An incidence theorem in higher dimensions (Q452010)

The Szemerédi-Trotter theorem [\textit{E. Szemerédi} and \textit{W.~T. Trotter, jun.}, Combinatorica 3, 381--392 (1983; Zbl 0541.05012)] gives a ``big O'' upper bound for the number of incidences between a set of points and a set of lines in terms of their respective cardinalities. The article under review gives an upper bound for the number of incidences between points and \(k\)-dimensional real algebraic varieties of bounded degree under the assumption of some ``pseudoline-type axioms''. This bound is only ``almost tight'' because of an \(\varepsilon\)-loss in an exponent. The authors conjecture that one can get rid of this loss but also concede that their methods of the proof (induction on the number of points and the polynomial ham sandwich theorem) do not easily give such an improvement. The article contains a number of corollaries to the main theorem, also from seemingly remote areas, a simpler proof for a cheaper result, and a good discussion of history and relevance of Szemerédi-Trotter type theorems.