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Gruber P. Convex and Discrete Geometry

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80 <strong>Convex</strong> Bodies<br />

Further topics of the Brunn–Minkowski theory will be treated in Sects. 7–9.<br />

Major treatises <strong>and</strong> surveys on the Brunn–Minkowski theory were cited in the<br />

introduction of the present chapter, the most comprehensive reference is Schneider’s<br />

monograph [907]. We also mention Sangwine-Yager [878] <strong>and</strong> Peri [790].<br />

6.1 Minkowski Addition, Direct Sums, Hausdorff Metric, <strong>and</strong> Blaschke’s<br />

Selection Theorem<br />

Important ingredients of the Brunn–Minkowski theory are Minkowski addition <strong>and</strong><br />

the Hausdorff metric. The natural topology on the space C = C(E d ) of all convex<br />

bodies in E d is induced by the Hausdorff metric. The Blaschke selection theorem<br />

then says that this space is complete <strong>and</strong> locally compact.<br />

In this section, these notions are introduced <strong>and</strong> Blaschke’s selection theorem is<br />

proved. In addition, we present a result of the author which says that each proper<br />

convex body C can be represented as a direct sum of directly irreducible convex<br />

bodies C1,...,Cm:<br />

C = C1 ⊕···⊕Cm,<br />

where this representation is unique up to the order of summ<strong>and</strong>s.<br />

For C <strong>and</strong> subspaces of it, various other metrics <strong>and</strong> notions of distance have been<br />

considered. See, e.g. [428] <strong>and</strong> the references cited there.<br />

Minkowski Addition<br />

There are several natural ways to define, on C, geometrically interesting operations of<br />

addition <strong>and</strong> multiplication with (non-negative or general) real numbers. Minkowski<br />

addition <strong>and</strong> (ordinary) multiplication with real numbers are defined as follows:<br />

C + D ={x + y : x ∈ C, y ∈ D} for C, D ∈ C,<br />

λC ={λx : x ∈ C} for C ∈ C,λ∈ R.<br />

The following representation of C + D gives a better idea of what C + D really<br />

means. For x ∈ Ed the set x + D (= {x + y : y ∈ D}) is the translate of D by the<br />

vector x, where instead of {x} we simply write x. Then<br />

C + D = �<br />

(x + D).<br />

C − D st<strong>and</strong>s for C + (−1)D.<br />

A Short Historical Excursion<br />

x∈C<br />

Aristotle [37] asked the following question:<br />

Why does the sun, when it shines through a square, not produce rectangular forms<br />

but circles as is the case when it shines through wicker work?

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