The triples of geometric permutations for families of disjoint translates (Q5951924)

A line meeting all members of a family of pairwise disjoint convex sets in the plane induces two permutations of the sets by the two orderings in which it intersects them. Such a pair of permutations is called a geometric permutation. It is known that a family of disjoint translates of a planar convex set can have at most three geometric permutations [\textit{M. Katchalski} et al., Discrete\ Math. 65, 249-259 (1987; Zbl 0619.52002)]. Here it is shown that there are only two types of triples of such geometric permutations, and these types are described explicitly. Thereby a corresponding claim of \textit{H. Tverberg} [Discrete and computational geometry, Proc. DIMACS Spec. Year Workshops 1989-90, DIMACS, Ser. Discret. Math. Theor. Comput. Sci. 6, 351-361 (1991; Zbl 0746.52004)] is corrected.