Related papers: Sometimes Two Irrational Guards are Needed
We address the problem of covering a target segment $\overline{uv}$ using a finite set of guards $\mathcal{S}$ placed on a source segment $\overline{xy}$ within a simple polygon $\mathcal{P}$, assuming weak visibility between the target and…
We investigate the existence of closed polylines (also known as closed polygonal chains or self-crossing polygons) that intersect each of their edges the same number of times. The most general question in this corner of combinatorial…
For a triangle $\Delta$, let (P) denote the problem of the existence of points in the plane of $\Delta$, that are at rational distance to the 3 vertices of $\Delta$. Answer to (P) is known to be positive in the following situation: $\Delta$…
It is well-known that the second-order cone can be outer-approximated to an arbitrary accuracy $\epsilon$ by a polyhedral cone of compact size defined by irrational data. In this paper, we propose two rational polyhedral…
A $k$-ranking is a vertex $k$-coloring such that if two vertices have the same color any path connecting them contains a vertex of larger color. The rank number of a graph is smallest $k$ such that $G$ has a $k$-ranking. For certain graphs…
Gradients of the perimeter and area of a polygon have straightforward geometric interpretations. The use of optimality conditions for constrained problems and basic ideas in triangle geometry show that polygons with prescribed area…
In this note we consider two configurations of twelve lines with nineteen triple points (i.e., points where three lines meet). Both of them have the same combinatorial features. In both configurations nine of twelve lines have five triple…
We consider the problem of partitioning effectively a given symmetric (and irreflexive) rational relation R into two asymmetric rational relations. This problem is motivated by a recent method of embedding an R-independent language into one…
We give uniform upper bounds for the number of rational points of height at most $B$ on non-singular complete intersections of two quadrics in $\mathbb{P}^3$ defined over $\mathbb{Q}$. To do this, we combine determinant methods with descent…
We explore an instance of the question of partitioning a polygon into pieces, each of which is as ``circular'' as possible, in the sense of having an aspect ratio close to 1. The aspect ratio of a polygon is the ratio of the diameters of…
A pentagonal geometry PENT($k$, $r$) is a partial linear space, where every line, or block, is incident with $k$ points, every point is incident with $r$ lines, and for each point $x$, there is a line incident with precisely those points…
Let $G$ be a complete edge-weighted graph on $n$ vertices. To each subset of vertices of $G$ assign the cost of the minimum spanning tree of the subset as its weight. Suppose that $n$ is a multiple of some fixed positive integer $k$. The…
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…
How many chess rooks or queens does it take to guard all the squares of a given polyomino, the union of square tiles from a square grid? This question is a version of the art gallery problem in which the guards can "see" whichever squares…
In this paper, we investigate the existence of a point in the plane of a unit polygon, that is at rational distance from each vertex of the polygon. A negative answer is obtained in almost all cases.
We consider a problem posed by Erd\H{o}s, Herzog and Piranian on the maximum product of distances of a point set of order $n$ with a given diameter. We prove that it is sufficient to consider convex polygons and obtain results on the…
This is an extended version of an invited lecture I gave at the Journees Arithmetiques in St. Etienne in July 2009. We discuss the state of the art regarding the problem of finding the set of rational points on a (smooth projective)…
The guarding game is a game in which several cops try to guard a region in a (directed or undirected) graph against Robber. Robber and the cops are placed on the vertices of the graph; they take turns in moving to adjacent vertices (or…
Mobile guards on the vertices of a graph are used to defend it against attacks on either its vertices or its edges. Various models for this problem have been proposed. In this survey we describe a number of these models with particular…
A set $\mathcal{G}$ of planar graphs on the same number $n$ of vertices is called simultaneously embeddable if there exists a set $P$ of $n$ points in the plane such that every graph $G \in \mathcal{G}$ admits a (crossing-free)…