Approximation of quadrilaterals by rational quadrilaterals in the plane (Q2358438)

This paper considers questions of the following type. Given \(\varepsilon>0\) and points \(A_1,A_2,A_3,A_4\in\mathbb{R}^2\), can one find \(B_1,B_2,B_3,B_4\in\mathbb{R}^2\) with \(|B_i-A_i|<\varepsilon\) for \(1\leq i\leq 4\), such that each of the distances \(d(B_i,B_j)\), as well as the area of the quadrilateral with vertices \(B_1,B_2,B_3,B_4\), is rational? This particular question was answered affirmatively by \textit{D. E. Daykin} [Mathematika 10, 125--131 (1963; Zbl 0123.25801)]. The present paper gives a new proof, as well as establishing a number of other results in the same spirit. For example, one can solve the corresponding problem for triangles \(A_1,A_2,A_3\) and \(B_1,B_2,B_3\), under the additional constraint that the longest sides of the two triangles are parallel. The analysis depends on showing that rational solutions to various Diophantine equations are dense in the real topology. In particular one has to examine certain two-parameter families of elliptic curves.