Related papers: Happy Ending or Many Concurrent Lines
Based on a result of Makeev, in 2012 Blagojevi\'c and Karasev proposed the following problem: given any positive integers $m$ and $1\leq \ell\leq k$, find the minimum dimension $d=\Delta(m;\ell/k)$ such that for any $m$ mass distributions…
Given two points in the plane, and a set of "obstacles" given as curves through the plane with assigned weights, we consider the point-separation problem, which asks for the minimum-weight subset of the obstacles separating the two points.…
It is conjectured since long that for any convex body $P\subset \mathbb{R}^n$ there exists a point in its interior which belongs to at least $2n$ normals from different points on the boundary of $P$. The conjecture is known to be true for…
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…
We study the number of linear extensions of a partial order with a given proportion of comparable pairs of elements, and estimate the maximum and minimum possible numbers. We also consider a random interval partial order on $n$ elements,…
Let f(n) denote the smallest positive integer such that every set of $f(n)$ points in general position in the Euclidean plane contains a convex n-gon. In a seminal paper published in 1935, Erd\H{o}s and Szekeres proved that f(n) exists and…
A convex polygon $A$ is related to a convex $m$-gon $K= \bigcap_{i=1}^m k_i^+$, where $k_1^+,..., k_m^+$ are the $m$ halfplanes whose intersection is equal to $K$, if $A$ is the intersection of halfplanes $a_1^+,...,a_l$, each of which is a…
Let $S$ and $D$ each be a set of orthogonal line segments in the plane. A line segment $s\in S$ \emph{stabs} a line segment $s'\in D$ if $s\cap s'\neq\emptyset$. It is known that the problem of stabbing the line segments in $D$ with the…
We study online competitive algorithms for the \emph{line chasing problem} in Euclidean spaces $\reals^d$, where the input consists of an initial point $P_0$ and a sequence of lines $X_1,X_2,...,X_m$, revealed one at a time. At each step…
A matching is compatible to two or more labeled point sets of size $n$ with labels $\{1,\dots,n\}$ if its straight-line drawing on each of these point sets is crossing-free. We study the maximum number of edges in a matching compatible to…
For a planar integral lattice $L$, let $\nu(L)$ denote the square-free part of the integer $D(L)^2$, where $D(L)$ stands for the area of a fundamental parallelogram of $L$. For each odd integer $n$ with $3 \leq n<29$, a planar lattice $L$…
We obtain a substantially improved lower bound for the minimum overlap problem asked by Erd\H{o}s. Our approach uses elementary Fourier analysis to translate the problem to a convex optimization program.
Let $ES_{d}(n)$ be the smallest integer such that any set of $ES_{d}(n)$ points in $\mathbb{R}^{d}$ in general position contains $n$ points in convex position. In 1960, Erd\H{o}s and Szekeres showed that $ES_{2}(n) \geq 2^{n-2} + 1$ holds,…
Given a finite set $ S $ of points, we consider the following reconfiguration graph. The vertices are the plane spanning paths of $ S $ and there is an edge between two vertices if the two corresponding paths differ by two edges (one…
The nature of the alignment with gaps corresponding to a longest common subsequence (LCS) of two independent iid random sequences drawn from a finite alphabet is investigated. It is shown that such an optimal alignment typically matches…
Let $L$ be an $n$-element finite lattice. We prove that if $L$ has strictly more than $2^{n-5}$ congruences, then $L$ is planar. This result is sharp, since for each natural number $n\geq 8$, there exists a non-planar lattice with exactly…
One of my recent papers transforms an NP-Complete problem into the question of whether or not a feasible real solution exists to some Linear Program. The unique feature of this Linear Program is that though there is no explicit bound on the…
An ordered matching of size $n$ is a graph on a linearly ordered vertex set $V$, $|V|=2n$, consisting of $n$ pairwise disjoint edges. There are three different ordered matchings of size two on $V=\{1,2,3,4\}$: an alignment…
We study the least gradient problem in bounded regions with Lipschitz boundary in the plane. We provide a set of conditions for the existence of solutions in non-convex simply connected regions. We assume the boundary data is continuous and…
We study the sets of planes in an even dimensional real vector space $V$ which are simultaneously stabilised by a pair of complex structures on $V$. We completely describe these sets of planes for pairs of orthogonal complex structures.…