Smoothness points of convex bodies in a separable Banach space (Q1820383)

The point x of the unit sphere in Banach space X is called the smoothness point if \[ (1)\quad \lim_{t\to \infty}((\| x+ty\| -\| x\|)/t) \] exists for each \(y\in X\), or in the equivalent form if there exists a single Minkowski gauge functional \(f(x)=\| f\| =1\). Mazur has proved that the set of all smoothness points of the spheres in a separable Banach space is a \(G_{\delta}\)-set dense in S. In each separable Banach space there exists an equivalent norm in which each point of the new unit sphere is its smoothness point. The point \(x\in S\) is called the conservative smoothness point if it is a smoothness point of the second conjugate space \(X^{**}\) in the canonical embedding X into \(X^{**}\). If the norm is differentiable in the Fréchet sense, the limit (1) exists uniformly with respect to \(y\in X\) and therefore x is the conservative smoothness point. Because for each Banach space with a separable conjugate space there exists an equivalent Fréchet-differentiable norm, in this norm each point of the new unit sphere is a conservative smoothness point. In the paper the following theorem is proved: The separable Banach space is reflexive if and only if in every equivalent norm each smoothness point of the unit sphere is a conservative smoothness point.