Covering a convex body by smaller homothetic copies (Q1206515): Difference between revisions

Let \(A\) be a convex body (i.e. a compact convex set with non-empty interior) in the \(n\)-dimensional linear space \(E^ n\), and let \(\mu_ 1,\dots,\mu_ s \in (0;1)\) be a collection of numbers such that \[ A \subset (a_ 1 + \mu_ 1A) \cup \dots \cup (a_ s + \mu_ sA) \] for some points \(a_ 1,\dots,a_ s \in E^ n\). The authors conjecture that \[ \mu_ 1 + \dots \mu_ s \geq n, \] but only in two cases they succeed in proving the validity of this conjecture: (i) when \(n\) is arbitrary and \(s = n + 1\); (ii) when \(n = 2\) and \(s\) is arbitrary.