of this kind give a lower bound on the sum of widths of planks (regions between a pair of parallel hyperplanes) covering a given convex body.…
If a convex body $K \subset \mathbb{R}^n$ is covered by the union of convex bodies $C_1, \ldots, C_N$, multiple subadditivity questions can be asked. Two classical results regard the subadditivity of the width (the smallest distance between…
A plank is the part of space between two parallel planes. The following open problem, posed 45 years ago, can be viwed as the converse of Tarski's plank problem (Bang's theorem): Is it true that if the total width of a collection of planks…
Given a symmetric convex body $C$ and $n$ hyperplanes in an Euclidean space, there is a translate of a multiple of $C$, at least ${1\over n+1}$ times as large, inside $C$, whose interior does not meet any of the hyperplanes. The result…
In the 1930's, Tarski introduced his plank problem at a time when the field discrete geometry was about to born. It is quite remarkable that Tarski's question and its variants continue to generate interest in the geometric as well as…
Answering Tarski's plank problem, Bang showed in 1951 that it is impossible to cover a convex body $K \subset \mathbb{R}^d$ with $d \geq 1$ by planks whose total width is less than the minimal width $w(K)$ of $K$. In 2003, A. Bezdek asked…
We present a streamlined proof of K. Ball's symmetric plank theorem in $\mathbb{R}^d$, which solves the affine plank problem raised by Th. Bang for symmetric convex bodies.
The following assertion was equivalent to a conjecture proposed by B. Tomaszewski : Let $C$ be an $n$-dimensional unit cube and let $H$ be a plank of thickness $1$, both are centered at the origin, then no matter how to turn the cube…
The mean width of a convex body is the average distance between parallel supporting hyperplanes when the normal direction is chosen uniformly over the sphere. The Simplex Mean Width Conjecture (SMWC) is a longstanding open problem that says…
Ball's complex plank theorem states that if $v_1,\dots,v_n$ are unit vectors in $\mathbb{C}^d$, and $t_1,\dots,t_n$, non-negative numbers satisfying $\sum_{k=1}^nt_k^2 = 1,$ then there exists a unit vector $v$ in $\mathbb{C}^d$ for which…
An old conjecture of Kahn and Saks says, roughly, that any poset $P$ of large enough width contains elements $x,y$ which are "balanced" in the sense that the probability that $x$ precedes $y$ in a uniformly random linear extension of $P$ is…
Let $C$ be a closed convex cone in ${\mathbb R}^n$, pointed and with interior points. We consider sets of the form $A=C\setminus A^\bullet$, where $A^\bullet\subset C$ is a closed convex set. If $A$ has finite volume (Lebesgue measure),…
A variant of the flatness problem from integer programming is studied, in which one considers convex bodies in $\mathbb{R}^d$ with at most $k$ interior lattice points. The maximum lattice width of such a body is denoted by Flt(d,k) and it…
We generalize the Bernstein-Walsh-Siciak theorem on polynomial approximation in $\mathbb{C}^n$ to the case where the polynomial ring $\mathcal{P}(\mathbb{C}^n)$ is replaced by a subring $\mathcal{P}^S(\mathbb{C}^n)$ consisting of all…
For a compact set $A \subset {\mathbb R}^d$ and an integer $k\ge 1$, let us denote by $$ A[k] = \left\{a_1+\cdots +a_k: a_1, \ldots, a_k\in A\right\}=\sum_{i=1}^k A$$ the Minkowski sum of $k$ copies of $A$. A theorem of Shapley, Folkmann…
We consider the problem of lower bounding a generalized Minkowski measure of subsets of a convex body with a log-concave probability measure, conditioned on the set size. A bound is given in terms of diameter and set size, which is sharp…
We generalize the ham sandwich theorem for the case of well separated measures. Given convex bodies $K_1,...,K_d$ in $\mathbb{R_d}$ and numbers $\alpha_1,...,\alpha_d \in [0, 1]$, we give a sufficient condition for existence and uniqueness…
We show that for any $1\leq p\leq\infty$, the family of random vectors uniformly distributed on hyperplane projections of the unit ball of $\ell_p^n$ verify the variance conjecture $$ \textrm{Var}\,|X|^2\leq C\max_{\xi\in…