On the average distance property of spheres in Banach spaces (Q1323130)

A real number \(r(X, d)\) is called a rendezvous number (r.n.) for the metric space \((X, d)\) if \(\forall\) positive integers \(n\) and \(\forall x_ 1, x_ 2,\dots, x_ n\) in \(X\), \(\exists x\) in \(X\) with \(\sum^ n_{i= 1} d(x_ i, x)= nr(X, d)\). The metric space is said to have the average distance property (a.d.p.) if it has a rendezvous number and that number is unique. A remarkable theorem of \textit{O. Gross} [Ann. Math. Stud. 52, 49-53 (1964; Zbl 0126.164)] states that every compact connected metric space has the a.d.p. An excellent survey of this and related results was given by \textit{J. Cleary}, \textit{S. A. Morris} and \textit{D. Yost} [Am. Math. Mon. 93, 260-275 (1986; Zbl 0598.51014)]. It is fairly straightforward to see that the unit ball in a normed space (even when not compact) has the a.d.p. with r.n. \(= 1\). This paper investigates whether the unit sphere has the a.d.p. and if so (e.g., finite-dimensional spaces by the Gross theorem) what the rendezvous number is. Sample results: (we omit the words ``the unit sphere in'') \(\ell_ 2\) and \(\ell_ \infty\) have the a.d.p. with r.n. \(\sqrt 2\) and 3/2 respectively; \(c_ 0\) and \(\ell_ 1\) do not. The r.n.'s for \(n\)- dimensional \(\ell_ 1\), \(\ell_ \infty\) and \(\ell_ 2\) are \(2- 1/n\), 3/2 and \(2^{n- 1}(\Gamma(n/2))^ 2/ \sqrt \pi \Gamma([2n- 1]/2)\) respectively.