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In this paper, we prove Erd\H{o}s distance conjecture in $\mathbb{R}^d$, namely, a set of $n$ points in $\mathbb{R}^2$ determines $\Omega(\frac{n}{\sqrt{\log n}})$ distances, and for $d\ge 3$, a set of $n$ points in $\mathbb{R}^d$…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2020-02-13 Esen Aksoy Yazici

We show that $m$ points and $n$ smooth algebraic surfaces of bounded degree in $\mathbb{R}^3$ satisfying suitable nondegeneracy conditions can have at most $O(m^{\frac{2k}{3k-1}}n^{\frac{3k-3}{3k-1}}+m+n)$ incidences, provided that any…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2018-07-18 Joshua Zahl

We prove that there exists a norm in the plane under which no n-point set determines more than O(n log n log log n) unit distances. Actually, most norms have this property, in the sense that their complement is a meager set in the metric…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2010-07-08 Jiří Matoušek

A Euclidean noncrossing Steiner $(1+\epsilon)$-spanner for a point set $P\subset\mathbb{R}^2$ is a planar straight-line graph that, for any two points $a, b \in P$, contains a path whose length is at most $1+\epsilon$ times the Euclidean…

Computational Geometry · Computer Science 2026-02-23 Sujoy Bhore , Sándor Kisfaludi-Bak , Lazar Milenković , Csaba D. Tóth , Karol Węgrzycki , Sampson Wong

We show that for every $1 \le k \le d/(\log d)^C$, every finite transitive set of unit vectors in $\mathbb{R}^d$ lies within distance $O(1/\sqrt{\log (d/k)})$ of some codimension $k$ subspace, and this distance bound is best possible. This…

Metric Geometry · Mathematics 2021-01-28 Ashwin Sah , Mehtaab Sawhney , Yufei Zhao

A celebrated unit distance conjecture due to Erd\H os says that that the unit distances cannot arise more than $C_{\epsilon}n^{1+\epsilon}$ times (for any $\epsilon>0$) among $n$ points in the Euclidean plane (see e.g. \cite{SST84} and the…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2022-02-14 A. Gafni , A. Iosevich , E. Wyman

We establish new bounds on the number of tangencies and orthogonal intersections determined by an arrangement of curves. First, given a set of $n$ algebraic plane curves, we show that there are $O(n^{3/2})$ points where two or more curves…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2018-07-10 Jordan S. Ellenberg , Jozsef Solymosi , Joshua Zahl

A recent generalization of the Erd\H{o}s Unit Distance Problem, proposed by Palsson, Senger and Sheffer, asks for the maximum number of unit distance paths with a given number of vertices in the plane and in $3$-space. Studying a variant of…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2023-01-23 Nora Frankl , Dora Woodruff

We show that there are sets of $n$ points in the plane with $n$ arbitrarily large that contain more than $n^{1.014}$ pairs of points separated by a distance exactly $1$. This improves on very recent work of a team at OpenAI, who proved the…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-05-21 Will Sawin

Let $P$ be a set of $n$ points in the real plane contained in an algebraic curve $C$ of degree $d$. We prove that the number of distinct distances determined by $P$ is at least $c_d n^{4/3}$, unless $C$ contains a line or a circle. We also…

Metric Geometry · Mathematics 2016-07-20 János Pach , Frank de Zeeuw

Let $P$ be a set of $n$ points in the plane that determines at most $n/5$ distinct distances. We show that no line can contain more than $O(n^{43/52}{\rm polylog}(n))$ points of $P$. We also show a similar result for rectangular distances,…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2016-07-14 Orit E. Raz , Oliver Roche-Newton , Micha Sharir

We study the minimum number of distinct distances between point sets on two curves in $R^3$. Assume that one curve contains $m$ points and the other $n$ points. Our main results: (a) When the curves are conic sections, we characterize all…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2023-03-21 Toby Aldape , Jingyi Liu , Gregory Pylypovych , Adam Sheffer , Minh-Quan Vo

Erd\H{o}s asked whether every $n$-point set in Euclidean space whose $\binom{n}{2}$ pairwise distances are mutually at least $1$ apart must have diameter at least $(1+o(1))n^2$. We disprove this statement by constructing for every prime…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-04-17 Boon Suan Ho

Erd\H{o}s conjectured in 1946 that every n-point set P in convex position in the plane contains a point that determines at least floor(n/2) distinct distances to the other points of P. The best known lower bound due to Dumitrescu (2006) is…

Computational Geometry · Computer Science 2013-03-25 Gabriel Nivasch , János Pach , Rom Pinchasi , Shira Zerbib

The three gap theorem, also known as the Steinhaus conjecture or three distance theorem, states that the gaps in the fractional parts of $\alpha,2\alpha,\ldots, N\alpha$ take at most three distinct values. Motivated by a question of…

Number Theory · Mathematics 2018-07-11 Alan Haynes , Jens Marklof

We show that any finite family of pairwise intersecting balls in $\mathbb{E}^n$ can be pierced by $(\sqrt{3/2}+o(1))^n$ points improving the previously known estimate of $(2+o(1))^n$. As a corollary, this implies that any $2$-illuminable…

Metric Geometry · Mathematics 2024-08-05 Andrii Arman , Andriy Bondarenko , Andriy Prymak , Danylo Radchenko

Suppose $\left\{x_1, \dots, x_n\right\} \subset \mathbb{R}^2$ is a set of $n$ points in the plane with diameter $\leq 1$, meaning $|x_i - x_j| \leq 1$ for all $1 \leq i,j \leq n$. We show that the ratio of the number of ``neighbors''…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-05-19 Samuel Korsky

A spherical three-distance set is a finite collection $X$ of unit vectors in $\mathbb{R}^{n}$ such that for each pair of distinct vectors has three inner product values. We use the semidefinite programming method to improve the upper bounds…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2020-05-05 Feng-Yuan Liu , Wei-Hsuan Yu

The three distance theorem (also known as the three gap theorem or Steinhaus problem) states that, for any given real number $\alpha$ and integer $N$, there are at most three values for the distances between consecutive elements of the…

Number Theory · Mathematics 2021-07-12 Alan Haynes , Jens Marklof

Let $\Gamma$ be a cocompact discrete subgroup of $\mathrm{PSL}_{2}(\mathbb{C})$ and denote by $\mathcal{H}$ the three dimensional upper half-space. For a $p\in\mathcal{H}$, we count the number of points in the orbit $\Gamma p$, according to…

Number Theory · Mathematics 2017-12-08 Niko Laaksonen