No label defined (Q4225317)

This is a discussion of five very active and important areas of research on the (combinatorial) theory of (convex) polytopes, with reports about recent progress, and a selection of seven ``challenge'' problems that I hope to see solved soon: Universality theorems: for polytopes of constant dimensions: see Richter-Gebert's work! \textit{Challenge}: Can all three-dimensional polytopes be realized with coordinates of polynomial size? \textit{Challenge}: Provide a universality theorem for simplicial four-dimensional polytopes. Triangulations: and subdivisions of polytopes. \textit{Challenge}: Decide whether all triangulations on a fixed point set in general position can be connected by bistellar flips. 0/1-polytopes: and their combinatorial structure. \textit{Challenge}: The ``0/1 upper bound problem'': Is the maximal number of facets of 0/1-polytopes bounded by an exponential function in the dimension? Neighborly polytopes: Explicit constructions and extremal properties. \textit{Challenge}: Is every polytope a quotient of a neighborly polytope? Monotone paths: and the simplex algorithm for linear programming. \textit{Challenge}: The ``Monotone upper bound problem'': What is the maximal number of vertices of a monotone path on a \(d\)-dimensional polytope with \(n\) facets? \textit{Challenge}: Is there a polynomial upper bound for the running time of the random-edge simplex algorithm? For the entire collection see [Zbl 0902.00037].