Related papers: Distinct Angles and Angle Chains in Three Dimensio…
We study the problem of crescent configurations, posed by Erd\H{o}s in 1989. A crescent configuration is a set of $n$ points in the plane such that: 1) no three points lie on a common line, 2) no four points lie on a common circle, 3) for…
We define angles from-to and between infinite dimensional subspaces of a Hilbert space, inspired by the work of E. J. Hannan, 1961/1962 for general canonical correlations of stochastic processes. The spectral theory of selfadjoint operators…
We study a wide spectrum of incidence problems involving points and curves or points and surfaces in $\mathbb R^3$. The current (and in fact the only viable) approach to such problems, pioneered by Guth and Katz [2010,2015], requires a…
Given two disjoint sets $W_1$ and $W_2$ of points in the plane, the Optimal Discretization problem asks for the minimum size of a family of horizontal and vertical lines that separate $W_1$ from $W_2$, that is, in every region into which…
In this paper, we propose new techniques for solving geometric optimization problems involving interpoint distances of a point set in the plane. Given a set $P$ of $n$ points in the plane and an integer $1 \leq k \leq \binom{n}{2}$, the…
We revisit the classical Unit Distance Problem posed by Erd\H{o}s in 1946. While the upper bound of $O(n^{4/3})$ established by Spencer, Szemer'edi, and Trotter (1984) is tight for systems of pseudo-circles, it fails to account for the…
In this paper we show that the number of distinct distances determined by a set of $n$ points on a constant-degree two-dimensional algebraic variety $V$ (i.e., a surface) in $\mathbb R^3$ is at least $\Omega\left(n^{7/9}/{\rm polylog}…
We consider the number of distinct distances between two finite sets of points in ${\bf R}^k$, for any constant dimension $k\ge 2$, where one set $P_1$ consists of $n$ points on a line $l$, and the other set $P_2$ consists of $m$ arbitrary…
We study the structure of planar point sets that determine a small number of distinct distances. Specifically, we show that if a set P of n points determines o(n) distinct distances, then no line contains \Omega(n^{7/8}) points of P and no…
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…
The proper handling of 3D orientations is a central element in many optimization problems in engineering. Unfortunately many researchers and engineers struggle with the formulation of such problems and often fall back to suboptimal…
According to the Erd\H{o}s-Szekeres theorem, for every $n$, a sufficiently large set of points in general position in the plane contains $n$ in convex position. In this note we investigate the line version of this result, that is, we want…
We survey the history and recent developments around two decades-old problems that continue to attract a great deal of interest: the slicing $\times 2$, $\times 3$ conjecture of H. Furstenberg in ergodic theory, and the distance set problem…
We introduce the abstract notion of a chain, which is a sequence of $n$ points in the plane, ordered by $x$-coordinates, so that the edge between any two consecutive points is unavoidable as far as triangulations are concerned. A general…
We study the unit distance and distinct distances problems over the planar hypercomplex numbers: the dual numbers $\mathbb{D}$ and the double numbers $\mathbb{S}$. We show that the distinct distances problem in $\mathbb{S}^2$ behaves…
We revisit Hopcroft's problem and related fundamental problems about geometric range searching. Given $n$ points and $n$ lines in the plane, we show how to count the number of point-line incidence pairs or the number of point-above-line…
We consider the problem of digitalizing Euclidean segments. Specifically, we look for a constructive method to connect any two points in $\mathbb{Z}^d$. The construction must be {\em consistent} (that is, satisfy the natural extension of…
In 1988, Erd\H{o}s suggested the question of minimizing the number of edges in a connected $n$-vertex graph where every edge is contained in a triangle. Shortly after, Catlin, Grossman, Hobbs, and Lai resolved this in a stronger form. In…
Why is space 3-dimensional? The first answer to this question, entirely based on Physics, was given by Ehrenfest, in 1917, who showed that the stability requirement for $n$-dimensional two-body planetary system very strongly constrains…
Since ancient times mathematicians consider geometrical objects with integral side lengths. We consider plane integral point sets $\mathcal{P}$, which are sets of $n$ points in the plane with pairwise integral distances where not all the…