English

Ordinary lines in space

Combinatorics 2018-03-28 v1

Abstract

We prove that if a finite point set in real space does not have too many points on a plane, then it spans a quadratic number of ordinary lines. This answers the real case of a question of Basit, Dvir, Saraf, and Wolf. It shows that there is a significant difference in terms of ordinary lines between planar point sets, which may span a linear number of ordinary lines, and truly three-dimensional point sets. Our proof uses a projection argument of Kelly combined with a theorem of Beck on the number of spanned lines of a planar point set.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1803.09524,
  title  = {Ordinary lines in space},
  author = {Frank de Zeeuw},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1803.09524},
  year   = {2018}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T01:05:01.379Z