Related papers: An Improved Bound for Weak Epsilon-Nets in the Pla…
For a finite set $A\subset \mathbb{R}^d$, let $\Delta(A)$ denote the spread of $A$, which is the ratio of the maximum pairwise distance to the minimum pairwise distance. For a positive integer $n$, let $\gamma_d(n)$ denote the largest…
Let $X$ be a convex curve in the plane (say, the unit circle), and let $\mathcal S$ be a family of planar convex bodies, such that every two of them meet at a point of $X$. Then $\mathcal S$ has a transversal $N\subset\mathbb R^2$ of size…
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 characterize the largest point sets in the plane which define at most 1, 2, and 3 angles. For $P(k)$ the largest size of a point set admitting at most $k$ angles, we prove $P(2)=5$ and $P(3)=5$. We also provide the general bounds of $k+2…
$\newcommand{\eps}{\varepsilon}\newcommand{\tldO}{\widetilde{O}}$Consider the problem of constructing weak $\eps$-nets where the stabbing elements are lines or $k$-flats instead of points. We study this problem in the simplest setting where…
It is proved that the total length of any set of countably many rectifiable curves, whose union meets all straight lines that intersect the unit square U, is at least 2.00002. This is the first improvement on the lower bound of 2…
An "edge guard set" of a plane graph $G$ is a subset $\Gamma$ of edges of $G$ such that each face of $G$ is incident to an endpoint of an edge in $\Gamma$. Such a set is said to guard $G$. We improve the known upper bounds on the number of…
We investigate the extremal properties of saturated partial plane embeddings of maximal planar graphs. For a planar graph $G$, the plane-saturation number $\mathrm{sat}_{\mathcal{P}}(G)$ denotes the minimum number of edges in a plane…
Lightness is a fundamental parameter for Euclidean spanners; it is the ratio of the spanner weight to the weight of the minimum spanning tree of a finite set of points in $\mathbb{R}^d$. In a recent breakthrough, Le and Solomon (2019)…
Let $P$ be a set $n$ points in a $d$-dimensional space. Tverberg's theorem says that, if $n$ is at least $(k-1)(d+1)+1$, then $P$ can be partitioned into $k$ sets whose convex hulls intersect. Partitions with this property are called {\em…
The geometric hitting set problem is one of the basic geometric combinatorial optimization problems: given a set $P$ of points, and a set $\mathcal{D}$ of geometric objects in the plane, the goal is to compute a small-sized subset of $P$…
We study the configuration space of rectangulations and convex subdivisions of $n$ points in the plane. It is shown that a sequence of $O(n\log n)$ elementary flip and rotate operations can transform any rectangulation to any other…
Let $0 \leq s \leq 1$. A set $K \subset \mathbb{R}^{2}$ is a Furstenberg $s$-set, if for every unit vector $e \in S^{1}$, some line $L_{e}$ parallel to $e$ satisfies $$\dim_{\mathrm{H}} [K \cap L_{e}] \geq s.$$ The Furstenberg set problem,…
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…
New bounds on the number of similar or directly similar copies of a pattern within a finite subset of the line or the plane are proved. The number of equilateral triangles whose vertices all lie within an $n$-point subset of the plane is…
For positive integers $m$ and $n$, define $f(m,n)$ to be the smallest integer such that any subset $A$ of the $m \times n$ integer grid with $|A| \geq f(m,n)$ contains a rectangle; that is, there are $x\in [m]$ and $y \in [n]$ and…
Let $p$ be an odd prime and let $E\subset \mathbb{F}_p^2$ with $|E|=p^a$, where $0<a\le 1$. For a direction $V$ (a $1$-dimensional subspace of $\mathbb{F}_p^2$), let $\pi^V:\mathbb{F}_p^2\to \mathbb{F}_p^2/V$ denote the quotient map. We…
We provide an improvement over Meshulam's bound on cap sets in $F_3^N$. We show that there exist universal $\epsilon>0$ and $C>0$ so that any cap set in $F_3^N$ has size at most $C {3^N \over N^{1+\epsilon}}$. We do this by obtaining quite…
Let $\partial \,\mathcal{C}$ be the boundary of a compact convex body $\mathcal{C}$ in $\mathbb{R}^n,\, n\geq 2$, and $O$ be an interior point of $\mathcal C$. Every straight line $l$ containing $O$ cuts from $\mathcal{C}$ a segment $[AB]$…
The Erd\H os unit distance conjecture in the plane says that the number of pairs of points from a point set of size $n$ separated by a fixed (Euclidean) distance is $\leq C_{\epsilon} n^{1+\epsilon}$ for any $\epsilon>0$. The best known…