On the existence of ordinary triangles (Q1693316)

Let \(c\) be a natural number and \(P\) be a finite set of points in the Euclidean plane. A \(c\)-ordinary triangle in \(P\) is a subset of \(P\) consisting of three non-collinear points such that each of the three lines determined by the three points contains at most \(c\) points of \(P\). If \(n\) is large and \(P\) is contained in the union of two lines, there is not \(2\)-triangles in \(P\). The authors present an example of a set \(P\) not contained in the union of two lines that does not contain \(2\)-ordinary triangles. The main result in this paper is the following theorem: there is a natural number \(c\) such that for every \(P\) not contained in the union of two lines there exists a \(c\)-ordinary triangle. Moreover, the number of \(c\)-ordinary triangles in \(P\) is \(\Omega(|P|)\), and \(c\leq 12000.\) It is an open question if the number of \(c\)-ordinary triangles in \(P\) is superlinear (possibly even quadratic) in \(|P|\). A couple of lemmas are presented before the Theorem. In the first one, given a natural number \(k\) the authors find an upper bound for the number of lines determined by points of \(P\) with at least \(k\) points of \(P\). In the second one, a result of graph theory provides a lower bound for the number of triangles in a graph with \(n\) vertices and \(m\) edges.