A stronger conclusion to the classical ham sandwich theorem

DOI10.1016/J.EJC.2011.02.002zbMATH Open1228.52015arXiv0901.2589OpenAlexW2087834880MaRDI QIDQ641540FDOQ641540

Authors: John H. Elton, Theodore P. Hill 

Publication date: 24 October 2011

Published in: European Journal of Combinatorics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: The conclusion of the classical ham sandwich theorem of Banach and Steinhaus may be strengthened: there always exists a common bisecting hyperplane that touches each of the sets, that is, intersects the closure of each set. Hence, if the knife is smeared with mayonnaise, a cut can always be made so that it will not only simultaneously bisect each of the ingredients, but it will also spread mayonnaise on each. A discrete analog of this theorem says that n finite nonempty sets in n-dimensional Euclidean space can always be simultaneously bisected by a single hyperplane that contains at least one point in each set. More generally, for n compactly-supported positive finite Borel measures in Euclidean n-space, there is always a hyperplane that bisects each of the measures and intersects the support of each measure. For example, at any given instant of time, there is one planet, one moon and one asteroid in our solar system and a single plane touching all three that exactly bisects the total planetary mass, the total lunar mass, and the total asteroidal mass of the solar system.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/0901.2589

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zbMATH Keywords

ham sandwich theoremBorel measuresbisecting hyperplane

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Classes of sets (Borel fields, (sigma)-rings, etc.), measurable sets, Suslin sets, analytic sets (28A05) Discrete geometry (52C99)

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Cited In (8)

• Atomicity related to non-additive integrability
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• The set splittability problem
• Near equipartitions of colored point sets
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