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Gruber P. Convex and Discrete Geometry

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230 <strong>Convex</strong> Bodies<br />

v<br />

o<br />

Fig. 12.3. Symmetry of orthogonality with respect to a Radon norm<br />

Remark. For d = 2, the so-called Radon norms, which include the Euclidean<br />

norms, are characterized by property (ii). There are several other properties which<br />

also characterize Euclidean norms in dimension d ≥ 3 <strong>and</strong> Radon norms in case<br />

d = 2, see the survey of <strong>Gruber</strong> [420]. Thus it makes sense, to consider Radon<br />

norms as the 2-dimensional equivalent of Euclidean norms in dimension d ≥ 3. For<br />

a stability result with respect to orthogonality both for Euclidean <strong>and</strong> Radon norms,<br />

see <strong>Gruber</strong> [434].<br />

Radon norms can be constructed as follows: Take a continuous curve in the unit<br />

square [0, 1] 2 which connects the points (0, 1) <strong>and</strong> (1, 0) <strong>and</strong> such that the curve<br />

together with the line segments [o,(0, 1)] <strong>and</strong> [o,(1, 0)] is the boundary of a convex<br />

disc. Consider its polar curve, which is also contained in [0, 1] 2 <strong>and</strong> connects the<br />

points (0, 1) <strong>and</strong> (1, 0). Rotate the polar curve by π/2 about the origin o in the<br />

positive direction. The given curve, the rotated polar curve <strong>and</strong> their reflections in o<br />

form the boundary of a convex disc with centre o. Now apply a non-singular linear<br />

transform to this convex disc. This, then, is the unit disc of a Radon norm <strong>and</strong> each<br />

Radon norm (see Fig. 12.3) can be obtained in this fashion.<br />

13 The Space of <strong>Convex</strong> Bodies<br />

The space C of convex bodies <strong>and</strong> subspaces of it such as the space Cp of proper<br />

convex bodies, have been investigated from the viewpoint of topological <strong>and</strong> metric<br />

spaces, lattices <strong>and</strong> groups. In spite of a multitude of results, we believe that the work<br />

is only at its beginning. In addition to Baire category results <strong>and</strong> metric estimates,<br />

many results deal with structure preserving mappings, which turn out to be few <strong>and</strong><br />

surprisingly simple.<br />

It seems that, with respect to their natural topologies, the spaces C <strong>and</strong> Cp are<br />

homogeneous, but we are not aware of a proof. In contrast, the results which will be<br />

given in the following indicate that, with respect to the group, the lattice <strong>and</strong> metric<br />

structures, both C <strong>and</strong> Cp are far from being homogeneous. If sometime in the future,<br />

there will be local versions of the results on structure preserving mappings, we think<br />

that these will show that, still, neighbourhoods of generic pairs of convex bodies in<br />

C or Cp are totally different from the group, lattice <strong>and</strong> metric viewpoint.<br />

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