Nondifferentiability properties of the nearest point mapping (Q1813628)

The author studies the pathological behaviour of the nearest point mapping \(p\) from \(\mathbb{R}^ d\) to a convex body \(K\). It is well known, due to Asplund, that \(p\) is almost everywhere Fréchet differentiable. However, there is an example, due to Zajiček, of a \(K\subset\mathbb{R}^ 2\), where \(p\) is Fréchet nondifferentiable at all points of \(\mathbb{R}^ 2\setminus K\) except those in a set of first category. In the terminology of the author, \(K\) is nondifferentiable at ``most'' points \(y\not\in K\). The present paper studies ``typical'' convex bodies \(K\subset \mathbb{R}^ d\), i.e., any \(K\) with the exception of perhaps an element of a subset of first category in the space of all convex bodies \(\subset \mathbb{R}^ d\) equipped with the Hausdorff distance. The author shows, e.g., for a typical convex body \(K\subset \mathbb{R}^ d\) at most points \(y\not\in K\) the directional derivative of \(p\) in some direction does not exist (and hence, at most points \(y\not\in K\), \(p\) is not Fréchet differentiable). Moreover, if \(d=2\) then at most \(y\not\in K\), \(p\) has no directional derivative in any nonnormal direction. However, as the author points out in the introduction, ``the paper is less negative than its title'': For a typical convex body \(K\subset \mathbb{R}^ 2\) the Fréchet derivative of \(p\) is equal to 0 at a set of points dense in \(\mathbb{R}^ 2\setminus K\).