A countable set of directions is sufficient for Steiner symmetrization (Q720599)

Steiner symmetrization is a simple, yet very powerful, tool in isoperimetric problems and related geometric inequalities. Despite the simplicity of this symmetrization, there are still many open questions surrounding it. One class of such questions is roughly the following: Given a convex body, under what sequence of directions will the corresponding Steiner symmetrizations of the convex body converge to a ball? The authors address here a related question: Given a dense set of directions on the unit sphere, and given a convex body, is it always possible to choose a countable subset of directions, such that the corresponding Steiner symmetrizations of the convex body converge to a ball? It is shown that the answer is yes provided that the subset is ordered. The proof relies on the Blaschke selection theorem. Moreover, it is shown, via an ingenuous counterexample, that the ordering of the symmetrizations is necessary. Essentially, having a convex body with volume \(\epsilon\), and a long diameter, the authors construct an ordered, countable dense set of directions for which the diameters of the Steiner symmetrals, performed in that order, remain greater than the diameter of the sphere of volume \(\epsilon\). New open questions stemmed from this example.