Support lines for disjoint families of unit disks (Q6174565)

A family \(\mathcal{F}\) of unit circular disks in the plane is said to have the support property if there is a line supporting every member of \(\mathcal{F}\). Suppose that \(k\) is a given integer number. Family \(\mathcal{F}\) has the property \(S(k)\) if every family of \(k\) disks from \(\mathcal{F}\) has the support property. The problem studied in this article is to find the minimum integer \(r\), if it exists, such that the whole family \(\mathcal{F}\) admits a support line provided every subfamily of \(r\) members from \(\mathcal{F}\) admits a support line. Family \(\mathcal{F}\) is said to be disjoint provided any two of its members are disjoint. It is proved that a disjoint family of seven or more unit circular disks in the plane has a support line provided every its subfamily of three disks has a support line, which improves a previous result about a disjoint family of at least six unit circular disks.