Carathéodory's convexity theorem #
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Convex hull can be regarded as a refinement of affine span. Both are closure operators but whereas convex hull takes values in the lattice of convex subsets, affine span takes values in the much coarser sublattice of affine subspaces.
The cost of this refinement is that one no longer has bases. However Carathéodory's convexity
theorem offers some compensation. Given a set s
together with a point x
in its convex hull,
Carathéodory says that one may find an affine-independent family of elements s
whose convex hull
contains x
. Thus the difference from the case of affine span is that the affine-independent family
depends on x
.
In particular, in finite dimensions Carathéodory's theorem implies that the convex hull of a set s
in 𝕜ᵈ
is the union of the convex hulls of the (d + 1)
-tuples in s
.
Main results #
convex_hull_eq_union
: Carathéodory's convexity theorem
Implementation details #
This theorem was formalized as part of the Sphere Eversion project.
Tags #
convex hull, caratheodory
If x
is in the convex hull of some finset t
whose elements are not affine-independent,
then it is in the convex hull of a strict subset of t
.
Given a point x
in the convex hull of a set s
, this is a finite subset of s
of minimum
cardinality, whose convex hull contains x
.
Equations
- caratheodory.min_card_finset_of_mem_convex_hull hx = function.argmin_on finset.card nat.lt_wf {t : finset E | ↑t ⊆ s ∧ x ∈ ⇑(convex_hull 𝕜) ↑t} _
Carathéodory's convexity theorem
A more explicit version of convex_hull_eq_union
.