• Media type: E-Article
  • Title: An Almost Optimal Bound on the Number of Intersections of Two Simple Polygons
  • Contributor: Ackerman, Eyal [Author]; Keszegh, Balázs [Author]; Rote, Günter [Author]
  • Published: Freie Universität Berlin: Refubium (FU Berlin), 2022
  • Language: English
  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.17169/refubium-37346; https://doi.org/10.1007/s00454-022-00438-0
  • Keywords: Ramsey theory ; Combinatorial geometry ; Simple polygon
  • Origination:
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  • Description: What is the maximum number of intersections of the boundaries of a simple m-gon and a simple n-gon? This is a basic question in combinatorial geometry, and the answer is easy if at least one of m and n is even: If both m and n are even, then every pair of sides may cross and so the answer is mn. If exactly one polygon, say the n-gon, has an odd number of sides, it can intersect each side of the m-gon polygon at most n−1 times; hence there are at most mn−m intersections. It is not hard to construct examples that meet these bounds. If both m and n are odd, the best known construction has mn−(m+n)+3 intersections, and it is conjectured that this is the maximum. However, the best known upper bound is only mn−(m+⌈n/6⌉), for m≥n. We prove a new upper bound of mn−(m+n)+C for some constant C, which is optimal apart from the value of C.
  • Access State: Open Access
  • Rights information: Attribution (CC BY)