Inscribed and circumscribed polygons that characterize inner product spaces (Q1647759)

Let \(X\) be a real normed space with unit sphere \(S\). The authors prove that \(X\) is an inner product space if and only if there exists a real number \(\rho=\sqrt{(1+\cos \frac{2k\pi}{2m+1})/2}\) \((k=1,2,\dots,m\); \(m=1,2,\dots)\) such that every chord of \(S\) that supports \(\rho\) touches \(\rho S\) at its middle point. If this condition holds, then every point \(u\in S\) is a vertex of a regular polygon that is inscribed in \(S\) and circumscribed about \(\rho S\). The paper is well balanced and contains very interesting results. Also, at the end, some open problems are posed which will be helpful for further research. The paper is organized as shown below. Some preliminary lemmas related to useful maps from \([0,2\pi]\) to \(S\) are studied in Section~2. The concepts of \(\rho\)-ellipses and \(\rho\)-polygons, already used in [\textit{C. Benítez} and \textit{D. Yáñez}, Bull. Lond. Math. Soc. 39, No. 5, 811--817 (2007; Zbl 1132.46015)], are reintroduced in Section~3, and some special results for \(\rho\in M\) are proved in Section~4. The main Theorem~5.2 is obtained in Section~5, and an open problem is proposed in Section~6. The article is useful for researchers working in this area.