A symmetric porosity conjecture of Zajíček (Q1189087)

If \(A\) is a subset of the real line \(R\) and \(x\in R\), then the symmetric proposity of \(A\) at \(x\) is defined to be \(\limsup_{r\to 0+}\lambda(A,x,r)/r\), where \(\lambda(A,x,r)\) is the supremum of all positive numbers \(h\) such that there is a positive number \(t\) with \(t+h\leq r\) such that both of the intervals \((x-t-h,x-t)\) and \((x+t,x+t+h)\) lie in the complement of \(A\). A set \(A\) is symmetrically porous if it has positive symmetric porosity at each of its points and is called \(\sigma\)-symmetrically porous if it is a countable union of symmetrically porous sets. The paper is devoted mainly to a deeper investigation of symmetric porosity for symmetric Cantor sets. The authors prove some conjectures formulated by \textit{L. Zajíček} [Real Anal. Exch. 13(1987/88), No. 2, 314-350 (1988; Zbl 0666.26003)], e.g., it is shown that there is a set of real numbers which has symmetric porosity at least at one-half of each of its points, but which cannot be expressed as a countable union of sets each having symmetric porosity greater than four-fifth at each of its points.