Facet-reducing cuts of a convex polytope (Q1900968)

Using Gale transforms, the author proves that for every \(d \geq 3\) there are two \(d\)-simplices \(S_1, S_2 \subset\mathbb{R}^d\) such that \(0 \in \text{int } S_1 \cap \text{int } S_2\) and no \((d-1)\)-subspace contains more than one of the \(2d + 2\) facets of \(S_1\) and \(S_2\) in either of its closed half-spaces. This statement yields the main result of the paper: for every \(d \geq 4\), there is a \(d\)-polytope \(P \subset \mathbb{R}^d\) with two vertices \(v\), \(w\) such that no hyperplane through \(v\) and \(w\) has more than one facet of \(P\) in either of its closed half- spaces. This shows that facet-reducing cuts, containing a prespecified pair of vertices of a polytope, do not exist in general.