The American Mathematical Monthly

ISSN: 0002-9890 (Print) 1930-0972 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/uamm20

Cubic Triangle Inequalities

K. B. Stolarsky

To cite this article: K. B. Stolarsky (1971) Cubic Triangle Inequalities, The American Mathematical
Monthly, 78:8, 879-881, DOI: 10.1080/00029890.1971.11992888

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00029890.1971.11992888

Published online: 11 Apr 2018.

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1971] MATHEMATICAL NOTES 879

not open in C, or Nb = St b, in which case B is not open in C. Thus C is connected.

Conversely, suppose C is a nonempty connected subset of P. Choose aEC, let A
be the set of all elements of C which can be connected to a by an R-chain in C,
and let B =C-A. Then xEA implies Cr1NxCCr1St xCA so that A is open in
C, and similarly for B. Therefore, since C is connected, it follows that A= C.
This completes the proof.
Note that for a given (P; ~ ), not every topology satisfying (1) need be of the
type constructed in the proof; consider the rationals with the usual topology and
order, or the indiscrete space {a, b} with a <b.
Reference
1. Dan Marcus, Problem 5712, this MoNTHLY, 77 (1970) 85.

CUBIC TRIANGLE INEQUALITIES

K. B. STOLARSKY, 'Cniversity of Illinois, Urbana

In a recently published book, an attempt was made to list most of the in-
equalities concerning a, b, c, the lengths of the sides of a triangle (0. Bottema,
R. Z. Djordjevic, R. R. Janic, D. S. l\Iitrinovic, and P. l\'1. Vasic, Geometric In-
equalities, Wolters-Koordhoff Publishing, Groningen 1969, pp. 11-17). Of the 24
listed, 13 (1.1-1.8, 1.15-1.17, 1.19, 1.23) involved symmetric forms of degree
n ~ 3. Each of these is a special case of the result of this paper. However, in-
equalities of degree 4, such as
(1)

seem harder to classify. It is curious that (1) is not listed in the book, although it
is a simple consequence of the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality, and the identity
(2) c' + (a 2 - b2) 2 + (a 2 - (b- c) 2)((b + c) 2 - a 2) = 2c 2 (a 2 + b2).

THEOREM. Let P(x 1, x 2 , x 3) be a real symmetric form of degree n ~ 3. If P(1, 1,

1), P(1, 1, 0), and P(2, 1, 1) are all nonnegative, then P(a, b, c)'?; 0. If P(1, 1, 1) = 0
and P(1, 1, 0)>0, equality holds if and only if a=b=c. However, a real sym-
metricform of degree 4 can be positive at (1, 1, 1), (1, 1, 0), (2, 1, 1), and (4, 3, 2)
while negative at ( 1, 1, ! ).
Proof. It suffices to prove the first two statements for n = 3, since they are
much easier when n = 1, 2. Since Pis symmetric,
(3) P(a, b, c) = A(a 3 + b3 + c3) + B(a 2b + b2c + c2a + ab 2 + bc 2 +ca 2) + Cabc.

Define c1 =2A+2B=P(1, 1, 0), c2 =3A+5B+C, ca=~c1+c2, C&=3A+6B

+C=P(1, 1, 1), c4 = -~c 1 -c2 +4c6 , and c6 =2c&. By hypothesis, Ct'?;O, c1+c2
= 2P(2, 1, 1) '?;0, and c6 '?;0. Hence c3 '?;0 and 2ca+c4 =ca+4c&'?;0. Kow we can
assume without loss of generality that a'?; b, and a'?; c. Thus a, b, c will vary over
the side lengths of all triangles when a =x+y+z, b =x+y, c =y+z, and x, y, z
 880 K. B. STOLARSKY [October

vary over all nonnegative real numbers; a =b =c if and only if x =z =0. The
first two statements now follow from the identity
P(a, b, c) = [c 1(x + z)(x- z) 2 + (c + c )(x z + xz
1 2
2 2
)]
(4)
+ [c (x-
3 z) 2
+ (2c + C4)xz]y +
8 [c;;(x + z) ]y + c y
2
6
3
•

Next, define a symmetric form of degree 4 by

(5)
P(a, b, c) = A (a4 + b + c4) + B(a b + b c + c a + ab + bc + ca
4 3 3 3 3 3 3
)

+ C(a b + b c + c a + D(a bc + ab c + abc

2 2 2 2 2 2
)
2 2 2
),

where A=103/34, B=-4, C=2, D=3. Then P(1, 1, 1)=3/34, P(1, 1, 0)

=1/17, P(2, 1, 1)=275/34, and P(4, 3, 2)=1815/34, but P(1, 1, !)=-1/
(16)(34).
Roughly, the theorem asserts that the behavior of P is determined by its
behavior at the "most extreme" isosceles triangles.
Problems involving cubic triangle inequalities arise when one tries to improve
the case n = 4 of the following theorem, which for n = 3 is almost the triangle
I
inequality. Let p;p;l denote the distance between the points p; and P; of a
metric space S. Let IT=IT
(p1, • • • , p,.) denote the product of all (~) distances
determined by PI, · · · , p,.. Let
1
fl; =fl;
(p1, · · · , p,.) denote the product of the
("; ) distances determined by all p; except p;.

THEOREM. If n ~3 and c(n) = 2-n+I, then 2:;,..; IT; ~c(n) fl;.

Proof. Without loss of generality, assume all p; are distinct, is maximal fl;
among the rrj'and fl;=fl,.=II
(p1, ... ' Pn-1). Choose no~n-1 so that
IPnPnel = min::11 IPnPil· Then
n-1
II = II II I PnPi I / I PnoPi I'
n0 i i-1

and

I PnoPi I ~ I p,.oPn I + I p,.p; I ~ 21 p,.p; I •

I conjecture that the above is true with c(n) =(n-1)2-"+2. For n=3 this is
simply the triangle inequality. To prove it for n =4, set
a= I P2Pal , b = I P1Pal , c= I P1P2I ,
a' = I P1P4I , b' = I P2P4I , and c' = I PaP41 ;
the assertion becomes
b'c' c'a' a'b' 3
-+-+-~-·
be ea ab 4

Clearly b'+c'~a, c'+a'~b, and a'+b'~c. Without loss of generality, we may

1971] MATHEMATICAL NOTES 881

assume b'+c'=a and c'+a'=b (first shrink a', b', c' simultaneously, then
shrink only a'). Thus we must show that
Q(c') = c' 2 (c - a - b) + c'(a + b
2 2
- (a+ b)c) +l abc ~ 0.

Since a+b~c, we have c'~!(a+b-c), so it suffices to show that !Ca+b-c) is

at most the largest root of Q(c'). A simple calculation reduces this to showing
that
abc ~ (c - a+ b)(c + a- b)(a +b- c),
which follows from our first theorem.
In the case that S is a Euclidean space, the author has some evidence that
the above theorem is true with
c(n) = (n- 1)2-(n-2)/2(1 + 1/(n _ 2))-Cn-2)/2.

THE SMALLEST SPHERE CONTAINING A RECTIFIABLE CURVE

]. C. C. NITSCHE, University of Minnesota

THEOREM. Each continuous closed curve of length L in Euclidean 3-space is

contained in a (closed) ball of radius R ~L/4. Equality holds only for a "needle",
i.e., a segment of length L/2 gone through twice, in opposite directions.
The estimate R ~L/2 is obvious. While the theorem appears intuitively
clear, the author has not seen it stated in the literature. A simple proof follows:
Proof. Consider a closed curve e of length L. Let B Le a closed ball of smallest
radius containing e. Choose the coordinate system so that B is defined by the
I
inequality ~I = (x 2 +y 2 +z 2)1 ~R. The set of points of e on the boundary aB-
call this set e 0-must "support" B, i.e., each closed half space n·~~O (a a con-
stant unit vector) must contain at least one such point. Otherwise B could not
have been a ball of smallest radius containing e.
If two points of eo are diametrical on CJB then their distanced cannot exceed
the value L/2 so that R=d/2 ~L/4. Of course, if R=L/4, i.e., if d=L/2, then e
must be a needle.
Assume now that there is no pair of diametrical points in eo. In this case eo
contains at least three points. If ~1 is one of these points, a second point ~2 must
lie in the half space ~·~ 1 ~0. Choose a coordinate system in which these points
are ~1= {R sina, 0, R cosa} and ~ 2 = { -R sina, 0, R cosa}, where 11'/4~a<11'/2.
Still another point ~3 = {R coso coS!j>, R coso sincp, -R sino} of eo must lie in the
half spacez~O, so that 0~0~11'/2 and 0 ~4>~211'. Obviously

L ~ I ~1 - l2l + ll2 - la I+I la - h I

~ v2 R{ v2 sin a+ (1 + cos a sin a- sin a cos a cos q,) 1 ' 2
+ (1 +cos a sin a+ sin a cos a cos q,) 1 ' 2 }.