Characteristic properties of ellipsoids and convex quadrics (Q1736309)

This article is a detailed and exhaustive survey of geometric characterisation of ellipsoids and convex quadrics. The type of conditions considered in the paper, according to the words of the author: ``deals with a variety of intuitively clear and attractive geometric arguments, which can hardly be formalized in analytic terms''. The material is divided into several sections; in the first one, characterisation theorems of convex quadrics among convex hypersurfaces are presented. Each of the subsequent sections concerns a specific type of geometric property which may be used to characterise ellipsoids among \textit{convex bodies} (compact and convex subsets of \(\mathbb{R}^n\)), or among \textit{convex solids} (closed convex subsets of \(\mathbb{R}^n\)), or to characterise convex quadrics among convex hypersurfaces. More precisely, the following types of conditions are considered: \begin{itemize} \item elliptic planar sections through a given point, or parallel to a given line; \item symmetry of planar sections; \item equivalence of parallel sections up to an homothety; \item equivalence of parallel sections up to an affine transformation; \item elliptic parallel and central projections; \item hyperplanarity and local hyperplanarity of midsurfaces and \(\lambda\)-surfaces; \item hyperplanarity of shadow boundaries (including connections with hyperplanarity of midsurfaces); \item hyperplanarity of shadow boundaries by parallel or point source illumination; \item hyperplanarity of intersection of the boundary with the boundary of homothetic copies; \item various types of conditions, including hyperplanarity, of projective centres; \item invariance under affine or projective transformations. \end{itemize} Each section is completed by the most recent extensions and generalisations of classical results, and related open problems. For the majority of the presented results the proof is not included, but references to the literature are detailed and complete. The list of references constitutes by itself a rich and useful tool on this interesting topic.