Related papers: Random Hyperplanes of a Convex Body, Sylvester's P…
J. J. Sylvester's four-point problem asks for the probability that four points chosen uniformly at random in the plane have a triangle as their convex hull. Using a combinatorial classification of points in the plane due to Goodman and…
Assume $K$ is a convex body in $R^d$, and $X$ is a (large) finite subset of $K$. How many convex polytopes are there whose vertices come from $X$? What is the typical shape of such a polytope? How well the largest such polytope (which is…
We consider the problem of finding the probability that a random triangle is obtuse, which was first raised by Lewis Caroll. Our investigation leads us to a natural correspondence between plane polygons and the Grassmann manifold of…
We consider moments of the normalized volume of a symmetric or nonsymmetric random polytope in a fixed symmetric convex body. We investigate for which bodies these moments are extremized, and calculate exact values in some of the extreme…
In the first part of this paper, we obtain symmetric formulae for the probabilities that a plane convex body hits exactly 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 triangles of a lattice of congruent triangles in the plane. Furthermore, a very simple formula for…
Let $X_1,\ldots, X_{d+2}$ be random points in $\mathbb R^d$. The classical Sylvester problem asks to determine the probability that the convex hull of these points, denoted by $P:= [X_1,\ldots, X_{d+2}]$, is a simplex. In the present paper,…
If four people with Gaussian-distributed heights stand at Gaussian positions on the plane, the probability that there are exactly two people whose height is above the average of the four is exactly the same as the probability that they…
In this paper, we give an overview of some results concerning best and random approximation of convex bodies by polytopes. We explain how both are linked and see that random approximation is almost as good as best approximation.
Consider $d+2$ i.i.d. random points $X_1,\ldots, X_{d+2}$ in $\mathbb R^d$. In this note, we compute the probability that their convex hull is a simplex focusing on three specific distributional settings: (i) the distribution of $X_1$ is…
Pick $n$ independent and uniform random points $U_1,\ldots,U_n$ in a compact convex set $K$ of $\mathbb{R}^d$ with volume 1, and let $P^{(d)}_K(n)$ be the probability that these points are in convex position. The Sylvester conjecture in…
Consider a random walk in $\mathbb{R}^d$ that starts at the origin and whose increment distribution assigns zero probability to any affine hyperplane. We solve Sylvester's problem for these random walks by showing that the probability that…
We discuss how well a given convex body B in a real d-dimensional vector space V can be approximated by a set X for which the membership question: ``given an x in V, does x belong to X?'' can be answered efficiently (in time polynomial in…
We study approximations of smooth convex bodies by random ball-polytopes. We examine the following probability model: let $K\subset{\bf R}^d$ be a convex body such that $K$ slides freely in a ball of radius $R>0$ and has $C^2$ smooth…
The conjecture of the existence and the uniqueness of the strictly convex quadrilateral central configuration for the Newtonian 4-body problem is one of the most-talked open problems in the study of the classical n-body problems in…
A natural model for the approximation of a convex body $K$ in $\mathbb{R}^d$ by random polytopes is obtained as follows. Take a stationary Poisson hyperplane process in the space, and consider the random polytope $Z_K$ defined as the…
The convex hull of N independent random points chosen on the boundary of a simple polytope in R^n is investigated. Asymptotic formulas for the expected number of vertices and facets, and for the expectation of the volume difference are…
Let K be a convex body in $R^d$. A random polytope is the convex hull $[x_1,...,x_n]$ of finitely many points chosen at random in K. $\Bbb E(K,n)$ is the expectation of the volume of a random polytope of n randomly chosen points. I.…
We consider the moments of the volume of the symmetric convex hull of independent random points in an $n$-dimensional symmetric convex body. We calculate explicitly the second and fourth moments for $n$ points when the given body is $B_q^n$…
The main goal of this paper is to present a series of inequalities connecting the surface area measure of a convex body and surface area measure of its projections and sections. We present a solution of a question from S. Campi, P.…
Let $K$ be a convex body in $\mathbb{R}^d$ which slides freely in a ball. Let $K^{(n)}$ denote the intersection of $n$ closed half-spaces containing $K$ whose bounding hyperplanes are independent and identically distributed according to a…