Abstract
In the last 6 years, several combinatorics problems have been solved in an unexpected way using high degree polynomials. The most well-known of these problems is the distinct distance problem in the plane.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
E. Berlekamp and L. Welch, Error correction of algebraic block codes. US Patent Number 4,633,470. 1986.
B. Chazelle, H. Edelsbrunner, L. Guibas, R. Pollack, R. Seidel, M. Sharir, and J. Snoeyink, Counting and cutting cycles of lines and rods in space, Computational Geometry: Theory and Applications, 1(6) 305–323 (1992).
K.L. Clarkson, H. Edelsbrunner, L. Guibas, M Sharir, and E. Welzl, Combinatorial Complexity bounds for arrangements of curves and spheres, Discrete Comput. Geom. (1990) 5, 99–160.
Z. Dvir, On the size of Kakeya sets in finite fields, J. Amer. Math Soc. (2009) 22, 1093–1097.
P. Erdős, On sets of distances of n points, Amer. Math. Monthly (1946) 53, 248–250.
P. Erdős, Some of my favorite problems and results, in The Mathematics of Paul Erdős, Springer, 1996.
Gy. Elekes, H. Kaplan, and M. Sharir, On lines, joints, and incidences in three dimensions, Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series A (2011) 118, 962–977.
Gy. Elekes and M. Sharir, Incidences in three dimensions and distinct distances in the plane, Proceedings 26th ACM Symposium on Computational Geometry (2010) 413–422.
H. Federer, Geometric measure theory. Die Grundlehren der mathematischen Wissenschaften, Band 153 Springer-Verlag New York Inc., New York 1969.
S. Feldman and M. Sharir, An improved bound for joints in arrangements of lines in space, Discrete Comput. Geom. (2005) 33, 307–320.
M. Gromov, Isoperimetry of waists and concentration of maps. Geom. Funct. Anal. 13 (2003), no. 1, 178–215.
L. Guth and N. Katz, Algebraic methods in discrete analogs of the Kakeya problem. Adv. Math. 225 (2010), no. 5, 2828–2839.
L. Guth and N. Katz, On the Erdős distinct distance problem in the plane, arXiv:1011.4105.
Minimax problems related to cup powers and Steenrod squares. Geom. Funct. Anal. 18 (2009), no. 6, 1917–1987.
H. Kaplan, J. Matous̆ek, and M. Sharir, Simple proofs of classical theorems in discrete geometry via the Guth–Katz polynomial partitioning technique. Discrete Comput. Geom. 48 (2012), no. 3, 499–517.
H. Kaplan, M. Sharir, and E. Shustin, On lines and joints, Discrete Comput Geom (2010) 44, 838–843.
I. Laba, From harmonic analysis to arithmetic combinatorics. Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. (N.S.) 45 (2008), no. 1, 77–115.
R. Quilodrán, The joints problem in R n, Siam J. Discrete Math, Vol. 23, 4, p. 2211–2213.
Schmidt, Wolfgang M. Applications of Thue’s method in various branches of number theory. Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians (Vancouver, B.C., 1974), Vol. 1, pp. 177–185. Canad. Math. Congress, Montreal, Que., 1975.
J. Solymosi and T. Tao, An incidence theorem in higher dimensions. Discrete Comput. Geom. 48 (2012), no. 2, 255–280
J. Spencer, E. Szemerédi, and W. Trotter, Unit distances in the Euclidean plane. Graph theory and combinatorics (Cambridge, 1983), 293–303, Academic Press, London, 1984.
M. Sudan, Efficient checking of polynomials and proofs and the hardness of approximation problems, ACM Distinguished Thesees, Springer 1995.
L. Székely, Crossing numbers and hard Erdős problems in discrete geometry. Combin. Probab. Comput. 6 (1997), no. 3, 353–358.
E. Szemerédi and W. T. Trotter Jr., Extremal Problems in Discrete Geometry, Combinatorica (1983) 3, 381–392.
T. Tao, From rotating needles to stability of waves: emerging connections between combinatorics, analysis, and PDE. Notices Amer. Math. Soc. 48 (2001), no. 3, 294–303.
C. Toth, The Szemerédi-Trotter theorem in the complex plane. aXiv:math/0305283, 2003.
L. Trevisan, Some applications of coding theory in computational complexity. Complexity of computations and proofs, 347–424, Quad. Mat., 13, Dept. Math., Seconda Univ. Napoli, Caserta, 2004.
T. Wolff. Recent work connected with the Kakeya problem. Prospects in mathematics (Princeton, NJ, 1996). pages 129–162, 1999.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Guth, L. (2013). Unexpected Applications of Polynomials in Combinatorics. In: Graham, R., Nešetřil, J., Butler, S. (eds) The Mathematics of Paul Erdős I. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7258-2_31
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7258-2_31
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-7257-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-7258-2
eBook Packages: Mathematics and StatisticsMathematics and Statistics (R0)