Classical topics in discrete geometry (Q986134)

This very interesting monograph contains a selection of topics in discrete geometry, mainly those on which the author and his collaborators have worked. The book is divided into two parts. Part I, containing 6 chapters, is a survey of the following topics: sphere packings including kissing numbers, the volume of Voronoi cells, density of sphere packings in spherical containers and in high dimensions, and uniform stability of sphere packings; finite packings by translates of convex bodies including Hadwiger numbers and touching numbers of convex bodies, and the number of touching pairs in finite packings; illumination and covering of convex bodies including the illumination conjecture, X-ray numbers of convex bodies, successive illumination numbers, illumination and covering parameters, and vertex indices of convex bodies; covering by planks and cylinders including various plank theorems, covering convex bodies by cylinders, covering lattice points by hyperplanes, strengthenings of the plank theorems of Ball and Bang, and partial coverings by planks; the Kneser-Poulsen conjecture including non-Euclidean results, Alexander's conjecture, and densest finite sphere packings; and properties of ball polytopes including billiard trajectories in disc polygons, Blaschke-Lebesgue type theorems, the Steinitz problem for ball polytopes, global rigidity, spindle convex sets, Carathéodory and Steinitz type theorems, illumination, and an Euler-Poincaré formula. Part II contains proofs of some of the theorems of Part I. The many conjectures and problems to be found throughout the text will serve as an inspiration to many discrete geometers.