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 Graduate Texts in Mathematics 212
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S. Axler F.W. Gehring K.A. Ribet

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Graduate Texts in Mathematics
TAKEUTIIZARING. Introduction to 34 SPITZER. Principles of Random Walk.
Axiomatic Set Theory. 2nd ed. 2nded.
2 OXTOBY. Measure and Category. 2nd ed. 35 ALEXANDERIWERMER. Several Complex
3 SCHAEFER. Topological Vector Spaces. Variables and Banach Algebras. 3rd ed.
2nded. 36 KELLEy/NAMIOKA et al. Linear
4 HILTON/STAMMBACH. A Course in Topological Spaces.
Homological Algebra. 2nd ed. 37 MONK. Mathematical Logic.
5 MAC LANE. Categories for the Working 38 GRAUERT/FRIlZSCHE. Several Complex
Mathematician. 2nd ed. Variables.
6 HUGHEs/PIPER. Projective Planes. 39 ARVESON. An Invitation to C*-Algebras.
7 SERRE. A Course in Arithmetic. 40 KEMENy/SNELL/KNAPP. Denumerable
8 TAKEUTIIZARING. Axiomatic Set Theory. Markov Chains. 2nd ed.
9 HUMPHREYS. Introduction to Lie Algebras 41 APOSTOL. Modular Functions and
and Representation Theory. Dirichlet Series in Number Theory.
10 COHEN. A Course in Simple Homotopy 2nded.
Theory. 42 SERRE. Linear Representations of Finite
11 CONWAY. Functions of One Complex Groups.
Variable I. 2nd ed. 43 GlLLMAN/JERISON. Rings of Continuous
12 BEALS. Advanced Mathematical Analysis. Functions.
13 ANDERSON/fuLLER. Rings and Categories 44 KENDIG. Elementary Algebraic Geometry.
of Modules. 2nd ed. 45 LoEVE. Probability Theory I. 4th ed.
14 GOLUBITSKy/GUILLEMIN. Stable Mappings 46 LoEVE. Probability Theory II. 4th ed.
and Their Singularities. 47 MOISE. Geometric Topology in
15 BERBERIAN. Lectures in Functional Dimensions 2 and 3.
Analysis and Operator Theory. 48 SACHSlWu. General Relativity for
16 WINTER. The Structure of Fields. Mathematicians.
17 ROSENBLATT. Random Processes. 2nd ed. 49 GRUENBERGIWEIR. Linear Geometry.
18 HALMos. Measure Theory. 2nded.
19 HALMOS. A Hilbert Space Problem Book. 50 EDWARDS. Fermat's Last Theorem.
2nded. 51 KLINGENBERG. A Course in Differential
20 HUSEMOLLER. Fibre Bundles. 3rd ed. Geometry.
21 HUMPHREYS. Linear Algebraic Groups. 52 HARTSHORNE. Algebraic Geometry.
22 BARNES/MACK. An Algebraic Introduction 53 MANIN. A Course in Mathematical Logic.
to Mathematical Logic. 54 GRAVERlWATKINS. Combinatorics with
23 GREUB. Linear Algebra. 4th ed. Emphasis on the Theory of Graphs.
24 HOLMES. Geometric Functional Analysis 55 BROWN/PEARCY. Introduction to Operator
and Its Applications. Theory I: Elements of Functional Analysis.
25 HEWITT/STROMBERG. Real and Abstract 56 MASSEY. Algebraic Topology: An
Analysis. Introduction.
26 MANES. Algebraic Theories. 57 CRoWELL/Fox. Introduction to Knot
27 KELLEY. General Topology. Theory.
28 ZARISKIISAMUEL. Commutative Algebra. 58 KOBUTZ. p-adic Numbers, p-adic
Vol.l. Analysis, and Zeta-Functions. 2nd ed.
29 ZARISKIISAMUEL. Commutative Algebra. 59 LANG. Cyclotomic Fields.
Vol.lI. 60 ARNOW. Mathematical Methods in
30 JACOBSON. Lectures in Abstract Algebra I. Classical Mechanics. 2nd ed.
Basic Concepts. 61 WHITEHEAD. Elements of Homotopy
31 JACOBSON. Lectures in Abstract Algebra II. Theory.
Linear Algebra. 62 KARGAPOLOv/MERLZJAKOV. Fundamentals
32 JACOBSON. Lectures in Abstract Algebra of the Theory of Groups.
Ill. Theory of Fields and Galois Theory. 63 BOLLOBAS. Graph Theory.
33 HIRSCH. Differential Topology.
(continued after index)
Jiff Matousek

Lectures on
Discrete Geometry

With 206 Illustrations

Springer
Jin Matousek
Department of Applied Mathematics
Charles University
Malostranske mim. 25
118 00 Praha 1
Czech Republic
matousek@kam.mff.cuni.cz

Editorial Board
S. Axler F. w. Gehring K.A. Ribet
Mathematics Department Mathematics Department Mathematics Department
San Francisco State East Hall University of California,
University University of Michigan Berkeley
San Francisco, CA 94132 Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Berkeley, CA 94720-3840
USA USA USA
axler@sfsu.edu fgehring@math.lsa. ribet@math.berkeley.edu
umich.edu

Mathematics Subject Classification (2000): 52-01

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Matousek, mf.
Lectures on discrete geometry / Jin Matousek.
p. cm. - (Graduate texts in mathematics; 212)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-387-95374-8 ISBN 978-1-4613-0039-7 (eBook)
00110.1007/978-1-4613-0039-7
I. Convex geometry. 2. Combinatorial geometry. I. Title. II. Series.
QA639.5 .M37 2002
516--dc21 2001054915

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Preface

The next several pages describe the goals and the main topics of this book.
Questions in discrete geometry typically involve finite sets of points, lines,
circles, planes, or other simple geometric objects. For example, one can ask,
what is the largest number of regions into which n lines can partition the
plane, or what is the minimum possible number of distinct distances occur-
ring among n points in the plane? (The former question is easy, the latter
one is hard.) More complicated objects are investigated, too, such as convex
polytopes or finite families of convex sets. The emphasis is on "combinato-
rial" properties: Which of the given objects intersect, or how many points
are needed to intersect all of them, and so on.
Many questions in discrete geometry are very natural and worth studying
for their own sake. Some of them, such as the structure of 3-dimensional
convex polytopes, go back to the antiquity, and many of them are motivated
by other areas of mathematics. To a working mathematician or computer
scientist, contemporary discrete geometry offers results and techniques of
great diversity, a useful enhancement of the "bag of tricks" for attacking
problems in her or his field. My experience in this respect comes mainly
from combinatorics and the design of efficient algorithms, where, as time
progresses, more and more of the first-rate results are proved by methods
drawn from seemingly distant areas of mathematics and where geometric
methods are among the most prominent.
The development of computational geometry and of geometric methods in
combinatorial optimization in the last 20-30 years has stimulated research in
discrete geometry a great deal and contributed new problems and motivation.
Parts of discrete geometry are indispensable as a foundation for any serious
study of these fields. I personally became involved in discrete geometry while
working on geometric algorithms, and the present book gradually grew out of
lecture notes initially focused on computational geometry. (In the meantime,
several books on computational geometry have appeared, and so I decided to
concentrate on the nonalgorithmic part.)
In order to explain the path chosen in this book for exploring its subject,
let me compare discrete geometry to an Alpine mountain range. Mountains
can be explored by bus tours, by walking, by serious climbing, by playing
vi Preface

in the local casino, and in many other ways. The book should provide safe
trails to a few peaks and lookout points (key results from various subfields
of discrete geometry). To some of them, convenient paths have been marked
in the literature, but for others, where only climbers' routes exist in research
papers, I tried to add some handrails, steps, and ropes at the critical places,
in the form of intuitive explanations, pictures, and concrete and elementary
proofs. l However, I do not know how to build cable cars in this landscape:
Reaching the higher peaks, the results traditionally considered difficult, still
needs substantial effort. I wish everyone a clear view of the beautiful ideas in
the area, and I hope that the trails of this book will help some readers climb
yet unconquered summits by their own research. (Here the shortcomings of
the Alpine analogy become clear: The range of discrete geometry is infinite
and no doubt, many discoveries lie ahead, while the Alps are a small spot on
the all too finite Earth.)
This book is primarily an introductory textbook. It does not require any
special background besides the usual undergraduate mathematics (linear al-
gebra, calculus, and a little of combinatorics, graph theory, and probability).
It should be accessible to early graduate students, although mastering the
more advanced proofs probably needs some mathematical maturity. The first
and main part of each section is intended for teaching in class. I have actually
taught most of the material, mainly in an advanced course in Prague whose
contents varied over the years, and a large part has also been presented by
students, based on my writing, in lectures at special seminars (Spring Schools
of Combinatorics). A short summary at the end of the book can be useful for
reviewing the covered material.
The book can also serve as a collection of surveys in several narrower
subfields of discrete geometry, where, as far as I know, no adequate recent
treatment is available. The sections are accompanied by remarks and biblio-
graphic notes. For well-established material, such as convex polytopes, these
parts usually refer to the original sources, point to modern treatments and
surveys, and present a sample of key results in the area. For the less well cov-
ered topics, I have aimed at surveying most of the important recent results.
For some of them, proof outlines are provided, which should convey the main
ideas and make it easy to fill in the details from the original source.
Topics. The material in the book can be divided into several groups:
• Foundations (Sections 1.1-1.3, 2.1, 5.1-5.4, 5.7, 6.1). Here truly basic
things are covered, suitable for any introductory course: linear and affine
subspaces, fundamentals of convex sets, Minkowski's theorem on lattice
points in convex bodies, duality, and the first steps in convex polytopes,
Voronoi diagrams, and hyperplane arrangements. The remaining sections
of Chapters 1, 2, and 5 go a little further in these topics.

1 I also wanted to invent fitting names for the important theorems, in order to
make them easier to remember. Only few of these names are in standard usage.
 Preface Vll

• Combinatorial complexity of geometric configurations (Chapters 4, 6, 7,

and 11). The problems studied here include line-point incidences, com-
plexity of arrangements and lower envelopes, Davenport-Schinzel se-
quences, and the k-set problem. Powerful methods, mainly probabilistic,
developed in this area are explained step by step on concrete nontriv-
ial examples. Many of the questions were motivated by the analysis of
algorithms in computational geometry.
• Intersection patterns and transversals of convex sets. Chapters 8-10 con-
tain, among others, a proof of the celebrated (p, q)-theorem of Alon and
Kleitman, including all the tools used in it. This theorem gives a suffi-
cient condition guaranteeing that all sets in a given family of convex sets
can be intersected by a bounded (small) number of points. Such results
can be seen as far-reaching generalizations of the well-known ReIly's the-
orem. Some of the finest pieces of the weaponry of contemporary discrete
and computational geometry, such as the theory of the VC-dimension or
the regularity lemma, appear in these chapters.
• Geometric Ramsey theory (Chapters 3 and 9). Ramsey-type theorems
guarantee the existence of a certain "regular" subconfiguration in every
sufficiently large configuration; in our case we deal with geometric ob-
jects. One of the historically first results here is the theorem of Erdos
and Szekeres on convex independent subsets in every sufficiently large
point set.
• Polyhedral combinatorics and high-dimensional convexity (Chapters 12-
14). Two famous results are proved as a sample of polyhedral combina-
torics, one in graph theory (the weak perfect graph conjecture) and one in
theoretical computer science (on sorting with partial information). Then
the behavior of convex bodies in high dimensions is explored; the high-
lights include a theorem on the volume of an N-vertex convex polytope
in the unit ball (related to algorithmic hardness of volume approxima-
tion), measure concentration on the sphere, and Dvoretzky's theorem on
almost-spherical sections of convex bodies.
• Representing finite metric spaces by coordinates (Chapter 15). Given an
n-point metric space, we would like to visualize it or at least make it com-
putationally more tractable by placing the points in a Euclidean space,
in such a way that the Euclidean distances approximate the given dis-
tances in the finite metric space. We investigate the necessary error of
such approximation. Such results are of great interest in several areas;
for example, recently they have been used in approximation algorithms
in combinatorial optimization (multicommodity flows, VLSI layout, and
others).
These topics surely do not cover all of discrete geometry, which is a rather
vague term anyway. The selection is (necessarily) subjective, and naturally
I preferred areas that I knew better and/or had been working in. (Unfortu-
nately, I have had no access to supernatural opinions on proofs as a more
viii Preface

reliable guide.) Many interesting topics are neglected completely, such as the
wide area of packing and covering, where very accessible treatments exist,
or the celebrated negative solution by Kahn and Kalai of the Borsuk conjec-
ture, which I consider sufficiently popularized by now. Many more chapters
analogous to the fifteen of this book could be added, and each of the fifteen
chapters could be expanded into a thick volume. But the extent of the book,
as well as the time for its writing, are limited.
Exercises. The sections are complemented by exercises. The little framed
numbers indicate their difficulty: III is routine, 0 may need quite a bright
idea. Some of the exercises used to be a part of homework assignments in my
courses and the classification is based on some experience, but for others it
is just an unreliable subjective guess. Some of the exercises, especially those
conveying important results, are accompanied by hints given at the end of
the book.
Additional results that did not fit into the main text are often included as
exercises, which saves much space. However, this greatly enlarges the danger
of making false claims, so the reader who wants to use such information may
want to check it carefully.
Sources and further reading. A great inspiration for this book project
and the source of much material was the book Combinatorial Geometry of
Pach and Agarwal [PA95]. Too late did I become aware of the lecture notes by
Ball [BaI97] on modern convex geometry; had I known these earlier I would
probably have hesitated to write Chapters 13 and 14 on high-dimensional
convexity, as I would not dare to compete with this masterpiece of mathe-
matical exposition. Ziegler's book [Zie94] can be recommended for studying
convex polytopes. Many other sources are mentioned in the notes in each
chapter. For looking up information in discrete geometry, a good starting
point can be one of the several handbooks pertaining to the area: Handbook
of Convex Geometry [GW93], Handbook of Discrete and Computational Ge-
ometry [G097], Handbook of Computational Geometry [SUOO], and (to some
extent) Handbook of Combinatorics [GGL95], with numerous valuable sur-
veys. Many of the important new results in the field keep appearing in the
journal Discrete and Computational Geometry.
Acknowledgments. For invaluable advice and/or very helpful comments on
preliminary versions of this book I would like to thank Micha Sharir, Gunter
M. Ziegler, Yuri Rabinovich, Pankaj K. Agarwal, Pavel Valtr, Martin Klazar,
Nati Linial, Gunter Rote, Janos Pach, Keith Ball, Uli Wagner, Imre Barany,
Eli Goodman, Gyorgy Elekes, Johannes Blomer, Eva Matouskova, Gil Kalai,
Joram Lindenstrauss, Emo Welzl, Komei Fukuda, Rephael Wenger, Piotr In-
dyk, Sariel Har-Peled, Vojtech Rodl, Geza T6th, Karoly Boroczky Jr., Rados
Radoicic, Helena Nyklova, Vojtech Franek, Jakub Simek, Avner Magen, Gre-
gor Baudis, and Andreas Marwinski (I apologize if I forgot someone; my notes
are not perfect, not to speak of my memory). Their remarks and suggestions
 Preface ix

allowed me to improve the manuscript considerably and to eliminate many of

the embarrassing mistakes. I thank David Kramer for a careful copy-editing
and finding many more mistakes (as well as offering me a glimpse into the
exotic realm of English punctuation). I also wish to thank everyone who par-
ticipated in creating the friendly and supportive environments in which I
have been working on the book.
Errors. If you find errors in the book, especially serious ones, I would
appreciate it if you would let me know (email: matousek@kam.mff.cuni.cz).
I plan to post a list of errors at http://www.ms.mff.cuni.cz;-matousek.

Prague, July 2001 Jin Matousek

Contents

Preface v

Notation and Terminology xv

1 Convexity 1
1.1 Linear and Affine Subspaces, General Position ............. 1
1.2 Convex Sets, Convex Combinations, Separation. . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.3 Radon's Lemma and HeIly's Theorem. .. . . . .. . . . . ..... . . .. 9
1.4 Centerpoint and Ham Sandwich. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 14

2 Lattices and Minkowski's Theorem 17

2.1 Minkowski's Theorem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 17
2.2 General Lattices ....................................... 21
2.3 An Application in Number Theory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 27

3 Convex Independent Subsets 29

3.1 The Erdos-Szekeres Theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 30
3.2 Horton Sets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 34

4 Incidence Problems 41
4.1 Formulation........................................... 41
4.2 Lower Bounds: Incidences and Unit Distances. . . . . . . . . . . . .. 51
4.3 Point-Line Incidences via Crossing Numbers. . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 54
4.4 Distinct Distances via Crossing Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 59
4.5 Point-Line Incidences via Cuttings ....................... 64
4.6 A Weaker Cutting Lemma. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 70
4.7 The Cutting Lemma: A Tight Bound ..................... 73

5 Convex Polytopes 77
5.1 Geometric Duality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 78
5.2 H-Polytopes and V-Polytopes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 82
5.3 Faces of a Convex Polytope. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 86
5.4 Many Faces: The Cyclic Polytopes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 96
5.5 The Upper Bound Theorem ............................. 100
xii Contents

5.6 The Gale Transform .................................... 107

5.7 Voronoi Diagrams ...................................... 115

6 Number of Faces in Arrangements 125

6.1 Arrangements of Hyperplanes ............................ 126
6.2 Arrangements of Other Geometric Objects ................. 130
6.3 Number of Vertices of Level at Most k .................... 140
6.4 The Zone Theorem ..................................... 146
6.5 The Cutting Lemma Revisited ........................... 152

7 Lower Envelopes 165

7.1 Segments and Davenport-Schinzel Sequences ............... 165
7.2 Segments: Superlinear Complexity of the Lower Envelope .... 169
7.3 More on Davenport-Schinzel Sequences ................... 173
7.4 Towards the Tight Upper Bound for Segments ............. 178
7.5 Up to Higher Dimension: Triangles in Space ............... 182
7.6 Curves in the Plane ..................................... 186
7.7 Algebraic Surface Patches ............................... 189

8 Intersection Patterns of Convex Sets 195

8.1 The Fractional HeIly Theorem ........................... 195
8.2 The Colorful CaratModory Theorem ...................... 198
8.3 Tverberg's Theorem .................................... 200

9 Geometric Selection Theorems 207

9.1 A Point in Many Simplices: The First Selection Lemma ..... 207
9.2 The Second Selection Lemma ............................ 210
9.3 Order Types and the Same-Type Lemma .................. 215
9.4 A Hypergraph Regularity Lemma ........................ 223
9.5 A Positive-Fraction Selection Lemma ..................... 228

10 'Iransversals and Epsilon Nets 231

10.1 General Preliminaries: Transversals and Matchings ......... 231
10.2 Epsilon Nets and VC-Dimension .......................... 237
10.3 Bounding the VC-Dimension and Applications ............. 243
10.4 Weak Epsilon Nets for Convex Sets ....................... 251
10.5 The Hadwiger-Debrunner (p, q)-Problem .................. 255
10.6 A (p, q)- Theorem for Hyperplane Transversals .............. 259

11 Attempts to Count k-Sets 265

11.1 Definitions and First Estimates ........................... 265
11.2 Sets with Many Halving Edges ........................... 273
11.3 The Lovasz Lemma and Upper Bounds in All Dimensions ... 277
11.4 A Better Upper Bound in the Plane ...................... 283
 Contents xiii

12 Two Applications of High-Dimensional Polytopes 289

12.1 The Weak Perfect Graph Conjecture ...................... 290
12.2 The Brunn-Minkowski Inequality ......................... 296
12.3 Sorting Partially Ordered Sets ........................... 302

13 Volumes in High Dimension 311

13.1 Volumes, Paradoxes of High Dimension, and Nets ........... 311
13.2 Hardness of Volume Approximation ....................... 315
13.3 Constructing Polytopes of Large Volume .................. 322
13.4 Approximating Convex Bodies by Ellipsoids ............... 324

14 Measure Concentration and Almost Spherical Sections 329

14.1 Measure Concentration on the Sphere ..................... 330
14.2 Isoperimetric Inequalities and More on Concentration ....... 333
14.3 Concentration of Lipschitz Functions ...................... 337
14.4 Almost Spherical Sections: The First Steps ................ 341
14.5 Many Faces of Symmetric Polytopes ...................... 347
14.6 Dvoretzky's Theorem ................................... 348

15 Embedding Finite Metric Spaces into Normed Spaces 355

15.1 Introduction: Approximate Embeddings ................... 355
15.2 The Johnson-Lindenstrauss Flattening Lemma ............. 358
15.3 Lower Bounds By Counting .............................. 362
15.4 A Lower Bound for the Hamming Cube ................... 369
15.5 A Tight Lower Bound via Expanders ...................... 373
15.6 Upper Bounds for t'oo-Embeddings ........................ 385
15.7 Upper Bounds for Euclidean Embeddings .................. 389

What Was It About? An Informal Summary 401

Hints to Selected E:x;ercises 409

Bibliography 417

Index 459
Notation and Terminology

This section summarizes rather standard things, and it is mainly for reference.
More special notions are introduced gradually throughout the book. In order
to facilitate independent reading of various parts, some of the definitions are
even repeated several times.
If X is a set, IXI denotes the number of elements (cardinality) of X. If X
is a multiset, in which some elements may be repeated, then IXI counts each
element with its multiplicity.
°
The very slowly growing function log* x is defined by log* x = for x :::; 1
and log* x = 1 + log* (log2 x) for x > 1.
For a real number x, l x J denotes the largest integer less than or equal
r
to x, and x 1 means the smallest integer greater than or equal to x. The
boldface letters Rand Z stand for the real numbers and for the integers,
respectively, while Rd denotes the d-dimensional Euclidean space. For a point
x = (Xl, X2,"" Xd) E R d , IIxll = Jxi + x~ + ... + x~ is the Euclidean norm
of x, and for x, Y E R d , (x, y) = XIYI +X2Y2 + ... +XdYd is the scalar product.
Points of Rd are usually considered as column vectors.
The symbol B(x, r) denotes the closed ball of radius r centered at x in
some metric space (usually in Rd with the Euclidean distance), i.e., the set
of all points with distance at most r from x. We write Bn for the unit ball
B(O, 1) in Rn. The symbol 8A denotes the boundary of a set A ~ R d , that
is, the set of points at zero distance from both A and its complement.
For a measurable set A ~ R d , vol(A) is the d-dimensional Lebesgue mea-
sure of A (in most cases the usual volume).
Let I and 9 be real functions (of one or several variables). The notation
I = O(g) means that there exists a number C such that III :::; Glgi for all
values of the variables. Normally, C should be an absolute constant, but if
I and 9 depend on some parameter(s) that we explicitly declare to be fixed
(such as the space dimension d), then C may depend on these parameters
as well. The notation I = D(g) is equivalent to 9 = 0U), I(n) = o(g(n))
to limn~ooU(n)/g(n)) = 0, and I = 8(g) means that both I = O(g) and
1= D(g).
For a random variable X, the symbol E[Xj denotes the expectation of X,
and Prob [Aj stands for the probability of an event A.
xvi Notation and Terminology

Graphs are considered simple and undirected in this book unless stated
otherwise, so a graph G is a pair (V, E), where V is a set (the vertex set) and
E ~ (~) is the edge set. Here (~) denotes the set of all k-element subsets
of V. For a multigraph, the edges form a multiset, so two vertices can be
connected by several edges. For a given (multi)graph G, we write V(G) for
the vertex set and E( G) for the edge set. A complete graph has all possible
edges; that is, it is of the form(V, ).
(~) A complete graph on n vertices is
denoted by Kn- A graph G is bipartite if the vertex set can be partitioned
into two subsets VI and V2, the (color) classes, in such a way that each edge
connects a vertex of VI to a vertex of V2. A graph G' = (V', E') is a subgraph
of a graph G = (V, E) if V' ~ V and E' ~ E. We also say that G contains
a copy of H if there is a subgraph G' of G isomorphic to H, where G' and
H are isomorphic if there is a bijective map <p: V(G') -t V(H) such that
{u,v} E E(G') if and only if {<p(u),<p(v)} E E(H) for all u,v E V(G'). The
degree of a vertex v in a graph G is the number of edges of G containing v.
SAn r-regular graph has all degrees equal to r. Paths and cycles are graphs as
'in the following picture,

IjN~ ~oOO
paths cycles

and a path or cycle in G is a subgraph isomorphic to a path or cycle, respec-

tively. A graph G is connected if every two vertices can be connected by a
path in G.
We recall that a set X ~ R d is compact if and only if it is closed and
bounded, and that a continuous function f: X -t R defined on a compact X
attains its minimum (there exists Xo E X with f(xo) :::; f(x) for all x EX).
The Cauchy-Schwarz inequality is perhaps best remembered in the form
(x, y) :::; Ilxll'llyll for all x, y ERn.
A real function f defined on an interval A ~ R (or, more generally, on a
convex set A ~ R d ) is convex if f(tx + (l-t)y) :::; tf(x) + (l-t)f(y) for all
x, yEA and t E [0,1]. Geometrically, the graph of f on [x, y]lies below the
segment connecting the points (x, f(x)) and (y, f(y)). If the second derivative
satisfies f"(x) 2: 0 for all x in an (open) interval A ~ R, then f is convex
on A. Jensen's inequality is a straightforward generalization of the definition
of convexity: f(tlXI + t2X2 + ... + tnx n ) :::; td(xd + t2!(X2) + ... + tnf(xn)
for all choices of nonnegative ti summing to 1 and all Xl, ... , Xn E A. Or in
integral form, if p, is a probability measure on A and f is convex on A, we have
f (fAxdp,(x)) :::; fA f(x) dp,(x). In the language of probability theory, if X
is a real random variable and f: R -t R is convex, then f(E[X]) :::; E[f(X)];
for example, (E[X])2 :::; E [X2].
1

Convexity

We begin with a review of basic geometric notions such as hyperplanes and

affine subspaces in R d, and we spend some time by discussing the notion
of general position. Then we consider fundamental properties of convex sets
in R d, such as a theorem about the separation of disjoint convex sets by a
hyperplane and Helly's theorem.

1.1 Linear and Affine Subspaces, General Position

Linear subspaces. Let R d denote the d-dimensional Euclidean space. The
points are d-tuples of real numbers, x = (Xl, X2, •.. , Xd).
The space Rd is a vector space, and so we may speak of linear subspaces,
linear dependence of points, linear span of a set, and so on. A linear subspace
of Rd is a subset closed under addition of vectors and under multiplication
by real numbers. What is the geometric meaning? For instance, the linear
subspaces of R2 are the origin itself, all lines passing through the origin,
and the whole of R2. In R3, we have the origin, all lines and planes passing
through the origin, and R3.
Affine notions. An arbitrary line in R 2, say, is not a linear subspace unless
it passes through O. General lines are what are called affine subspaces. An
affine subspace of R d has the form X + L, where X E R d is some vector and L
is a linear subspace of Rd. Having defined affine subspaces, the other "affine"
notions can be constructed by imitating the "linear" notions.
What is the affine hull of a set X ~ Rd? It is the intersection of all affine
subspaces of Rd containing X. As is well known, the linear span of a set X
can be described as the set of all linear combinations of points of X. What
is an affine combination of points aI, a2,"" an E Rd that would play an
analogous role? To see this, we translate the whole set by -an, so that an
becomes the origin, we make a linear combination, and we translate back by
2 Chapter 1: Convexity

+an · This yields an expression of the form /31(a1 - an) + /32(a2 - an) + ... +
/3n (an - an) +an = /31 a1 + /32 a2 + ... + /3n-1 an-1 + (1- /31 - /32 - ... - /3n-dan ,
where /31, ... ,/3n are arbitrary real numbers. Thus, an affine combination of
points aI, ... ,an E R d is an expression of the form

Then indeed, it is not hard to check that the affine hull of X is the set of all
affine combinations of points of X.
The affine dependence of points aI, ... ,an means that one of them can
be written as an affine combination of the others. This is the same as the
existence of real numbers aI, a2, ... an, at least one of them nonzero, such
that both

(Note the difference: In an affine combination, the ai sum to 1, while in an

affine dependence, they sum to 0.)
Affine dependence of aI, ... ,an is equivalent to linear dependence of the
n-1 vectors a1 -an, a2 -an, ... , a n -1 -an. Therefore, the maximum possible
number of affinely independent points in R d is d+ 1.
Another way of expressing affine dependence uses "lifting" one dimension
higher. Let bi = (ai, 1) be the vector in R d +1 obtained by appending a new
coordinate equal to 1 to ai; then aI, ... ,an are affinely dependent if and only
if b1 , ... ,bn are linearly dependent. This correspondence of affine notions in
Rd with linear notions in R d+1 is quite general. For example, if we identify
R2 with the plane X3 = 1 in R3 as in the picture,

-------::::~-----"7"X3 = 1

___------=~--"7" X3 =0

then we obtain a bijective correspondence of the k-dimensional linear sub-

spaces of R 3 that do not lie in the plane X3 = 0 with (k-1 )-dimensional affine
subspaces of R2. The drawing shows a 2-dimensionallinear subspace of R3
and the corresponding line in the plane X3 = 1. (The same works for affine
subspaces of Rd and linear subspaces of R d+1 not contained in the subspace
Xd+1 = 0.)
This correspondence also leads directly to extending the affine plane R 2
into the projective plane: To the points of R 2 corresponding to nonhorizontal
 1.1 Linear and Affine Subspaces, General Position 3

lines through 0 in R3 we add points "at infinity," that correspond to hori-

zontal lines through 0 in R 3 . But in this book we remain in the affine space
most of the time, and we do not use the projective notions.
Let all a2, .. " ad+! be points in R d , and let A be the d x d matrix with
ai - ad+l as the ith column, i = 1,2, ... , d. Then al, .. . ,ad+! are affinely
independent if and only if A has d linearly independent columns, and this is
equivalent to det(A) i- O. We have a useful criterion of affine independence
using a determinant.
Affine subspaces of R d of certain dimensions have special names. A (d-1)-
dimensional affine subspace of Rd is called a hyperplane (while the word plane
usually means a 2-dimensional subspace of Rd for any d). One-dimensional
subspaces are lines, and a k-dimensional affine subspace is often called a k-
fiat.
A hyperplane is usually specified by a single linear equation of the form
alXl +a2x2 + ... + adXd = b. We usually write the left-hand side as the scalar
product (a, x). So a hyperplane can be expressed as the set {x E Rd; (a, x) =
b} where a E Rd \ {O} and b E R. A (closed) half-space in Rd is a set
of the form {x E Rd; (a,x) ;::: b} for some a E Rd \ {O}; the hyperplane
{x E Rd; (a,x) = b} is its boundary.
General k-flats can be given either as intersections of hyperplanes or as
affine images of Rk (parametric expression). In the first case, an intersection
of k hyperplanes can also be viewed as a solution to a system Ax = b of linear
equations, where x E Rd is regarded as a column vector, A is a k x d matrix,
and b E R k. (As a rule, in formulas involving matrices, we interpret points
of Rd as column vectors.)
An affine mapping f; Rk -+ Rd has the form f; y H By+c for some d x k
matrix B and some c E R d , so it is a composition of a linear map with a
translation. The image of f is a k'-flat for some k' :::; minCk, d). This k' equals
the rank of the matrix B.
General position. "We assume that the points (lines, hyperplanes, ... ) are
in general position. " This magical phrase appears in many proofs. Intuitively,
general position means that no "unlikely coincidences" happen in the consid-
ered configuration. For example, if 3 points are chosen in the plane without
any special intention, "randomly," they are unlikely to lie on a common line.
For a planar point set in general position, we always require that no three
of its points be collinear. For points in Rd in general position, we assume
similarly that no unnecessary affine dependencies exist; No k :::; d+1 points
lie in a common (k-2)-flat. For lines in the plane in general position, we
postulate that no 3 lines have a common point and no 2 are parallel.
The precise meaning of general position is not fully standard; It may
depend on the particular context, and to the usual conditions mentioned
above we sometimes add others where convenient. For example, for a planar
point set in general position we can also suppose that no two points have the
same x-coordinate.
4 Chapter 1: Convexity

What conditions are suitable for including into a "general position" as-
sumption? In other words, what can be considered as an unlikely coincidence?
For example, let X be an n-point set in the plane, and let the coordinates of
the ith point be (Xi, Yi). Then the vector v(X) = (Xl, X2,···, Xn, YI, Y2,···, Yn)
can be regarded as a point of R2n. For a configuration X in which Xl = X2,
i.e., the first and second points have the same x-coordinate, the point v(X)
lies on the hyperplane {Xl = X2} in R2n. The configurations X where some
two points share the x-coordinate thus correspond to the union of G) hy-
perplanes in R2n. Since a hyperplane in R 2n has (2n-dimensional) measure
zero, almost all points of R2n correspond to planar configurations X with all
the points having distinct x-coordinates. In particular, if X is any n-point
planar configuration and c > 0 is any given real number, then there is a con-
figuration X', obtained from X by moving each point by distance at most c,
such that all points of X' have distinct x-coordinates. Not only that: Almost
all small movements (perturbations) of X result in X' with this property.
This is the key property of general position: Configurations in general
position lie arbitrarily close to any given configuration (and they abound
in any small neighborhood of any given configuration). Here is a fairly gen-
eral type of condition with this property. Suppose that a configuration X
is specified by a vector t = (tl' t2,"" t m ) of m real numbers (coordinates).
The objects of X can be points in R d , in which case m = dn and the tj
are the coordinates of the points, but they can also be circles in the plane,
with m = 3n and the tj expressing the center and the radius of each circle,
and so on. The general position condition we can put on the configuration
X is p(t) = p(h, t2, ... , t m ) i:- 0, where p is some nonzero polynomial in m
variables. Here we use the following well-known fact (a consequence of Sard's
theorem; see, e.g., Bredon [Bre93], Appendix C): For any nonzero m-variate
polynomial P(tl, ... , t m ), the zero set {t E Rm: p(t) = O} has measure 0 in
Rm.
Therefore, almost all configurations X satisfy p(t) i:- O. So any condition
that can be expressed as p(t) i:- 0 for a certain polynomial p in m real
variables, or, more generally, as PI (t) i:- 0 or P2 (t) i:- 0 or ... , for finitely or
countably many polynomials Pl>P2,"" can be included in a general position
assumption.
For example, let X be an n-point set in R d , and let us consider the con-
dition "no d+l points of X lie in a common hyperplane." In other words, no
d+l points should be affinely dependent. As we know, the affine dependence
of d+ 1 points means that a suitable d x d determinant equals O. This deter-
minant is a polynomial (of degree d) in the coordinates of these d+ 1 points.
Introducing one polynomial for every (d+l)-tuple of the points, we obtain
(d~l) polynomials such that at least one of them is 0 for any configuration X
with d+ 1 points in a common hyperplane. Other usual conditions for general
position can be expressed similarly.
 1.2 Convex Sets, Convex Combinations, Separation 5

In many proofs, assuming general position simplifies matters consider-

ably. But what do we do with configurations Xo that are not in general
position? We have to argue, somehow, that if the statement being proved is
valid for configurations X arbitrarily close to our X o, then it must be valid
for Xo itself, too. Such proofs, usually called perturbation arguments, are of-
ten rather simple, and almost always somewhat boring. But sometimes they
can be tricky, and one should not underestimate them, no matter how tempt-
ing this may be. A nontrivial example will be demonstrated in Section 5.5
(Lemma 5.5.4).

Exercises
1. Verify that the affine hull of a set X ~ Rd equals the set of all affine
combinations of points of X. 0 .
2. Let A be a 2 x 3 matrix and let b E R 2 . Interpret the solution of the
system Ax = b geometrically (in most cases, as an intersection of two
planes) and discuss the possible cases in algebraic and geometric terms.
o
3. (a) What are the possible intersections of two (2-dimensional) planes
in R4? What is the "typical" case (general position)? What about two
hyperplanes in R 4? 0
(b) Objects in R4 can sometimes be "visualized" as objects in R3 moving
in time (so time is interpreted as the fourth coordinate). Thy to visualize
the intersection of two planes in R 4 discussed (a) in this way.

1.2 Convex Sets, Convex Combinations, Separation

Intuitively, a set is convex if its surface has no "dips":
not allowed in a conv x e

1.2.1 Definition (Convex set). A set C ~ Rd is convex if for every two

points x, y E C the whole segment xy is also contained in C. In other words,
for every t E [0,1], the point tx + (1 - t)y belongs to C.
The intersection of an arbitrary family of convex sets is obviously convex.
So we can define the convex hull of a set X ~ R d, denoted by conv(X), as the
intersection of all convex sets in R d containing X. Here is a planar example

..
with a finite X:

X conv(X)
6 Chapter 1: Convexity

An alternative description of the convex hull can be given using convex

combinations.

1.2.2 Claim. A point x belongs to conv(X) if and only if there exist points
Xl, X2,'" Xn E X and nonnegative real numbers t l , t2, ... , tn with L~l ti =
1 such that X = L~=l tiXi.

The expression L~=l tixi as in the claim is called a convex combination

of the points Xl, X2,"" X n . (Compare this with the definitions of linear and
affine combinations.)
Sketch of proof. Each convex combination of points of X must lie in
conv(X): For n = 2 this is by definition, and for larger n by induction.
Conversely, the set of all convex combinations obviously contains X, and it
is convex. D
In R d , it is sufficient to consider convex combinations involving at most
d+l points:
1.2.3 Theorem (Caratheodory's theorem). Let X ~ Rd. Then each
point of conv(X) is a convex combination of at most d+ 1 points of X.
For example, in the plane, conv(X) is the union of all triangles with
vertices at points of X. The proof of the theorem is left as an exercise to the
subsequent section.
A basic result about convex sets is the separability of disjoint convex sets
by a hyperplane.
1.2.4 Theorem (Separation theorem). Let C, D ~ Rd be convex sets
with C n D = 0. Then there exists a hyperplane h such that C lies in one
of the closed half-spaces determined by h, and D lies in the opposite closed
half-space. In other words, there exist a unit vector a E Rd and a number
bE R such that for all X E C we have (a, xl ;::: b, and for all xED we have
(a, xl ::; b.
If C and D are closed and at least one of them is bounded, they can be
separated strictly; in such a way that C n h = D n h = 0.
In particular, a closed convex set can be strictly separated from a point.
This implies that the convex hull of a closed set X equals the intersection of
all closed half-spaces containing X.
Sketch of proof. First assume that C and D are compact (i.e., closed and
bounded). Then the Cartesian product C x D is a compact space, too, and
the distance function (x, y) f--t Ilx - yll attains its minimum on C x D. That
is, there exist points p E C and qED such that the distance of C and D
equals the distance of p and q.
The desired separating hyperplane h can be taken as the one perpendic-
ular to the segment pq and passing through its midpoint:
 1.2 Convex Sets, Convex Combinations, Separation 7

It is easy to check that h indeed avoids both C and D.

If D is compact and C closed, we can intersect C with a large ball and
get a compact set C'. If the ball is sufficiently large, then C and C' have the
same distance to D. So the distance of C and D is attained at some p E C'
and qED, and we can use the previous argument.
For arbitrary disjoint convex sets C and D, we choose a sequence C 1 ~
C 2 ~ C 3 ~ ..• of compact convex subsets of C with U~=l C n = C. For
example, assuming that 0 E C, we can let Cn be the intersection of the
closure of (1- ~)C with the ball of radius n centered at O. A similar sequence
Dl ~ D2 ~ ... is chosen for D, and we let h n = {x E Rd: (an,x) = bn } be a
hyperplane separating C n from D n , where an is a unit vector and bn E R. The
sequence (bn)~=l is bounded, and by compactness, the sequence of (d+1)-
component vectors (an, bn ) E R d+ 1 has a cluster point (a, b). One can verify,
by contradiction, that the hyperplane h = {x E R d: (a, x) = b} separates C
and D (nonstrictly). 0

The importance of the separation theorem is documented by its presence

in several branches of mathematics in various disguises. Its home territory is
probably functional analysis, where it is formulated and proved for infinite-
dimensional spaces; essentially it is the so-called Hahn-Banach theorem. The
usual functional-analytic proof is different from the one we gave, and in a
way it is more elegant and conceptual. The proof sketched above uses more
special properties of R d , but it is quite short and intuitive in the case of
compact C and D.
Connection to linear programming. A basic result in the theory of
linear programming is the Farkas lemma. It is a special case of the duality of
linear programming (discussed in Section 10.1) as well as the key step in its
proof.

1.2.5 Lemma (Farkas lemma, one of many versions). For every d x n

real matrix A, exactly one of the following cases occurs:
(i) The system of linear equations Ax = 0 has a nontrivial nonnegative
solution x ERn (all components of x are nonnegative and at least one
of them is strictly positive).
8 Chapter 1: Convexity

(ii) There exists ayE Rd such that yT A is a vector with all entries strictly
negative. Thus, if we multiply the j th equation in the system Ax = 0 by
Yj and add these equations together, we obtain an equation that obviously
has no nontrivial nonnegative solution, since all the coefficients on the
left-hand sides are strictly negative, while the right-hand side is O.

Proof. Let us see why this is yet another version of the separation theorem.
Let V C Rd be the set of n points given by the column vectors of the
matrix A. We distinguish two cases: Either 0 E conv(V) or 0 tj. conv(V).
In the former case, we know that 0 is a convex combination of the points
of V, and the coefficients of this convex combination determine a nontrivial
nonnegative solution to Ax = O.
In the latter case, there exists a hyperplane strictly separating V from 0,
i.e., a unit vector y E Rd such that (y, v) < (y,O) = 0 for each v E V. This is
just the y from the second alternative in the Farkas lemma. D

Bibliography and remarks. Most of the material in this chapter is

quite old and can be found in many surveys and textbooks. Providing
historical accounts of such well-covered areas is not among the goals
of this book, and so we mention only a few references for the specific
results discussed in the text and add some remarks concerning related
results.
The concept of convexity and the rudiments of convex geometry
have been around since antiquity. The initial chapter of the Handbook
of Convex Geometry [GW93] succinctly describes the history, and the
handbook can be recommended as the basic source on questions re-
lated to convexity, although knowledge has progressed significantly
since its publication.
For an introduction to functional analysis, including the Hahn-
Banach theorem, see Rudin [Rud91], for example. The Farkas lemma
originated in [Far94] (nineteenth century!). More on the history of the
duality of linear programming can be found, e.g., in Schrijver's book
[Sch86].
As for the origins, generalizations, and applications of Caratheo-
dory's theorem, as well as of Radon's lemma and Helly's theorem dis-
cussed in the subsequent sections, a recommendable survey is Eckhoff
[Eck93], and an older well-known source is Danzer, Griinbaum, and
Klee [DGK63].
Caratheodory's theorem comes from the paper [Car07], concerning
power series and harmonic analysis. A somewhat similar theorem, due
to Steinitz [Ste16], asserts that if x lies in the interior of conv(X)
for an X ~ R d, then it also lies in the interior of conv(Y) for some
Y ~ X with WI ::; 2d. Bonnice and Klee [BK63] proved a common
generalization of both these theorems: Any k-interior point of X is
a k- interior point of Y for some Y ~ X with at most max( 2k, d+ 1)
 1.3 Radon's Lemma and Helly's Theorem 9

points, where x is called a k-interior point of X if it lies in the relative

interior of the convex hull of some k+ 1 affinely independent points
of X.

Exercises
1. Give a detailed proof of Claim 1.2.2. 0
2. Write down a detailed proof of the separation theorem. [I]
3. Find an example of two disjoint closed convex sets in the plane that are
not strictly separable. ITl
4. Let I: R d ---+ R k be an affine map.
(a) Prove that if C ~ Rd is convex, then I(C) is convex as well. Is the
preimage of a convex set always convex? 0
(b) For X ~ Rd arbitrary, prove that conv(f(X)) = conv(f(X)). ITl
5. Let X ~ Rd. Prove that diam(conv(X)) = diam(X), where the diameter
diam(Y) of a set Y is sup{/lx - y/l: x, y E Y}. [I]
6. A set C ~ Rd is a convex cone if it is convex and for each x E C, the ray
01 is fully contained in C.
(a) Analogously to the convex and affine hulls, define the appropriate
"conic hull" and the corresponding notion of "combination" (analogous
to the convex and affine combinations). [I]
(b) Let C be a convex cone in Rd and b (j. C a point. Prove that there
exists a vector a with (a, x) 2: 0 for all x E C and (a, b) < O. 0
7. (Variations on the Farkas lemma) Let A be a dxn matrix and let b E Rd.
(a) Prove that the system Ax = b has a nonnegative solution x E Rn if
and only if every y E Rd satisfying yT A 2: 0 also satisfies yTb 2: O. [I]
(b) Prove that the system of inequalities Ax :::; b has a nonnegative
solution x if and only if every nonnegative y E Rd with yT A 2: 0 also
satisfies yTb 2: O. [I]
8. (a) Let C C Rd be a compact convex set with a nonempty interior, and
let p E C be an interior point. Show that there exists a line £ passing
through p such that the segment £ n C is at least as long as any segment
parallel to £ and contained in C. [iJ
(b) Show that (a) may fail for C compact but not convex. ITl

1.3 Radon's Lemma and Helly's Theorem

Caratheodory's theorem from the previous section, together with Radon's
lemma and ReIly's theorem presented here, are three basic properties of con-
vexity in Rd involving the dimension. We begin with Radon's lemma.
1.3.1 Theorem (Radon's lemma). Let A be a set of d+2 points in Rd.
Then there exist two disjoint subsets AI, A2 c A such that
10 Chapter 1: Convexity

A point x E conv(Al) nconv(A 2 ), where Al and A2 are as in the theorem,

is called a Radon point of A, and the pair (AI, A 2 ) is called a Radon partition
of A (it is easily seen that we can require Al U A2 = A).
Here are two possible cases in the plane:

•
•
• •
Proof. Let A = {al,a2,'" ,ad+2}' These d+2 points are necessarily affinely
dependent. That is, there exist real numbers al,.'" ad+2, not all of them 0,
such that L~~; ai = 0 and L~~; aiai = O.
Set P = {i: ai > O} and N = {i: ai < O}. Both P and N are nonempty.
We claim that P and N determine the desired subsets. Let us put Al =
{ai: i E P} and A2 = {ai: i EN}. We are going to exhibit a point x that is
contained in the convex hulls of both these sets.
Put S = LiEP ai; we also have S = - LiEN ai. Then we define

(1.1)

(1.2)

The coefficients of the ai in (1.1) are nonnegative and sum to 1, so x is a

convex combination of points of AI' Similarly, (1.2) expresses x as a convex
combination of points of A 2 • D
Helly's theorem is one of the most famous results of a combinatorial nature
about convex sets.
1.3.2 Theorem (Helly's theorem). Let Gll G2 , ... , Gn be convex sets in
R d, n 2:: d+ 1. Suppose that the intersection of every d+ 1 of these sets is
nonempty. Then the intersection of all the Gi is nonempty.
The first nontrivial case states that if every 3 among 4 convex sets in
the plane intersect, then there is a point common to all 4 sets. This can be
proved by an elementary geometric argument, perhaps distinguishing a few
cases, and the reader may want to try to find a proof before reading further.
In a contrapositive form, Helly's theorem guarantees that whenever
G l , G2 , ..• , Gn are convex sets with n~=l Gi = 0, then this is witnessed by
some at most d+1 sets with empty intersection among the Gi . In this way,
many proofs are greatly simplified, since in planar problems, say, one can deal
with 3 convex sets instead of an arbitrary number, as is amply illustrated in
the exercises below.
 1.3 Radon's Lemma and Helly's Theorem 11

It is very tempting and quite usual to formulate Helly's theorem as fol-

lows: "If every d+I among n convex sets in Rd intersect, then all the sets
intersect." But, strictly speaking, this is false, for a trivial reason: For d 2: 2,
the assumption as stated here is met by n = 2 disjoint convex sets.
Proof of Reily's theorem. (Using Radon's lemma.) For a fixed d, we
proceed by induction on n. The case n = d+I is clear, so we suppose that
n 2: d+2 and that the statement of Helly's theorem holds for smaller n.
Actually, n = d+2 is the crucial case; the result for larger n follows at once
by a simple induction.
Consider sets G 1 , G2 , ... , Gn satisfying the assumptions. If we leave out
anyone of these sets, the remaining sets have a nonempty intersection by
the inductive assumption. Let us fix a point ai E nj"oi Gj and consider the
points all a2, ... ,ad+2. By Radon's lemma, there exist disjoint index sets
h,12 C {I, 2, ... , d+2} such that

conv( {ai: i E h}) n conv( {ai: i E h}) -I- 0.

We pick a point x in this intersection. The following picture illustrates the
case d = 2 and n = 4:

We claim that x lies in the intersection of all the Gi . Consider some i E

{I, 2, ... ,n}; then i rf- h or i rf- 12 . In the former case, each aj with j E h lies
in Gi , and so x E conv( {aj: j E h}) ~ Gi . For i rf- 12 we similarly conclude
that x E conv( {aj: j E 12}) ~ Gi . Therefore, x E n~=l Gi . 0

An infinite version of Reily's theorem. If we have an infinite collection

of convex sets in Rd such that any d+I of them have a common point, the
entire collection still need not have a common point. Two examples in R 1 are
the families of intervals {(O, lin): n = I,2, ... } and {[n, 00): n = 1,2, ... }.
The sets in the first example are not closed, and the second example uses
unbounded sets. For compact (i.e., closed and bounded) sets, the theorem
holds:

1.3.3 Theorem (Infinite version of Reily's theorem). Let C be an ar-

bitrary infinite family of compact convex sets in R d such that any d+ 1 of the
sets have a nonempty intersection. Then all the sets of C have a nonempty
intersection.
12 Chapter 1: Convexity

Proof. By Helly's theorem, any finite subfamily of C has a nonempty inter-

section. By a basic property of compactness, if we have an arbitrary family
of compact sets such that each of its finite subfamilies has a nonempty inter-
section, then the entire family has a nonempty intersection. 0

Several nice applications of Helly's theorem are indicated in the exercises

below, and we will meet a few more later in this book.

Bibliography and remarks. Helly proved Theorem 1.3.2 in 1913

and communicated it to Radon, who published a proof in [Rad21]. This
proof uses Radon's lemma, although the statement wasn't explicitly
formulated in Radon's paper. References to many other proofs and
generalizations can be found in the already mentioned surveys [Eck93]
and [DGK63].
Helly's theorem inspired a whole industry of Helly-type theorems.
A family B of sets is said to have Helly number h if the following holds:
Whenever a finite subfamily F ~ B is such that every h or fewer sets
n
of F have a common point, then F -=I- 0. So Helly's theorem says
that the family of all convex sets in Rd has Helly number d+1. More
generally, let P be some property of families of sets that is hereditary,
meaning that if F has property P and F' ~ F, then F' has P as well.
A family B is said to have Helly number h with respect to P if for
every finite F ~ B, all subfamilies of F of size at most h having P
implies F having P. That is, the absence of P is always witnessed by
some at most h sets, so it is a "local" property.

Exercises
1. Prove Caratheodory's theorem (you may use Radon's lemma). 8J
2. Let K C Rd be a convex set and let Cb""Cn ~ R d, n 2:: d+1, be
convex sets such that the intersection of every d+ 1 of them contains a
translated copy of K. Prove that then the intersection of all the sets C i
also contains a translated copy of K. ~
This result was noted by Vincensini [Vin39] and by Klee [Kle53].
3. Find an example of 4 convex sets in the plane such that the intersection
of each 3 of them contains a segment of length 1, but the intersection of
all 4 contains no segment of length 1. ITl
4. A strip of width w is a part of the plane bounded by two parallel lines at
distance w. The width of a set X ~ R2 is the smallest width of a strip
containing X.
(a) Prove that a compact convex set of width 1 contains a segment of
length 1 of every direction. GJ
(b) Let {C b C2 , ... ,Cn } be closed convex sets in the plane, n 2:: 3, such
that the intersection of every 3 of them has width at least 1. Prove that
n~=l Ci has width at least 1. ~
 1.3 Radon's Lemma and Helly's Theorem 13

The result as in (b), for arbitrary dimension d, was proved by Sallee

[SaI75), and a simple argument using ReIly's theorem was noted by Buch-
man and Valentine [BV82].
5. Statement: Each set X C R2 of diameter at most 1 (Le., any 2 points
have distance at most 1) is contained in some disc of radius 1/\1'3.
(a) Prove the statement for 3-element sets X. iii
(b) Prove the statement for all finite sets X. iii
(c) Generalize the statement to Rd: determine the smallest r = r(d) such
that every set of diameter 1 in R d is contained in a ball of radius r (prove
your claim). ~
The result as in (c) is due to Jung; see [DGK63].
6. Let C C Rd be a compact convex set. Prove that the mirror image of C
can be covered by a suitable translate of C blown up by the factor of d;
that is, there is an x E Rd with -C ~ x + dC. ~
7. (a) Prove that if the intersection of each 4 or fewer among convex sets
C 1 , .•. , C n ~ R2 contains a ray then n~=l Ci also contains a ray. ~
(b) Show that the number 4 in (a) cannot be replaced by 3. iii
This result, and an analogous one in Rd with the ReIly number 2d, are
due to Katchalski [Kat78].
8. For a set X ~ R2 and a point x E X, let us denote by V(x) the set of all
points y E X that can "see" x, i.e., points such that the segment xy is
contained in X. The kernel of X is defined as the set of all points x E X
such that V(x) = X. A set with a nonempty kernel is called star-shaped.
(a) Prove that the kernel of any set is convex. [D
(b) Prove that if V(x) n V(y) n V(z) -=I- 0 for every x, y, z E X and X is
compact, then X is star-shaped. That is, if every 3 paintings in a (planar)
art gallery can be seen at the same time from some location (possibly
different for different triples of paintings), then all paintings can be seen
simultaneously from somewhere. If it helps, assume that X is a polygon.
o
(c) Construct a nonempty set X ~ R 2 such that each of its finite subsets
can be seen from some point of X but X is not star-shaped. iii
The result in (b), as well as the d-dimensional generalization (with ev-
ery d+1 regions V(x) intersecting), is called Krasnosel'skiI's theorem; see
[Eck93] for references and related results.
9. In the situation of Radon's lemma (A is a (d+2)-point set in R d ), call
a point x E R d a Radon point of A if it is contained in convex hulls of
two disjoint subsets of A. Prove that if A is in general position (no d+ 1
points affinely dependent), then its Radon point is unique. m
10. (a) Let X, Y C R2 be finite point sets, and suppose that for every subset
8 ~ Xu Y of at most 4 points, 8 n X can be separated (strictly) by a
line from 8 n Y. Prove that X and Yare line-separable. m
(b) Extend (a) to sets X, Y C R d , with 181 : : ; d+2. 0
The result (b) is called Kirchberger's theorem [Kir03].
14 Chapter 1: Convexity

1.4 Centerpoint and Ham Sandwich

We prove an interesting result as an application of Helly's theorem.

1.4.1 Definition (Centerpoint). Let X be an n-point set in Rd. A point

x E R d is called a centerpoint of X if each closed half-space containing x
contains at least d~l points of X.
Let us stress that one set may generally have many centerpoints, and a
centerpoint need not belong to X.
The notion of centerpoint can be viewed as a generalization of the me-
dian of one-dimensional data. Suppose that Xl,"" Xn E R are results of
measurements of an unknown real parameter x. How do we estimate x from
the Xi? We can use the arithmetic mean, but if one of the measurements is
completely wrong (say, 100 times larger than the others), we may get quite
a bad estimate. A more "robust" estimate is a median, i.e., a point x such
that at least ~ of the Xi lie in the interval (-00, xl and at least ~ of them lie
in [x, 00 ). The centerpoint can be regarded as a generalization of the median
for higher-dimensional data.
In the definition of centerpoint we could replace the fraction d!l by some
other parameter a E (0,1). For a > d!l' such an "a-centerpoint" need not
always exist: Take d+1 points in general position for X. With a = d!l as in
the definition above, a centerpoint always exists, as we prove next.
Centerpoints are important, for example, in some algorithms of divide-
and-conquer type, where they help divide the considered problem into smaller
subproblems. Since no really efficient algorithms are known for finding
"exact" centerpoints, the algorithms often use a-centerpoints with a suit-
able a < d!l' which are easier to find.

1.4.2 Theorem (Centerpoint theorem). Each finite poi~t set in Rd has

at least one centerpoint.

Proof. First we note an equivalent definition of a centerpoint: x is a cen-

terpoint of X if and only if it lies in each open half-space , such that
IX n ,I > d!l n.
We would like to apply Helly's theorem to conclude that all these open
half-spaces intersect. But we cannot proceed directly, since we have infinitely
many half-spaces and they are open and unbounded. Instead of such an open

.
half-space " we thus consider the compact convex set conv(X n ,) c ,.

...~...........~ .
.......

• •• •
"

,
........ " .

conv{r n X )
 1.4 Centerpoint and Ham Sandwich 15

Letting'Y run through all open half-spaces 'Y with IX n 'YI > d~l n, we obtain
a family C of compact convex sets. Each of them contains more than d~l n
points of X, and so the intersection of any d+ 1 of them contains at least
one point of X. The family C consists of finitely many distinct sets (since X
n
has finitely many distinct subsets), and so C i= 0 by Helly's theorem. Each
point in this intersection is a centerpoint. 0

In the definition of a centerpoint we can regard the finite set X as defining

a distribution of mass in Rd. The centerpoint theorem asserts that for some
point x, any half-space containing x encloses at least d!l of the total mass.
It is not difficult to show that this remains valid for continuous mass distri-
butions, or even for arbitrary Borel probability measures on Rd (Exercise 1).
Ham-sandwich theorem and its relatives. Here is another important
result, not much related to convexity but with a flavor resembling the cen-
terpoint theorem.
1.4.3 Theorem (Ham-sandwich theorem). Every d finite sets in Rd can
be simultaneously bisected by a hyperplane. A hyperplane h bisects a finite
set A if each of the open half-spaces defined by h contains at most LlAI/2 J
points of A.
This theorem is usually proved via continuous mass distributions using
a tool from algebraic topology: the Borsuk-Ulam theorem. Here we omit a
proof.
Note that if Ai has an odd number of points, then every h bisecting Ai
passes through a point of Ai' Thus if AI, ... ,Ad all have odd sizes and their
union is in general position, then every hyperplane simultaneously bisecting
them is determined by d points, one of each Ai. In particular, there are only
finitely many such hyperplanes.
Again, an analogous ham-sandwich theorem holds for arbitrary d Borel
probability measures in Rd.
Center transversal theorem. There can be beautiful new things to dis-
cover even in well-studied areas of mathematics. A good example is the fol-
lowing recent result, which "interpolates" between the centerpoint theorem
and the ham-sandwich theorem.
1.4.4 Theorem (Center transversal theorem). Let 1 S k S d and let
A 1 ,A2, ... ,A k be finite point sets in Rd. Then there exists a (k-l)-Bat f
such that for every hyperplane h containing f, both the closed half-spaces
defined by h contain at least d_~+2IAd points of Ai, i = 1,2, ... ,k.
The ham-sandwich theorem is obtained for k = d and the centerpoint
theorem for k = 1. The proof, which we again have to omit, is based on a
result of algebraic topology, too, but it uses a considerably more advanced
machinery than the ham-sandwich theorem. However, the weaker result with
d!l instead of d-~+2 is easy to prove; see Exercise 2.
16 Chapter 1: Convexity

Bibliography and remarks. The centerpoint theorem was es-

tablished by Rado [Rad47]. According to Steinlein's survey [Ste85],
the ham-sandwich theorem was conjectured by Steinhaus (who also
invented the popular 3-dimensional interpretation, namely, that the
ham, the cheese, and the bread in any ham sandwich can be simulta-
neously bisected by a single straight motion of the knife) and proved
by Banach. The center transversal theorem was found by Dol'nikov
[Dol'92] and, independently, by Zivaljevic and Vrecica [ZV90].
Significant effort has been devoted to efficient algorithms for find-
ing (approximate) centerpoints and ham-sandwich cuts (i.e., hyper-
planes as in the ham-sandwich theorem). In the plane, a ham-sandwich
cut for two n-point sets can be computed in linear time (Lo, Matousek,
and Steiger [LMS94]). In a higher but fixed dimension, the complexity
of the best exact algorithms is currently slightly better than O(n d - l ).
A centerpoint in the plane, too, can be found in linear time (Jadhav
and Mukhopadhyay [JM94]). Both approximate ham-sandwich cuts
(in the ratio 1 : 1+10 for a fixed 10 > 0) and approximate centerpoints
((d!l -c)-centerpoints) can be computed in time O(n) for every fixed
dimension d and every fixed 10 > 0, but the constant depends expo-
nentially on d, and the algorithms are impractical if the dimension is
not quite small. A practically efficient randomized algorithm for com-
puting approximate centerpoints in high dimensions (ex-centerpoints
with ex ~ 1/d2 ) was given by Clarkson, Eppstein, Miller, Sturtivant,
and Teng [CEM+96].

Exercises
1. (Centerpoints for general mass distributions)
(a) Let J.1 be a Borel probability measure on Rd; that is, J.1(Rd) = 1 and
each open set is measurable. Show that for each open half-space 'Y with
J.1( 'Y) > t there exists a compact set C C 'Y with J.1( C) > t. I2l
(b) Prove that each Borel probability measure in Rd has a centerpoint
(use (a) and the infinite Helly's theorem). I2l
2. Prove that for any k finite sets AI, ... ,Ak C Rd, where 1:::::; k:::::; d, there

d
exists a (k-1)-flat such that every hyperplane containing it has at least
l IAil points of Ai in both ofits closed half-spaces for all i = 1,2, ... , k.
2

Lattices and Minkowski's

Theorem

This chapter is a quick excursion into the geometry of numbers, a field where
number-theoretic results are proved by geometric arguments, often using
properties of convex bodies in Rd. We formulate the simple but beautiful
theorem of Minkowski on the existence of a nonzero lattice point in every
symmetric convex body of sufficiently large volume. We derive several con-
sequences, concluding with a geometric proof of the famous theorem of La-
grange claiming that every natural number can be written as the sum of at
most 4 squares.

2.1 Minkowski's Theorem

In this section we consider the integer lattice Zd, and so a lattice point is a
point in R d with integer coordinates. The following theorem can be used in
many interesting situations to establish the existence of lattice points with
certain properties.

2.1.1 Theorem (Minkowski's theorem). Let G ~ Rd be symmetric

(around the origin, i.e., G = -G), convex, bounded, and suppose that
vol (G) > 2d. Then G contains at least one lattice point different from O.

Proof. We put G' = ~G = gx: x E G}.

Claim: There exists a nonzero integer vector v E Zd \ {O} such that G' n
(C' + v) =1= 0; Le., G' and a translate of G' by an integer vector intersect.

Proof. By contradiction; suppose the claim is false. Let R be a large

integer number. Consider the family C of translates of G' by the
18 Chapter 2: Lattices and Minkowski's Theorem

integer vectors in the cube [-R, Rjd: C = {C' +v: v E [-R, RjdnZ d },
as is indicated in the drawing (C is painted in gray).

Each such translate is disjoint from C', and thus every two of these
translates are disjoint as well. They are all contained in the enlarged
cube K = [-R - D, R + Djd, where D denotes the diameter of C'.
Hence

vol(K) = (2R + 2D)d? ICI vol(C') = (2R + l)d vo l(C'),

and
vol(C') <
-
(1 + _1)d
2D
2R+l
The expression on the right-hand side is arbitrarily close to 1 for
sufficiently large R. On the other hand, vol (C') = 2- d vole C) > 1 is
a fixed number exceeding 1 by a certain amount independent of R,
a contradiction. The claim thus holds. 0

Now let us fix a v E Zd as in the claim and let us choose a point x E

C' n (C' + v). Then we have x - v E C', and since C' is symmetric, we obtain
v - x E C'. Since C' is convex, the midpoint of the segment xCv - x) lies in
C' too, and so we have ~x + ~(v - x) = ~v E C'. This means that v E C,
which proves Minkowski's theorem. 0

2.1.2 Example (About a regular forest). Let K be a circle of diameter

26 (meters, say) centered at the origin. Trees of diameter 0.16 grow at each
lattice point within K except for the origin, which is where you are standing.
Prove that you cannot see outside this miniforest.
 2.1 Minkowski's Theorem 19

........
~

.
. . . .........
~ . .. .. . .

• • • • • • • • • • • • · 0 · ••••••.•••.•

Proof. Suppose than one could see outside along some line epassing through
the origin. This means that the strip S of width 0.16 with e as the middle
line contains no lattice point in K except for the origin. In other words, the
symmetric convex set C = KnS contains no lattice points but the origin. But
as is easy to calculate, vol( C) > 4, which contradicts Minkowski's theorem.
o
2.1.3 Proposition (Approximating an irrational number by a frac-
tion). Let a E (0,1) be a real number and N a natural number. Then there
exists a pair of natural numbers m, n such that n ::::; Nand

la- mln < nN _1 .

This proposition implies that there are infinitely many pairs m, n such
that la - ~I < 1/n2 (Exercise 4). This is a basic and well-known result
in elementary number theory. It can also be proved using the pigeonhole
principle.
The proposition has an analogue concerning the approximation of several
numbers al,"" ak by fractions with a common denominator (see Exercise 5),
and there a proof via Minkowski's theorem seems to be the simplest.
Proof of Proposition 2.1.3. Consider the set

C = {(x,y) E R2: -N - ~ ::::; x::::; N +~, lax - yl < tt}.

y=ax
20 Chapter 2: Lattices and Minkowski's Theorem

This is a symmetric convex set of area (2N+1)~ > 4, and therefore it con-
tains some nonzero integer lattice point (n, m). By symmetry, we may assume
n> O. The definition of C gives n :::; N and lam - ml < -k.
In other words,
lex - !!!ol
n
< _1 •
nN
D

Bibliography and remarks. The name "geometry of numbers"

was coined by Minkowski, who initiated a systematic study of this
field (although related ideas appeared in earlier works). He proved
Theorem 2.1.1, in a more general form mentioned later on, in 1891
(see [Min96]). His first application was a theorem on simultaneously
making linear forms small (Exercise 2.2.4). While geometry of numbers
originated as a tool in number theory, for questions in Diophantine
approximation and quadratic forms, today it also plays a significant
role in several other diverse areas, such as coding theory, cryptography,
the theory of uniform distribution, and numerical integration.
Theorem 2.1.1 is often called Minkowski's first theorem. What is,
then, Minkowski's second theorem? We answer this natural question
in the notes to Section 2.2, where we also review a few more of the
basic results in the geometry of numbers and point to some interesting
connections and directions of research.
Most of our exposition in this chapter follows a similar chapter in
Pach and Agarwal [PA95]. Older books on the geometry of numbers
are Cassels [Cas59] and Gruber and Lekkerkerker [GL87]. A pleasant
but somewhat aged introduction is Siegel [Sie89]. The Gruber [Gru93]
provides a concise recent overview.

Exercises
1. Prove: If C ~ R d is convex, symmetric around the origin, bounded, and
such that vol( C) > k2 d , then C contains at least 2k lattice points. ~
2. By the method of the proof of Minkowski's theorem, show the following
result (Blichtfeld; Van der Corput): If S ~ Rd is measurable and vol(S) >
k, then there are points Sll S2, . .. ,Sk E S with all Si - 8j E Zd, 1 :::; i,j :::;
k. @]
3. Show that the boundedness of C in Minkowski's theorem is not really
necessary. [IJ
4. (a) Verify the claim made after Example 2.1.3, namely, that for any
irrational ex there are infinitely many pairs m, n such that lex - mini <
1/n2 • [IJ
(b) Prove that for ex = J2 there are only finitely many pairs m, n with
lex - mini < 1/4n2 . ~
(c) Show that for any algebraic irrational number a (Le., a root of a
univariate polynomial with integer coefficients) there exists a constant D
such that lex - mini < linD holds for finitely many pairs (m, n) only.
Conclude that, for example, the number 2:::1 2- ii is not algebraic. ill
 2.2 General Lattices 21

5. (a) Let 0:1> 0:2 E (0,1) be real numbers. Prove that for a given N E N
there exist ml,m2,n E N, n ~ N, such that 100i - ~I < nffi, i = 1,2.
8J
(b) Formulate and prove an analogous result for the simultaneous ap-
proximation of d real numbers by rationals with a common denominator.
o (This is a result of Dirichlet [Dir42].)
6. Let K c R 2 be a compact convex set of area 0: and let x be a point
chosen uniformly at random in [0, 1)2.
(a) Prove that the expected number of points of Z2 in the set K + x
equals 0:. 0
(b) Show that with probability at least 1 - 0:, K + x contains no point
of Z2. III

2.2 General Lattices

Let Zl, Z2, ... , Zd be ad-tuple of linearly independent vectors in Rd. We define
the lattice with basis {Zl,Z2, ... ,Zd} as the set of all linear combinations of
the Zi with integer coefficients; that is,

Let us remark that this lattice has in general many different bases. For in-
stance, the sets {(O, 1), (1, On and {(I, 0), (3, In are both bases of the "stan-
dard" lattice Z2.
Let us form a d x d matrix Z with the vectors Zl, ... , Zd as columns. We
define the determinant of the lattice A = A(Zl, Z2, ... , Zd) as det A = 1 det Z I.
Geometrically, det A is the volume of the parallelepiped {O:lZl + 0:2Z2 + ... +
O:dZd: 0:1, ... , O:d E [0, I]}:

(the proof is left to Exercise 1). The number det A is indeed a property of the
lattice A (as a point set), and it does not depend on the choice of the basis
of A (Exercise 2). It is not difficult to show that if Z is the matrix of some
basis of A, then the matrix of every basis of A has the form BU, where U is
an integer matrix with determinant ±l.
22 Chapter 2: Lattices and Minkowski's Theorem

2.2.1 Theorem (Minkowski's theorem for general lattices). Let A be

a lattice in R d , and let C ~ Rd be a symmetric convex set with vol(C) >
2d det A. Then C contains a point of A different from 0.

Proof. Let {Zl' ... , zd be a basis of A. We define a linear mapping f: R d ----t

Rd by f(Xl, X2,"" Xd) = XlZl + X2Z2 + ... + XdZd. Then f is a bijection and
A = f(Zd). For any convex set X, we have vol(f(X)) = det(A) vol(X).
(Sketch of proof: This holds if X is a cube, and a convex set can be ap-
proximated by a disjoint union of sufficiently small cubes with arbitrary
precision.) Let us put C' = f- l (C). This is a symmetric convex set with
vol(C') = vol(C)jdetA > 2d. Minkowski's theorem provides a nonzero vec-
tor v E C' n Zd, and f (v) is the desired point as in the theorem. D

A seemingly more general definition of a lattice. What if we consider

integer linear combinations of more than d vectors in Rd? Some caution is
necessary: If we take d = 1 and the vectors VI = (1), V2 = (V2), then
the integer linear combinations i l VI + i2v2 are dense in the real line (by
Example 2.1.3), and such a set is not what we would like to call a lattice.
In order to exclude such pathology, we define a discrete subgroup of Rd
as a set A C Rd such that whenever x, YEA, then also x - YEA, and such
that the distance of any two distinct points of A is at least J, for some fixed
positive real number J > 0.
It can be shown, for instance, that if VI, V2, ••• ,Vn E R d are vectors with
rational coordinates, then the set A of all their integer linear combinations
is a discrete subgroup of Rd (Exercise 3). As the following theorem shows,
any discrete subgroup of Rd whose linear span is all of Rd is a lattice in the
sense of the definition given at the beginning of this section.

2.2.2 Theorem (Lattice basis theorem). Let A C Rd be a discrete

subgroup of Rd whose linear span is Rd. Then A has a basis; that is,
there exist d linearly independent vectors Zl, Z2, ... ,Zd E R d such that
A = A(Zl' Z2, ... , Zd).

Proof. We proceed by induction. For some i, 1 :::; i :::; d+l, suppose that
linearly independent vectors Zl, Z2,"" Zi-l E A with the following prop-
erty have already been constructed. If F i - l denotes the (i-l )-dimensional
subspace spanned by Zl, ... , Zi-l, then all points of A lying in F i - l can be
written as integer linear combinations of Zl, ... , Zi-l. For i = d+ 1, this gives
the statement of the theorem.
So consider an i :::; d. Since A generates R d , there exists a vector w E A
not lying in the subspace F i - l . Let P be the i-dimensional parallelepiped
determined by Zl, Z2, ... , Zi-l and by w: P = {alzl +a2z2 + ... +ai-lzi-l +
aiw: al,"" ai E [0, I]}. Among all the (finitely many) points of A lying in
P but not in F i - l , choose one nearest to F i - l and call it Zi, as in the picture:
 2.2 General Lattices 23

Note that if the points of A n P are written in the form a1z1 + a2z2 + ... +
ai-1Zi-1 + aiW, then Zi is one with the smallest ai. It remains to show that
Zl, Z2, ... , Zi have the required property.
So let v E A be a point lying in Fi (the linear span of Zl,"" Zi). We
can write v = {31Z1 + {32Z2 + ... + {3izi for some real numbers {31,'" ,{3i' Let
'Yj be the fractional part of {3j, j = 1,2, ... , i; that is, 'Yj = {3j - l{3jJ. Put
v' = 'Y1Z1 + 'Y2Z2 + ... + 'YiZi. This point also lies in A (since v and v' differ
by an integer linear combination of vectors of A). We have 0 :s; 'Yj < 1, and
hence v' lies in the parallelepiped P. Therefore, we must have 'Yi = 0, for
otherwise, v' would be nearer to F i - 1 than Zi' Hence v' E An Fi-I, and by
the inductive hypothesis, we also get that all the other 'Yj are O. So all the (3j
are in fact integer coefficients, and the inductive step is finished. 0
Therefore, a lattice can also be defined as a full-dimensional discrete sub-
group of Rd.

Bibliography and remarks. First we mention several fundamental

theorems in the "classical" geometry of numbers.
Lattice packing and the Minkowski-Hlawka theorem. For a compact
C c R d, the lattice constant .t. (C) is defined as min {det (A): A n C =
{O}}, where the minimum is over all lattices A in Rd (it can be shown
by a suitable compactness argument, known as the compactness theo-
rem of Mahler, that the minimum is attained). The ratio vol(C)j .t.(C)
is the smallest number D = D(C) for which the Minkowski-like re-
sult holds: Whenever det(A) > D, we have C n A i= {O}. It is also
easy to check that 2- d D( C) equals the maximum density of a lattice
packing of C; i.e., the fraction of Rd that can be filled by the set
C + A for some lattice A such that all the translates C + v, v E A,
have pairwise disjoint interiors. A basic result (obtained by an aver-
aging argument) is the Minkowski-Hlawka theorem, which shows that
D 2: 1 for all star-shaped compact sets C. If C is star-shaped and
symmetric, then we have the improved lower bound (better packing)
D 2: 2«(d) = 2 2::::"=1 n- d • This brings us to the fascinating field of
lattice packings, which we do not pursue in this book; a nice geometric
24 Chapter 2: Lattices and Minkowski's Theorem

introduction is in the first half of the book Pach and Agarwal [PA95],
and an authoritative reference is Conway and Sloane [CS99]. Let us
remark that the lattice constant (and hence the maximum lattice pack-
ing density) is not known in general even for Euclidean spheres, and
many ingenious constructions and arguments have been developed for
packing them efficiently. These problems also have close connections
to error-correcting codes.
Successive minima and Minkowski's second theorem. Let C C Rd
be a convex body containing 0 in the interior and let A c R d
be a lattice. The ith successive minimum of C with respect to A,
denoted by Ai = Ai (C, A), is the infimum of the scaling factors
A > 0 such that AC contains at least i linearly independent vec-
tors of A. In particular, Al is the smallest number for which AIC
contains a nonzero lattice vector, and Minkowski's theorem guaran-
tees that At ~ 2d det(A)/vol(C). Minkowski's second theorem asserts
(2d /d!) det(A) ~ AIA2··· Ad· vol(C) ~ 2d det(A).
The flatness theorem. If a convex body K is not required to be sym-
metric about 0, then it can have arbitrarily large volume without con-
taining a lattice point. But any lattice-point free body has to be flat:
For every dimension d there exists c( d) such that any convex body
K ~ Rd with K n Zd = 0 has lattice width at most c(d). The lat-
tice width of K is defined as min{maxxEK (x,y) - minxEK(x,y): y E
Zd \ {O}}; geometrically, we essentially count the number of hyper-
planes orthogonal to y, spanned by points of Zd, and intersecting K.
Such a result was first proved by Khintchine in 1948, and the current
best bound c(d) = O(d3 / 2 ) is due to Banaszczyk, Litvak, Pajor, and
Szarek [BLPS99]; we also refer to this paper for more references.
Computing lattice points in convex bodies. Minkowski's theorem pro-
vides the existence of nonzero lattice points in certain convex bodies.
Given one of these bodies, how efficiently can one actually compute
a nonzero lattice point in it? More generally, given a convex body in
Rd, how difficult is it to decide whether it contains a lattice point, or
to count all lattice points? For simplicity, we consider only the integer
lattice Zd here.
First, if the dimension d is considered as a constant, such prob-
lems can be solved efficiently, at least in theory. An algorithm due to
Lenstra [Len83] finds in polynomial time an integer point, if one exists,
in a given convex polytope in R d, d fixed. It is based on the flatness
theorem mentioned above (the ideas are also explained in many other
sources, e.g., [GLS88], [Lov86], [Sch86], [Bar97]). More recently, Barvi-
nok [Bar93] (or see [Bar97]) provided a polynomial-time algorithm for
counting the integer points in a given fixed-dimensional convex poly-
tope. Both algorithms are nice and certainly nontrivial, and especially
 2.2 General Lattices 25

the latter can be recommended as a neat application of classical math-

ematical results in a new context.
On the other hand, if the dimension d is considered as a part of the
input then (exact) calculations with lattices tend to be algorithmically
difficult. Most of the difficult problems of combinatorial optimization
can be formulated as instances of integer programming, where a given
linear function should be minimized over the set of integer points in a
given convex polytope. This problem is well known to be NP-hard, and
so is the problem of deciding whether a given convex polytope contains
an integer point (both problems are actually polynomially equivalent).
For an introduction to integer programming see, e.g., Schrijver [Sch86].
Some much more special problems concerning lattices have also
been shown to be algorithmically difficult. For example, finding a
shortest (nonzero) vector in a given lattice A specified by a basis is
NP-hard (with respect to randomized polynomial-time reductions). (In
the notation introduced above, we are asking for >"l(Bd,A), the first
successive minimum of the ball. This took quite some time to prove
(Micciancio [Mic98] has obtained the strongest result to date, inap-
proximability up to the factor of )2, building on earlier work mainly
of Ajtai), although the analogous hardness result for the shortest vec-
tor in the maximum norm (i.e., >"1([-1, l]d,A)) has been known for a
long time.
Basis reduction and applications. Although finding the shortest vec-
tor of a lattice A is algorithmically difficult, the shortest vector can
be approximated in the following sense. For every c: > 0 there is a
polynomial-time algorithm that, given a basis of a lattice A in R d ,
computes a nonzero vector of A whose length is at most (1 +c:)d times
the length of the shortest vector of A; this was proved by Schnorr
[Sch87]. The first result of this type, with a worse bound on the approx-
imation factor, was obtained in the seminal work of Lenstra, Lenstra,
and Lovasz [LLL82]. The LLL algorithm, as it is called, computes not
only a single short vector but a whole "short" basis of A.
The key notion in the algorithm is that of a reduced basis of A;
intuitively, this means a basis that cannot be much improved (made
significantly shorter) by a simple local transformation. There are many
technically different notions of reduced bases. Some of them are clas-
sical and have been considered by mathematicians such as Gauss and
Lagrange. The definition of the Lovasz-reduced basis used in the LLL
algorithm is sufficiently relaxed so that a reduced basis can be com-
puted from any initial basis by polynomially many local improvements,
and, at the same time, is strong enough to guarantee that a reduced
basis is relatively short. These results are covered in many sources; the
thin book by Lovasz [Lov86] can still be recommended as a delightful
26 Chapter 2: Lattices and Minkowski's Theorem

introduction. Numerous refinements of the LLL algorithm, as well as

efficient implementations, are available.
We sketch an ingenious application of the LLL algorithm for poly-
nomial factorization (from Kannan, Lenstra, and LOV3sZ [KLL88]; the
original LLL technique is somewhat different). Assume for simplicity
that we want to factor a monic polynomial p(x) E Z[x] (integer coeffi-
cients, leading coefficient 1) into a product of factors irreducible over
Z[x]. By numerical methods we can compute a root a of p(x) with
very high precision. If we can find the minimal polynomial of a, i.e.,
the lowest-degree monic polynomial q(x) E Z[x] with q(a) = 0, then
we are done, since q(x) is irreducible and divides p(x). Let us write
q(x) = x d + ad_Ixd-1 + ... + ao. Let K be a large number and let us
consider the d-dimensionallattice A in R d +l with basis (K, 1,0, ... ,0),
(Ka, 0,1,0, ... ,0), (Ka 2, 0, 0,1,0, ... ,0), ... , (Ka d, 0, ... ,0,1). Com-
bining the basis vectors with the coefficients ao, al,"" ad-I, 1, respec-
tively, we obtain the vector Vo = (0, ao, al, ... , ad-I, 1) E A. It turns
out that if K is sufficiently large compared to the ai, then Vo is the
shortest nonzero vector, and moreover, every vector not much longer
than Vo is a multiple of Vo. The LLL algorithm applied to A thus finds
Vo, and this yields q(x). Of course, we do not know the degree of q(x),
but we can test all possible degrees one by one, and the required mag-
nitude of K can be estimated from the coefficients of p( x).
The LLL algorithm has been used for the knapsack problem and for
the subset sum problem. Typically, the applications are problems where
one needs to express a given number (or vector) as a linear combina-
tion of given numbers (or vectors) with small integer coefficients. For
example, the subset sum problem asks, for given integers aI, a2, ... , an
and b, for a subset I ~ {I, 2, ... ,n} with L:iEI ai = b; i.e., b should be
expressed as a linear combination of the ai with 0/1 coefficients. These
and many other significant applications can be found in Grotschel,
LOV3sZ, and Schrijver [GLS88]. In cryptography, several cryptographic
systems proposed in the literature were broken with the help of the
LLL algorithm (references are listed, e.g., in [GLS88], [Dwo97]). On
the other hand, lattices playa prominent role in recent constructions,
mainly due to Ajtai, of new cryptographic systems. While currently
the security of every known efficient cryptographic system depends
on an (unproven) assumption of hardness of a certain computational
problem, Ajtai's methods suffice with a considerably weaker and more
plausible assumption than those required by the previous systems (see
[Ajt98] or [Dwo97] for an introduction).

Exercises
1. Let VI, ... , Vd be linearly independent vectors in Rd. Form a matrix A
with VI, ... ,Vd as rows. Prove that Idet AI is equal to the volume of the
 2.3 An Application in Number Theory 27

parallelepiped {alvl + a2V2 + ... + adVd: al, ... ,ad E [0, I]}. (You may
want to start with d = 2.) 12]
2. Prove that if Zl, ... , Zd and z~, ... , z~ are vectors in R d such that
A(ZI, ... ,Zd) = A(z~, ... ,z~), then IdetZI = IdetZ'I, where Z is the
d x d matrix with the Zi as columns, and similarly for Z'. 12]
3. Prove that for n rational vectors VI, ... ,Vn , the set A = {il VI + i2V2 +
... + invn : iI, i 2, ... , in E Z} is a discrete subgroup of Rd. 12]
4. (Minkowski's theorem on linear forms) Prove the following from Min-
kowski's theorem: Let £i(X) = L;~=l aijXj be linear forms in d variables,
i = 1,2, ... , d, such that the d x d matrix (aij kj has determinant 1.
Let bl , . .. ,bd be positive real numbers with bl b2 .•. bd = 1. Then there
exists a nonzero integer vector Z E Zd \ {o} with I£i (z) I ::; bi for all
i = 1,2, ... ,d. 12]

2.3 An Application in Number Theory

We prove one nontrivial result of elementary number theory. The proof via
Minkowski's theorem is one of several possible proofs. Another proof uses the
pigeonhole principle in a clever way.

2.3.1 Theorem (Two-square theorem). Each prime p == 1 (mod 4) can

be written as a sum of two squares: p = a 2 + b2 , a, b E Z.

Let F = G F(p) stand for the field of residue classes modulo p, and let
F* = F \ {a}. An element a E F* is called a quadratic residue modulo p
if there exists an x E F* with x2 == a (modp). Otherwise, a is a quadratic
nonresidue.

2.3.2 Lemma. If p is a prime with p == 1 (mod 4) then -1 is a quadratic

residue modulo p.

Proof. The equation i 2 = 1 has two solutions in the field F, namely i = 1

and i = -1. Hence for any i -j. ±1 there exists exactly one j -=f. i with
ij = 1 (namely, j = i-I, the inverse element in F), and all the elements of
F* \ {-I, I} can be divided into pairs such that the product of elements in
each pair is 1. Therefore, (p-l)! = 1· 2··· (p-l) == -1 (modp).
For a contradiction, suppose that the equation i 2 = -1 has no solution
in F. Then all the elements of F* can be divided into pairs such that the
product of the elements in each pair is -1. There are (p-l) /2 pairs, which
is an even number. Hence (p-l)! == (_I)(p-I)/2 = 1, a contradiction. 0

Proof of Theorem 2.3.1. By the lemma, we can choose a number q such

that q2 == -1 (modp). Consider the lattice A = A(ZI' Z2), where Zl = (1, q)
and Z2 = (O,p). We have detA = p. We use Minkowski's theorem for general
lattices (Theorem 2.2.1) for the disk C = {(x,y) E R2: X2 +y2 < 2p}. The
28 Chapter 2: Lattices and Minkowski's Theorem

area of Cis 27rp > 4p = 4detA, and so C contains a point (a, b) E A \ {O}. We
have 0 < a 2 + b2 < 2p. At the same time, (a, b) = iZ 1 + j Z2 for some i, j E Z,
which means that a = i, b = iq + jp. We calculate a 2 + b2 = i 2 + (iq + jp)2 =
i 2 + i 2q2 + 2iqjp + j2p2 = i 2 (1 + q2) = 0 (modp). Therefore a 2 + b2 = p. D

Bibliography and remarks. The fact that every prime congruent

to 1 mod 4 can be written as the sum of two squares was already known
to Fermat (a more rigorous proof was given by Euler). The possibility
of expressing every natural number as a sum of at most 4 squares was
proved by Lagrange in 1770, as a part of his work on quadratic forms.
The proof indicated in Exercise 1 below is due to Davenport.

Exercises
1. (Lagrange's four-square theorem) Let p be a prime.
(a) Show that there exist integers a, b with a2 + b2 = -1 (modp). 0
(b) Show that the set A = {(x,y,z,t) E Z4: z = ax + by (modp), t =
bx - ay (modp)} is a lattice, and compute det(A). Iil
(c) Show the existence of a nonzero point of A in a ball of a suitable
radius, and infer that p can be written as a sum of 4 squares of integers.
[3J
(d) Show that any natural number can be written as a sum of 4 squares
of integers. 0
3

Convex Independent Subsets

Here we consider geometric Ramsey-type results about finite point sets in

the plane. Ramsey-type theorems are generally statements of the following
type: Every sufficiently large structure of a given type contains a "regular"
substructure of a prescribed size. In the forthcoming Erdos-Szekeres theorem
(Theorem 3.1.3), the "structure of a given type" is simply a finite set of points
in general position in R2, and the "regular substructure" is a set of points
forming the vertex set of a convex polygon, as is indicated in the picture:
• •
®
®
•
•
® •
® ®
• •
A prototype of Ramsey-type results is Ramsey's theorem itself: For every
choice of natural numbers p, r, n, there exists a natural number N such that
whenever X is an N -element set and c: (X) --+ {I, 2, ... ,r} is an arbitrary
coloring of the system of all p-element subsets of X by r colors, then there
is an n-element subset Y S;; X such that all the p-tuples in (~) have the
same color. The most famous special case is with p = r = 2, where (-;) is
interpreted as the edge set of the complete graph KN on N vertices. Ramsey's
theorem asserts that if each of the edges of KN is colored red or blue, we can
always find a complete subgraph on n vertices with all edges red or all edges
blue.
Many of the geometric Ramsey-type theorems, including the Erdos-
Szekeres theorem, can be derived from Ramsey's theorem. But the quantita-
tive bound for the N in Ramsey's theorem is very large, and consequently,
30 Chapter 3: Convex Independent Subsets

the size of the "regular" configurations guaranteed by proofs via Ramsey's

theorem is very small. Other proofs tailored to the particular problems and
using more of their geometric structure often yield much better quantitative
results.

3.1 The Erdos-Szekeres Theorem

3.1.1 Definition (Convex independent set). We say that a set X ~ R d
is convex independent if for every x EX, we have x 1- conv( X \ {x}).
The phrase "in convex position" is sometimes used synonymously with
"convex independent." In the plane, a finite convex independent set is the
set of vertices of a convex polygon. We will discuss results concerning the
occurrence of convex independent subsets in sufficiently large point sets. Here
is a simple example of such a statement.
3.1.2 Proposition. Among any 5 points in the plane in general position (no
3 collinear), we can find 4 points forming a convex independent set.

Proof. If the convex hull has 4 or 5 vertices, we are done. Otherwise, we

have a triangle with two points inside, and the two interior points together
with one of the sides of the triangle define a convex quadrilateral. D
Next, we prove a general result.
3.1.3 Theorem (Erdos-Szekeres theorem). For every natural number k
there exists a number n(k) such that any n(k)-point set X C R2 in general
position contains a k-point convex independent subset.

First proof (using Ramsey's theorem and Proposition 3.1.2). Color

a 4-tuple T c X red if its four points are convex independent and blue
otherwise. If n is sufficiently large, Ramsey's theorem provides a k-point
subset Y c X such that all 4-tuples from Y have the same color. But for
k 2 5 this color cannot be blue, because any 5 points determine at least
one red 4-tuple. Consequently, Y is convex independent, since every 4 of its
points are (CaratModory's theorem). D

Next, we give an inductive proof; it yields an almost tight bound for n(k).
Second proof of the Erdos-Szekeres theorem. In this proof, by a set
in general position we mean a set with no 3 points on a common line and no
2 points having the same x-coordinate. The latter can always be achieved by
rotating the coordinate system.
Let X be a finite point set in the plane in general position. We call X a
cup if X is convex independent and its convex hull is bounded from above by
a single edge (in other words, if the points of X lie on the graph of a convex
function).
 3.1 The Erdos-Szekeres Theorem 31

•....
....•....... _- ...
..' ..
Similarly, we define a cap, with a single edge bounding the convex hull from
below.

e---
. ... __ .............
....

A k-cap is a cap with k points, and similarly for an C-cup.

We define j(k, C) as the smallest number N such than any N-point set in
general position contains a k-cup or an C-cap. By induction on k and C, we
prove the following formula for j(k, C):

k+C-
j(k, C) :s;; ( k _ 2
4) + 1. (3.1)

Theorem 3.1.3 clearly follows from this, with n(k) < j(k, k). For k :s;; 2
or C :s;; 2 the formula holds. Thus, let k, C 2: 3, and consider a set P in
general position with N = j(k-1,C) + j(k,C-1)-1 points. We prove that
it contains a k-cup or an C-cap. This will establish the inequality j(k, C) :s;;
j(k-1,C) + j(k,C-1)-1, and then (3.1) follows by induction; we leave the
simple manipulation of binomial coefficients to the reader.
Suppose that there is no C-cap in X. Let E ~ X be the set of points
p E X such that X contains a (k-1)-cup ending with p.
We have lEI 2: N - j(k-1,C) + 1 = j(k, C-1), because X \ E contains no
(k-1)-cup and so IX \ EI < j(k-1,C).
Either the set E contains a k-cup, and then we are done, or there is an
(C-1)-cap. The first point p of such an (C-1)-cap is, by the definition of E,
the last point of some (k-1)-cup in X, and in this situation, either the cup
or the cap can be extended by one point:

r
k-1 C-1 k-1 C-1

J~",1
"",•.... ,.. ,., ..•...,p
or
j,."" "'r
"'•.. " ..... " .•'/p
~I
... -.. e----_ • ....

This finishes the inductive step. D

A lower bound for sets without k-cups and i-caps. Interestingly, the
bound for j(k, C) proved above is tight, not only asymptotically but exactly!
This means, in particular, that there are n-point planar sets in general posi-
tion where any convex independent subset has at most O(1og n) points, which
is somewhat surprising at first sight.
An example of a set Xk,R of (kt~24) points in general position with no
k-cup and no C-cap can be constructed, again by induction on k + C. If k :s;; 2
or C :s;; 2, then Xk,e can be taken as a one-point set.
32 Chapter 3: Convex Independent Subsets

Supposing both k ::::: 3 and £ ::::: 3, the set Xk,i is obtained from the sets
L = Xk-l,£ and R = Xk,i-l according to the following picture:

........
...........
....

L = k - l ,t

The set L is placed to the left of R in such a way that all lines determined
by pairs of points in L go below Rand all lines determined by pairs of points
of R go above L.
Consider a cup C in the set Xk,i thus constructed. If C n L = 0, then
!C1 ::; k-l by the assumption on R. If C n L i- 0, then C has at most 1 point
in R, and since no cup in L has more than k-2 points, we get !C! ::; k-l as
well. The argument for caps is symmetric.
We have !Xk,i! = !Xk-1,e! + !Xk,i-l!, and the formula for !Xk,e! follows
by induction; the calculation is almost the same as in the previous proof. 0

Determining the exact value of n(k) in the Erdos-Szekeres theorem is

much more challenging. Here are the best known bounds:

2k - 2 2k -
+1::;n(k)::; ( k-2
5) +2.
The upper bound is a small improvement over the bound f(k, k) derived
above; see Exercise 5. The lower bound results from an inductive construction
slightly more complicated than that of Xk,i.

Bibliography and remarks. A recent survey of the topics discussed

in the present chapter is Morris and Soltan [MSOO].
The Erdos-Szekeres theorem was one of the first Ramsey-type re-
sults [ES35], and Erdos and Szekeres independently rediscovered the
general Ramsey's theorem at that occasion. Still another proof, also
using Ramsey's theorem, was noted by Tarsi: Let the points of X be
numbered Xl,X2, ... ,X n , and color the triple {xi,xj,xd, i < j < k,
red if we make a right turn when going from Xi to Xk via Xj, and blue
if we make a left turn. It is not difficult to check that a homogeneous
subset, with all triples having the same color, is in convex position.
 3.1 The Erdos-Szekeres Theorem 33

The original upper bound of n(k) ~ (2:-=-24) +1 from [ES35] has been
improved only recently and very slightly; the last improvement to the
bound stated in the text above is due to T6th 1 and Valtr [TV98].
The Erdos-Szekeres theorem was generalized to planar convex sets.
The following somewhat misleading term is used: A family of pairwise
disjoint convex sets is in general position if no set is contained in the
convex hull of the union of two other sets of the family. For every k
there exists n such that in any family of n pairwise disjoint convex sets
in the plane in general position, there are k sets in convex position,
meaning that none of them is contained in the convex hull of the union
of the others. This was shown by Bisztriczky and G. Fejes T6th [BT89]
and, with a different proof and better quantitative bound, by Pach and
T6th [PT98]. The assumption of general position is necessary.
An interesting problem is the generalization of the Erdos-Szekeres
theorem to R d , d ;::: 3. The existence of nd(k) such that every nd(k)
points in Rd in general position contain a k-point subset in convex
position is easy to see (Exercise 4), but the order of magnitude is wide
open. The current best upper bound nd(k) ~ (2kk':~-1)+d [KarOl]
slightly improves the immediate bound. Fiiredi [unpublished] conjec-
tured that n3 (k) ~ eO( v'k). If true, this would be best possible: A
construction of Karolyi and Valtr [KV01] shows that for every fixed
d ;::: 3, nd(k) ;::: eCdk1/(d-l) with a suitable Cd > O. The construction
starts with a one-point set X o, and X H1 is obtained from Xi by re-
placing each point x E Xi by the two points x - (Ef,Ef-l,.·. ,Ei)
and x + (Ef,Ef-l, ... ,Ei), with Ei > 0 sufficiently small, and then
perturbing the resulting set very slightly, so that Xi+! is in suitable
general position. We have \Xi \ = 2i , and the key lemma asserts that
mc(XH1 ) ~ mc(Xi ) +mc(-7l'(Xi)) , where mc(X) denotes the maximum
size of a convex independent subset of X and 7f is the projection to
the hyperplane {Xd = O}.
Another interesting generalization of the Erdos-Szekeres theorem
to Rd is mentioned in Exercise 5.4.3.
The bounds in the Erdos-Szekeres theorem were also investigated
for special point sets, namely, for the so-called dense sets in the plane.
An n-point Xc R2 is called c-dense if the ratio of the maximum and
minimum distances of points in X is at most cVn. For every planar
n-point set, this ratio is at least coVn for a suitable constant Co > 0,
as an easy volume argument shows, and so the dense sets are quite
well spread. Improving on slightly weaker results of Alon, Katchalski,
and Pulleyblank [AKP89], Valtr [VaI92a] showed, by a probabilistic
argument, that every c-dense n-point set in general position contains

1 The reader should be warned that four mathematicians named Toth are men-
tioned throughout the book. For two of them, the surname is actually Fejes Toth
(Laszlo and Gabor), and for the other two it is just Toth (Geza and Csaba).
34 Chapter 3: Convex Independent Subsets

a convex independent subset of at least cln 1 / 3 points, for some Cl >

o depending on c, and he proved that this bound is asymptotically
optimal. Simplified proofs, as well as many other results on dense
sets, can be found in Valtr's thesis [Val94].

Exercises
1. Find a configuration of 8 points in general position in the plane with no
5 convex independent points (thereby showing that n(5) 2:: 9). 0
2. Prove that the set {(i,j); i = 1,2, ... ,m,j = 1,2, ... ,m} contains no
convex independent subset with more that Cm 2 / 3 points (with C some
constant independent of m). ~
3. Prove that for each k there exists n(k) such that each n(k)-point set in
the plane contains a k-point convex independent subset or k points lying
on a common line. 0
4. Prove an Erdos-Szekeres theorem in Rd: For every k there exists n =
nd(k) such that any n points in Rd in general position contain a k-point
convex independent subset. 0
5. (A small improvement on the upper bound on n(k)) Let X C Rd be a
planar set in general position with f(k, £)+ 1 points, where f is as in the
second proof of Erdos-Szekeres, and let t be the (unique) topmost point
of X. Prove that X contains a k-cup with respect to t or an £-cap with
respect to t, where a cup with respect to t is a subset Y S;; X \ {t} such
that Y U { t} is in convex position, and a cap with respect to t is a subset
Y S;; X \ {t} such that {x, y, z, t} is not in convex position for any triple
{x,y,z} S;; Y. Infer that n(k) ::; f(k-l,k)+1. 0
6. Show that the construction of Xk,i described in the text can be realized
on a polynomial-size grid. That is, if we let n = IXk,il, we may suppose
that the coordinates of all points in Xk,i are integers between 1 and n C
with a suitable constant c. (This was observed by Valtr.) 0

3.2 Horton Sets

Let X be a set in Rd. A k-point set Y S;; X is called a k-hole in X if Y
is convex independent and conv(Y) n X = Y. In the plane, Y determines a
convex k-gon with no points of X inside. Erdos raised the question about the
rather natural strengthening of the Erdos-Szekeres theorem: Is it true that
for every k there exists an n(k) such that any n(k)-point set in the plane in
general position has a k-hole?
A construction due to Horton, whose streamlined version we present be-
low, shows that this is false for k 2:: 7: There are arbitrarily large sets without
a 7-hole. On the other hand, a positive result holds for k ::; 5. For k = 6, the
answer is not known, and this "6-hole problem" appears quite challenging.
 3.2 Horton Sets 35

3.2.1 Proposition (The existence of a 5-hole). Every sufficiently large

planar point set in general position contains a 5-hole.

Proof. By the Erdos-Szekeres theorem, we may assume that there exists a

6-point convex independent subset of our set X. Consider a 6-point convex
independent subset H ~ X with the smallest possible IX n conv(H) I. Let
1= conv(H) n (X \ H) be the points inside the convex hull of H.

• If I = 0, we have a 6-hole.
• If there is one point x in I, we consider a diagonal that partitions the
hexagon into two quadrilaterals:

The point x lies in one of these quadrilaterals, and the vertices of the
other quadrilateral together with x form a 5-hole.
• If III 2:: 2, we choose an edge xy of conv(I). Let I be an open half-plane
bounded by the line xy and containing no points of I (it is determined
uniquely unless III = 2).
If II n HI 2:: 3, we get a 5-hole formed by x, y, and 3 points of I n H.
For Ii n HI :::; 2, we have one of the two cases indicated in the following
picture:

v
lL
~y

it x
u

By replacing u and v by x and y in the left situation, or u by x in the

right situation, we obtain a 6-point convex independent set having fewer
points inside than H, which is a contradiction. 0

3.2.2 Theorem (Seven-hole theorem). There exist arbitrarily large finite

sets in the plane in general position without a 7-hole.
The sets constructed in the proof have other interesting properties as well.
Definitions. Let X and Y be finite sets in the plane. We say that X is high
above Y (and that Y is deep below X) if the following hold:
Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
 "Good old Callear!" The hoarse shouts succeeded each other.
"Good old Machin!"
"Anyhow," said Denry, when the storm was stilled, "we 've got
him here, without either steam-engines or his Majesty. Will the
directors of the club accept him?"
"And what about the transfer?" Councillor Barlow demanded.
"Would you accept him and try another season if you could get
him free?" Denry retorted.
Councillor Barlow always knew his mind, and was never afraid
to let other people share that knowledge.
"Yes," he said.
"Then I will see that you have the transfer free."
"But what about York?"
"I have settled with York provisionally," said Denry. "That is my
affair. I have returned from York to-day. Leave all that to me. This
town has had many benefactors far more important than myself. But
I shall be able to claim this originality: I 'm the first to make a
present of a live man to the town. Gentlemen—Mr. Mayor—I venture
to call for three cheers for the greatest centre forward in England,
our fellow-townsman."
The scene, as the Signal said, was unique.
And at the Sports Club and the other clubs afterwards men said
to each other: "No one but him would have thought of bringing
Callear over specially and showing him on the platform.... That's cost
him above twopence, that has!"
Two days later a letter appeared in the Signal (signed "Fiat
Justitia") suggesting that Denry, as some reward for his public spirit,
ought to be the next mayor of Bursley, in place of Alderman Bloor
deceased. The letter urged that he would make an admirable mayor,
the sort of mayor the old town wanted in order to wake it up. And
also it pointed out that Denry would be the youngest mayor that
Bursley had ever had, and probably the youngest mayor in England
that year. The sentiment in the last idea appealed to the town. The
town decided that it would positively like to have the youngest
mayor it had ever had, and probably the youngest mayor in England
that year. The Signal printed dozens of letters on the subject. When
the Council met, more informally than formally, to choose a chief
magistrate in place of the dead alderman, several councillors urged
that what Bursley wanted was a young and popular mayor. And in
fine Councillor Barlow was shelved for a year. On the choice being
published the entire town said: "Now we shall have a mayoralty—
and don't you forget it!"
And Denry said to Nellie:
"You 'll be mayoress to the youngest mayor, etc., my child. And
it's cost me, including hotel and travelling expenses, eight hundred
and eleven pounds six and sevenpence."

III

The rightness of the Council in selecting Denry as mayor was

confirmed in a singular manner by the behaviour of the football and
of Callear at the opening match of the season.
It was a philanthropic match, between Bursley and Axe, for the
benefit of a county orphanage, and, according to the custom of such
matches, the ball was formally kicked off by a celebrity, a pillar of
society. The ceremony of kicking off has no sporting significance; the
celebrity merely with gentleness propels the ball out of the white
circle and then flies for his life from the melée; but it is supposed to
add to the moral splendour of the game. In the present instance the
posters said: "Kick-off at 3.45 by Councillor E. H. Machin, Mayor-
designate." And indeed no other celebrity could have been decently
selected. On the fine afternoon of the match Denry therefore
discovered himself with a new football at his toes, a silk hat on his
head, and twenty-two Herculean players menacing him in attitudes
expressive of an intention to murder him. Bursley had lost the toss,
and hence Denry had to kick towards the Bursley goal. As the Signal
said, he "despatched the sphere" straight into the keeping of Callear,
who as centre forward was facing him, and Callear was dodging
down the field with it before the Axe players had finished admiring
Denry's effrontery. Every reader will remember with a thrill the
historic match in which the immortal Jimmy Brown, on the last
occasion when he captained Blackburn Rovers, dribbled the ball
himself down the length of the field, scored a goal, and went home
with the English Cup under his arm. Callear evidently intended to
imitate the feat. He was entirely wrong. Dribbling tactics had been
killed for ever, years before, by Preston North End, who invented the
"passing" game. Yet Callear went on, and good luck seemed to float
over him like a cherub. Finally he shot; a wild, high shot; but there
was an adverse wind which dragged the ball down, swept it round,
and blew it into the net. The first goal had been scored in twenty
seconds! (It was also the last in the match.) Callear's reputation was
established. Useless for solemn experts to point out that he had
simply been larking for the gallery, and that the result was a
shocking fluke—Callear's reputation was established. He became at
once the idol of the populace. As Denry walked gingerly off the field
to the grandstand he too was loudly cheered, and he could not help
feeling that, somehow, it was he who had scored that goal. And
although nobody uttered the precise thought, most people did
secretly think, as they gazed at the triumphant Denry, that a man
who triumphed like that, because he triumphed like that, was the
right sort of man to be mayor, the kind of man they needed.
Denry became identified with the highest class of local football.
This fact led to a curious crisis in the history of municipal manners.
On Corporation Sunday the mayor walks to church, preceded by the
mace, and followed by the aldermen and councillors, the borough
officials, the volunteers, and the fire brigade; after all these, in the
procession, come individuals known as prominent citizens. Now the
first and second elevens of the Bursley Football Club, headed by
Callear, expressed their desire to occupy a place in Denry's mayoral
procession; they felt that some public acknowledgment was due to
the mayor for his services to the national sport. Denry instantly
agreed, with thanks: the notion seemed to him entirely admirable.
Then some unfortunately-inspired parson wrote to the Signal to
protest against professional footballers following the chief magistrate
of the borough to church. His arguments were that such a thing was
unheard of, and that football was the cause of a great deal of evil
gambling. Some people were inclined to agree with the protest, until
Denry wrote to the Signal and put a few questions: Was Bursley
proud of its football team? Or was Bursley ashamed of its football
team? Was the practice of football incompatible with good
citizenship? Was there anything dishonourable in playing football?
Ought professional footballers to be considered as social pariahs?
Was there any class of beings to whom the churches ought to be
closed?
The parson foundered in a storm of opprobrium, scorn, and
ironic laughter. Though the town laughed, it only laughed to hide its
disgust of the parson.
People began to wonder whether the teams would attend in
costume carrying the football between them on a charger as a
symbol. No such multitudes ever greeted a mayoral procession in
Bursley before. The footballers, however, appeared in ordinary
costume (many of them in frock-coats); but they wore neckties of
the club colours, a device which was agreed to be in the nicest taste.
St. Luke's Church was crowded; and, what is stranger, the
churchyard was also crowded. The church barely held the procession
itself and the ladies who by influence had been accommodated with
seats in advance. Thousands of persons filled the churchyard, and to
prevent them from crushing into the packed fane and bursting it at
its weakest point, the apse, the doors had to be locked and guarded.
Four women swooned during the service; neither Mrs. Machin,
senior, nor Nellie was among the four. It was the first time that any
one had been known to swoon at a religious service held in
November. This fact alone gave a tremendous prestige to Denry's
mayoralty. When, with Nellie on his arm, he emerged from the
church to the thunders of the organ, the greeting which he received
in the churchyard, though the solemnity of the occasion forbade
clapping, lacked naught in brilliance and efficacy.
The real point and delight of that Corporation Sunday was not
fully appreciated till later. It had been expected that the collection
after the sermon would be much larger than usual, because the
congregation was much larger than usual. But the churchwardens
were startled to find it four times as large as usual. They were
further startled to find only three threepenny-bits among all the
coins. This singularity led to comment and to note-comparing.
Everybody had noticed for weeks past a growing dearth of
threepenny-bits. Indeed, threepenny-bits had practically vanished
from circulation in the Five Towns. On the Monday it became known
that the clerks of the various branches of the Universal Thrift Club,
Limited, had paid into the banks enormous and unparalleled
quantities of threepenny-bits; and for at least a week afterwards
everybody paid for everything in three-penny-bits. And the piquant
news passed from mouth to mouth that Denry, to the simple end of
ensuring a thumping collection for charities on Corporation Sunday,
had used the vast organisation of the Thrift Club to bring about a
famine of threepenny-bits. In the annals of the town that Sunday is
referred to as "Three-penny-bit Sunday," because it was so happily
devoid of threepenny-bits.
A little group of councillors were discussing Denry.
"What a card!" said one, laughing joyously. "He 's a rare 'un, no
mistake!"
"Of course, this 'll make him more popular than ever," said
another. "We 've never had a man to touch him for that."
"And yet," demanded Councillor Barlow, "what's he done? Has
he ever done a day's work in his life? What great cause is he
identified with?"
"He's identified," said the first speaker, "with the great cause of
cheering us all up."
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DENRY THE
AUDACIOUS ***
 *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DENRY THE
AUDACIOUS ***

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