Can all polygons outside of the largest inscribed rectangle in a convex polygon be concave

Urijah Estes

Urijah Estes

Answered question

2022-07-21

Can all polygons outside of the largest inscribed rectangle in a convex polygon be concave
Let C be a convex polygon and R the largest (by area) rectangle lying within C. Does there exist a convex polygon C such that when R is removed, all remaining polygons are concave? In other words: Does there exist a polygon C such that all parts of C∖R are concave?

Answer & Explanation

Izabelle Frost

Izabelle Frost

Beginner2022-07-22Added 13 answers

Explanation:
C is the hexagon with vertices ( 0 , ± 1 ), ( ± ( 1 + ϵ ) , ± ϵ ) , where ϵ 1. I conjecture that the largest rectangle inscribed in C is the square with vertices ( ± 1 , 0 ), ( 0 , ± 1 ).
glyperezrl

glyperezrl

Beginner2022-07-23Added 5 answers

Step 1
Suppose there is such a shape C.
Consider the largest rectangle R in C. If 2 consecutive vertices of R touch C, then the part that is cut out will be convex. Hence, in order to fulfill your conditions, at least 1 of any 2 adjacent vertices must not lie on the boundary of C. This implies that 2 opposite vertices of R do not lie on the boundary of C.
If 4 vertices of R do not lie on the boundary of C, it is easy to see that a small expansion will result in a larger R′, contradicting the maximality of R.
If 3 vertices of R do not lie on the boundary of C, notice that due to convexity of C, the boundary of C can only touch the perimeter of R at that one vertex. Then, once again, a small expansion from that vertex will result in a larger R′, contradicting the maximality of R.
Hence, we must have 2 opposite vertices of R (labelled a,c) which do not lie no the boundary of C, and the other 2 (labeled b,d) will lie on the boundary of C.
Step 2
If the boundary of C touches ba or da at a point that is not b or d, then the convexity of C implies that the boundary of C touches a, which is a contradiction. As such, the boundary of C only touches R at the points b and d.
Let O be the center of R (intersection of diagonals). Consider the circle with center O and diameter bd. If ac is not the perpendicular (diameter) to bd, then by rotating points a,c with respect to O, we can find a rectangle bedf inscribed in O with a larger area.
This leaves us with abcd being a square. WLOG, let's use a coordinate system with O = ( 0 , 0 ) , b = ( 1 , 0 ) , a = ( 0 , 1 ) , d = ( 1 , 0 ) , c = ( 0 , 1 )
Step 3
Since a and c do not touch the boundary of C, let 2 ϵ be the minimum of the distance between either of points a or c with the boundary of C. Furthermore, set ϵ < 0.1. Let a = ( 0 , 1 + ϵ ), c = ( 0 , 1 ϵ ), neither of which points touch the boundary of C. By the convexity of C, the quadrilateral a′bc′d only touches C at b and d.
I feel that we should be able to find a rectangle of area > 2 here, but am unable to do so easily.

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