On mutually nearest and mutually furthest points of sets in Banach spaces (Q1198149)

For a normed space \(E\) denote by \({\mathcal B}(E)\) the class of all nonempty closed bounded subsets of \(E\). For \(X,Y\in{\mathcal B}(E)\) put \(\lambda_{XY}=\inf\{\| x-y\|\): \(x\in X\), \(y\in Y\}\) and \(\mu_{XY}=\sup\{\| x-y\|\): \(x\in X\), \(y\in Y\}\). The problem of minimization (resp. maximization) consists in finding \((x_ 0,y_ 0)\in X\times Y\) such that \(\| x_ 0-y_ 0\|=\lambda_{XY}\) (resp. \(=\mu_{XY}\)). A sequence \((x_ n,y_ n)\in X\times Y\) such that \((\| x_ n-y_ n\|)\) converges to \(\lambda_{XY}\) (resp. \(\mu_{XY}\)) is called a minimizing (resp. maximizing) sequence. A minimization (resp. a maximization) problem is called well posed if it has a unique solution and every minimizing (resp. maximizing) sequence converges to \((x_ 0,y_ 0)\). The space \({\mathcal C}(E)\) of all nonempty closed convex and bounded subsets of \(E\) is a complete metric space with respect to the Hausdorff metric \(h\). In this paper the space \(E\) is supposed uniformly convex. For \(A\in {\mathcal B}(E)\) fixed, it is proved that the set of all \(X\in{\mathcal C}(E)\) for which the maximization problem \(\max(A,X)\) is well posed in a dense \(G_ \delta\)-subset of \({\mathcal C}(E)\). A similar result holds for the minimization problem in the space \({\mathcal C}_ A(E)=\overline{\{X\in{\mathcal C}(E):\;\lambda_{AX}>0\}}\). The obtained results are in the spirit of the problems considered by \textit{S. B. Stechkin} [Acad. Repub. Pop. Roum. Rev. Math. Pures Appl. 8, 5-18 (1963; Zbl 0198.162)].